|
Type: American Eclectic
Hours: Mon.-Thurs. 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m.-10 p.m. (brunch served until 2:30 p.m.).
No reservations except Mon.-Fri. 11:30-11:45 a.m. and 3-5:00 p.m.; Saturday 11:30-11:45 a.m.; Sunday 10-10:45 a.m.
Credit cards: All major credit cards.
Access: Fully accessible.
Other establishments listed in this review:
STEPHANIE'S ON NEWBURY
190 Newbury Street, Boston
(617) 236-0990
Type: American Eclectic
Hours: Breakfast Mon.-Fri. 7-10:30 a.m. Lunch, light fare, and dinner Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-midnight Sunday brunch 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Reservations for dinner accepted; reservations for lunch accepted for parties of six or more.
Credit cards: All major credit cards.
Access: Fully accessible.
|
THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY
300 Boylston Street
The Atrium, (Route 9 Eastbound), Chestnut Hill
(617) 964-3001
Restaurant reviewed 02/11/99 by Sheryl Julian
When two of America's most popular activities - shopping and eating - converge, the customer can be in for a treat. This is how life used to be inside grand department stores, where a large restaurant usually occupied the top floor. You plopped into a chair with your bundles at your feet. The menu was limited, but fashionable: a thick wedge of iceberg lettuce with a drape of Russian dressing followed by little tea sandwiches. It was pretty near perfect.
Today, the stakes are higher, and so are the menus. Retailers will do anything to lure shoppers, and with the economy in good shape, they're flocking to the stores. Restaurants can hardly keep up.
That's sort of how The Cheesecake Factory works. This location branch of one of America's highest grossing chains is situated inside The Atrium mall, where money doesn't seem to be a problem for anybody. The Cheesecake Factory draws diners in droves. The wait is always long, but you can continue shopping, carrying a restaurant beeper, until your name comes up. On a horribly rainy night recently, ours came up quickly.
The Cheesecake Factory sits squarely at the crossroads where New Money meets Pompeii. It's a study in excess. Overdone decor includes an "ancient" urn near our table that is as tall as the ceiling. Woods are dark, as is the lighting, and the walls are all painted faux-something.
The 20-page spiral bound menu book has ads for laser hair removal, laser tooth whitening, fitness equipment, a day spa, a Cadillac SUV, Oriental rugs, and Swiss watches. The food was generally unremarkable, presented in portions so large it's positively embarrassing.
Yet there are good things. "Roadside sliders," teeny grilled hamburgers on teeny buns with grilled onions, were adorable. Vietnamese shrimp rolls, soft rice paper wrapped with asparagus, shiitakes, rice noodles, and shrimp, were suitably crunchy and nice with their soy dipping sauce. The sleeper turned out to be shepherd's pie, made with moist, well-seasoned ground beef, mushrooms, and carrots covered with crusty mashed potatoes. The dish could have served a family of four.
Cheese and green chili quesadilla was skimpy and had no taste of either cheese or chili. Fried avocado eggrolls were too thick and only marginally improved by their sweet tamarind sauce.
A lackluster crust on the grilled vegetable pizza - it was both hard and doughy - was only part of the problem. Even without the crust, the zucchini, eggplant, and broccoli didn't have much taste.
Herb roasted chicken was overcooked, though the mashed potatoes under it were chunky and well seasoned. Grilled pork chops had no caramelized edges and the tower of potatoes under them was so high it was silly.
Then a Greek salad arrived with a beautiful scalloped edge of crunchy, paper-thin fresh beets, which had a crisp vegetable-chip quality.
Black-out cake, with chips and almonds, billed as the "deepest, darkest, richest, moist fudgy chocolate cake" was hard and dry with a refrigerator taste and no discernible chocolate flavor. The original cheesecake, which began this nationwide venture, was a surprise, neither too rich nor too sweet.
Is this the way Americans like to eat?
Stephanie's on Newbury is a friendly, bustling place. I was expecting some whimsy from architect Peter Niemetz's recent renovation, instead of dark woods and a clubby look. The food shop near the entrance is gone, replaced by a bar whose tenders couldn't have been more cheerful.
Besides the bar, there are three places to sit: in the front room overlooking Newbury Street; at a table in the middle room, which has a serving station on one side; or in the upstairs dining room under a skylight.
Dinner in the middle room made me feel like I was dining in the pantry. Lunch in the sunlit upper room felt wonderful. In fact, this largely comfort-food menu is better overall at lunch.
An evening appetizer of smoked salmon and potato pancake was one of those vertical affairs, the salmon wound around greens and sitting like a fat column on its bed of crisp potato cake set on mashed potatoes. Too much mashed potato and not enough crisp. Duck spring rolls seemed odd on a bed of noodles, as if they couldn't stand on their own (they couldn't).
Duck in a currant glaze was more successful, as was a grilled double pork chop set on its side (another column), but neither was memorable. Stephanie's "cookie jar" - you get your own jar -came filled with buttery, nutty, crunchy cookies, each one a gem. A very moist pound cake with tart lemon curd sauce was just as good.
Lunch here soars. The BLT on toasted brioche, all that smoky bacon on eggy bread, was perfect. So was a tuna melt on the same beautiful toast, with avocado tucked inside. Grilled tenderloin salad arrived on luscious greens dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette, thick bands of grilled onions beside the rare beef.
Before she opened Stephanie's, Stephanie Sidell was a caterer and her style was unbeatable. She also ran the dining room at US Trust, one of the best secret restaurants in town (you had to be doing major business to get invited there). Once the staff settles into this renovation, Sidell will work out the dinner glitches and show off her real strength. She really knows what people want to eat.
Tips & hits
