The Cheesecake Factory (the real restaurant - not the alternate reality one that apparently exists on "The Big Bang Theory")

The Cheesecake Factory is a chain of restaurants that has good food in addition to really good desserts, as one might expect given the name. It's not a place I went to often, but with a new location that opened up in the last year much closer to where I live, I've had an opportunity to visit more than the once-in-five-years or so that I had been visiting previously.

Most of my memory stems from a visit I made multiple years ago with a friend. We ended up at the Marina Del Rey location. We had arrived at about 3pm, and because it was between their lunch and dinner crowds, we had no problems with parking or getting a great table with a fantastic view of the marina. (By the time we left, the dinner rush was in full swing, with plenty of cars waiting for the valets.) We started with their nachos, but we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. The appetizer nachos were a *huge* portion, piled high to boot. It would have been plenty to serve 4 or even 6 people. By the time we were done, we ended up eating not very much of our entrees because we wanted to save room for dessert. I've not ever ordered the nachos again, so I don't know if the appetizer is still huge. Even though I didn't have very much of my entree, the jambalaya, I remember how much I liked it. I haven't had that in some time either, so I'm hoping to return for dinner sometime to try that again.

The husband and I had lunch there today, and the jambalaya seemed too heavy for lunch. I remembered that on my last visit, a friend had ordered the Luau Salad, and it had looked really good, and she had seemed to really like it. The salad is described as "Fresh Slices of Grilled Chicken Breast Layered with Mixed Greens, Cucumbers, Green Onions, Red and Yellow Peppers, Green Beans, Mango and Crisp Wontons with Macadamia Nuts and Sesame Seeds, Tossed in Our Vinaigrette", which did sound good, so I ordered the lunch-sized portion of that. The husband really likes the Miso Salmon, described as "Fresh Salmon Marinated in Miso and Baked, Served with a Delicious Miso Sauce, Snow Peas and White Rice", so he ordered the lunch-sized portion of that. We also ordered the Chicken Pot Stickers ("Oriental Dumplings Pan-Fried in the Classic Tradition, Served with Our Soy Dipping Sauce") to start.

The pot stickers were very tasty, and I really enjoyed the dipping sauce that came with it. The husband liked the sauce as well, though he could have done without the cilantro that was scattered in it. The husband enjoyed his entree, and I had a taste of the salmon, which was very good and had a nice crispiness to it. I really enjoyed my salad. The mixture of ingredients was all things that I liked, and the layers with the crisp wontons made it almost like a huge nacho-like salad. The crisp wontons weren't the slivers that you normally get in other dishes. They were very large fried triangles, so I would eat one filled layer at a time. Definitely something I'd recommend if you want something a little lighter.

The Cheesecake Factory offers a fairly extensive menu, including pizza, burgers, Shepherd's Pie (which I'd like to try), Hungarian Beef Ghoulash (which I'd also like to try), pastas, fish and seafood, steaks and chops, salads, sandwiches, hispanic and asian-themed dishes as well as breakfast and Sunday brunch selections. And of course, they also offer a variety of desserts, including a large selection of different cheesecakes.

We weren't interested in having dessert after lunch, but we did decide to get some to go to have later. I opted for Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple ("Creamy Cheesecake Swirled with Caramel, Peanut Butter, Butterfingers® and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups®") and the husband chose the Lemoncello Cream Torte ("Layers of Vanilla Cake and Lemon Mascarpone Cream Topped with Streusel and Served with Strawberries and Whipped Cream"). They're both sitting in our refrigerator at the moment.

I like the atmosphere of the restaurant - the servers are very good and very attentive, but it's not stuffy or austere in the restaurant. It's very open and family-friendly. Because we were there for Sunday lunch, we opted to sit at one of the tall tables in the bar area, where we had a good view of the television sets with the Sunday NFL games. Definitely a restaurant that I recommend.

Here's the official website of The Cheesecake Factory.