My party of 2 spent over $87 at The Cheesecake Factory. Next time, I'll just return for dessert.

• I ate at The Cheesecake Factory location at Dulles Town Center in Sterling, Virginia.
• My party of two spent $86.95 on an appetizer, entrees, and slice of cheesecake before tax and tip.
• The only item I'd return for is a slice of the Toasted Marshmallow S'mores Galore.

Founded as a restaurant in the 1970s, The Cheesecake Factory has been a mall-culture staple for decades.

The suspiciously short wait you'll find at many chain restaurants isn't typically a part of The Cheesecake Factory experience. It may be, in part, because everything on the oversized menu, from sauces to steaks, is cooked on the spot. According to a 2022 Vox story by senior correspondent Alex Abad-Santos, the only dishes not made in-house at each location are the desserts, which are shipped from a commissary bakery. 

Attacking that menu is a staggering feat, one to which the line cooks at any particular location may or may not rise, though, I was prepared to put the chain to the test.

I've been a restaurant critic for over 15 years and I recently visited The Cheesecake Factory for my third time ever and my first time in almost a decade.

The atmosphere is unusual, but the mammoth menu is the star

I entered the lofty-ceilinged restaurant unclouded by the haze of early memories. The fact that my first Cheesecake Factory experience was in my late 20s meant that I had none of the expectations that a longtime regular might have had, but also none of the nostalgia.

That said, there's no way not to be awed by the audaciously weird atmosphere of the restaurant. A Monet-esque mural covers one wall. Matching arched panels draw the eye to the ceiling. Depending on your aesthetic, the art-deco faces on the vaguely Egyptian-themed columns might be the stuff of dreams or nightmares. 

But the grandest element of this plastic pleasure dome is unquestionably the thick, ring-bound menu. With more than 200 items, there is no good way to give The Cheesecake Factory a fair review. That would cost thousands of dollars and require almost as many hours of visits. This is just a summary of a single meal.

Free bread is an increasingly rare asset

The Cheesecake Factory wins points with me for having a complimentary bread service. In recent years, I've seen this fine-dining staple transform into an appetizer that can retail for well north of $10.

If some '90s relics like spinach-and-cheese dip make The Cheesecake Factory feel a bit behind the times, I will happily take my free bread: slices of a sweet, oat-topped brown baguette and a disarmingly fragrant sourdough.

It's served warm enough to melt the chilled square of butter that accompanies it.

In order to maximize the range of what I tasted, I ordered the $16.50 egg-roll sampler

When the square, charger-sized plate arrived, my dining companion commented, "This is what's wrong with America." At 1,340 calories for four egg rolls, I can see his reasoning. I prefer to think that this kind of plenty, applied judiciously, is what is right about our country.

I've always been a fan of what I call "ironic food." The Cheesecake Factory excels in this category with dishes like chicken Parmesan "Pizza-Style," a plate-filling chicken patty that indeed looks like a pizza, crowned with a nest of angel-hair pasta in Alfredo sauce.

I didn't try that dish this time, but I did fall under the spell of cheeseburger spring rolls. They are exactly what they sound like — appealingly fatty ground beef and American cheese in a crunchy wrapper — and I found myself wishing that I had more.

Instead, the platter's other offerings vary in quality. I liked the cumin-redolent flavor and hot burst of the avocado egg rolls. But I was less fond of the comparatively wan Tex Mex egg rolls and flabby chicken taquitos.

Nonetheless, it was fun dipping the egg rolls in a quartet of sauces, the highlight of which was a smooth avocado salsa.

Entrées were the hardest to choose

My dining companion had raved in advance about The Cheesecake Factory's fettuccine Alfredo, so that was an obvious must-order. But I counted more than 60 main dishes. How was I to choose just one?

As I often do, I realized that Stephen Sondheim was right — the decision was "not to decide." I set my sights on the Factory Combinations and ordered the Steak Diane and herb-crusted salmon.

I prefer a traditional Alfredo sauce made with just butter and cheese. What is served at The Cheesecake Factory is heavily reliant on cream, which robs the dish of the salty, nutty Parmesan flavor that should define it. But I can live with a creamy Alfredo. What I can't accept is overcooked noodles.

The fettuccine I tried was a few minutes past al dente. Since the portion provided two days of leftovers, the remnants were even soggier and less palatable.

I chose the combination plate because I wanted to see even more examples of The Cheesecake Factory's sauces.

The Steak Diane was a less than prepossessing pile of four skinny medallions, cooked just below my requested medium-rare. The "rich mushroom wine sauce," was thin, as if it was missing an emulsifying ingredient or the cook neglected to spend time reducing it.

Across a channel of mashed potatoes, the chunk of salmon was crusted in dried herbs that betrayed surprisingly little flavor. It rested in a more robust-looking pool of "delicious lemon sauce," which had little citrusy zip.

My favorite part of the plate was three grill-charred spears of asparagus.

Cheesecake is in the restaurant's name for a reason

I initially toyed with just ordering whichever cheesecake had the most calories, but I can't resist a s'mores dessert. I settled on the 1,550-calorie Toasted Marshmallow S'mores Galore. 

I typically consign the love of cheesecake to "The Golden Girls." I don't appreciate the cream-cheese tang and often find the texture to be on the edge of chalky. But the cheesecake I enjoyed at The Cheesecake Factory suffered from neither. 

The creamy specimen centered around a Hershey's chocolate cheesecake, surrounded on all sides by intensely chocolaty ganache. The bottom was made with crumbled graham crackers.

Buried in a layer of bruléed marshmallow spread, the dessert was an assault on the brain's pleasure centers, hitting high notes of varied texture, flavor, and over-the-top visual appeal.

Though I didn't leave The Cheesecake Factory a new devotee of the chain, I wouldn't be surprised if I found myself drawn back for another slice of s'mores cheesecake.