Went to Yorkdale with my friends Viv and Amanda this afternoon to finally check out The Cheesecake Factory here. I've been to The Cheesecake Factory in Buffalo many times before and have always enjoyed it, but when they finally brought the franchise to Canada (there's only one location here so far), I kinda avoided it due to the hype. (My friend Maegan went on a Friday night for dinner about a month ago and waited four hours for a table — honestly, she could have driven to the location in Buffalo, eaten there, and driven back in the same amount of time.) We got there around 1:30pm and there was still a half hour wait, so if you want to check it out, I suggest going after the lunch rush or just before the dinner rush.
After much debate, I finally decided on the Chicken & Biscuits, which I'd never had before, and it was fantastic. The gravy is what really makes the dish memorable here; it's flavourful with a good consistency, not so thick that it feels heavy but not so thin that it doesn't feel substantial. The chicken was soft and tender, to the point where I could cut it with my fork, and there was a good amount of veggies, too, so it didn't seem as unhealthy as it probably is. I do think the biscuits could've be more flaky and buttery, but it's otherwise a really good, solid, comfort food dish. Highly recommend. And, of course, we couldn't leave without having cheesecake — it's The Cheesecake Factory, after all. We decided to share one cake among the three of us because we were already really full (if you've ever been to TCF, you'll know that their portions are gigantic), so we agreed on the Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch Cheesecake. It was glorious, of course, as most chocolate-hazelnut desserts are. It tasted like a Ferrero Rocher but in cake form. You can't really go wrong with it. Even for someone who doesn't really like chocolate can enjoy it because the hazelnut flavour is still very prominent. I also liked that it had the crunchy crust because it gives it some textural contrast so it doesn't feel as heavy.
Service was slow and inattentive, which is my only real complaint here. They know how busy they get, so they really should get an adamant amount of servers. The wait for food was above average (about 20 to 25 minutes) and the wait for our bill was even longer — we asked for the bill when we ordered our dessert and she even confirmed with us that we wanted to separate the bills, but she totally forgot about it, and when we finished our dessert, we couldn't find her for over 20 minutes, even after asking another server to get her for us. They've been open for a few months now, and they really need to get their shit together. So, conclusion, the food is amazing and consistent in quality as compared to the ones in the US, but the servers really need to be more organized. I'd say if the wait is longer than 45 minutes, skip it.
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