Place: The Cheesecake Factory
Item: Fried macaroni and cheese
Price: $8.50
To us Lunch Guys, the menu at the Cheesecake Factory is like our “War
and Peace,” a great, epic novel we’ll never finish. But among
all the pages and pages of sensational offerings, there are a few super-duper
sensations that you gotta try.
One such eat-it-to-believe-it selection is the Fried Macaroni and Cheese.
Off the appetizer menu but good for a lunch, it’s four hacky-sack-sized
bundles of mac-and-cheese that’s, yep, deep-fried. But are we Lunch
Guys man enough for this over-the-top concoction?
Chris: When I saw “Fried Macaroni and Cheese”
quietly pop up at the Cheesecake Factory earlier this year in one of the twice-a-year
menu additions, I figured I must be dead. Really, nowhere on this mortal coil
had I encountered such a divine lunch. I was now in heaven, and thankfully,
the Cheesecake Factory had a location here.
These mac-and-cheese spheres are truly beyond human explanation. I hadn’t
tasted anything as richly sinful since my first encounter with fried ice cream.
In fact, this dish is a lot like a savory sundae, complete with a creamy marinara
sauce drizzled over it and sprinkles of parmesan dusting the tops. The crunchy
coating ensures you have plenty of the best part of homemade mac-and-cheese:
the crispity bread-crumb topping. Break through the outer shell for the contrasting
smoothness of the ribbed, straight macaroni melding with a cheese sauce I
can only guess is one part parmesan, one part romano, one part cheddar and
20 parts heavy cream.
If Ben & Jerry’s made mac-and-cheese-flavored ice cream, this would be it. Yes, I did eat all four bundles, and yes, I could have died from all that decadence. No problem -- I’ll just order it again in heaven.
Tom: Chris, as great as these are, no one – not even
you -- should eat four. With the density of a wet ball of clay, it would only
take several hundred orders dropped from above to shore up the levees in New
Orleans. A half-order dropped into my stomach sufficed for lunch. But it’s
not the quantity that’s turned me into an addict who has found a new
high, it’s the taste.
Everything is better fried, but the real key to good fried food is first,
good food. This is not your typical blue-box mac and cheese. The “mac”
is a substantial noodle with a thick, creamy melted mélange of cheeses
so sophisticated it’s easy to imagine a well-heeled maitre d’
recommending a high-end wine pairing to complement it. I’ll never again
think of a cafeteria lady dumping heaping spoonfuls of gooey noodles with
a runny yellow sauce onto a departmentalized styrofoam box.
If there is any problem with this item, it’s finding it tucked away
on the appetizer menu along with my other favorites like Avocado Egg Rolls,
the Bruschetta, the Roadside Sliders and the Asian Lettuce Wraps. But if there’s
a better mac and cheese being made anywhere, I’ve never had it.
Chris: Me neither, and I’ve had some gourmet varieties.
The only issue I have with the mac-and-cheese spheres is that if you eat this
“appetizer,” and THEN have a meal -- let alone a meal of immense
Cheesecake Factory proportions -- your body will go into shock. And you still
won’t have gotten to the Godiva cheesecake. Shouldn’t there be
an FDA regulation?
Tom: A regulation, no. An award, yes. To take something so
American as macaroni and cheese and fry it--that is uber-American. This act
of patriotism so moved me I’m lobbying the government to present the
Cheesecake Factory with a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
