Restaurant Review: Cheddar's

Nearly every week for over 5 years, I've met my grandmother for lunch or dinner. It's the highlight of my week every time, because my grandma is AWESOME. She's in her mid-80's, volunteers regularly, lives by herself upstairs, does crossword puzzles like she's channeling Will Shortz, knits roughly 62.4x faster than I do, sponsors a child in a 3rd world country and writes him letters in Spanish, reads at least 1 book per week, goes visiting people younger than herself at the nursing homes to read to them, and still makes time for her youngest granddaughter every week. I could and should and probably someday will write a blog about what I've learned from my weekly lunches, but this particular blog was inspired by the meal I had at our most recent dinner.

Cheddar's is, by most people's standards, a very middle of the road, American eats establishment. Middle priced, general American-style menu, nestled right in there alongside Applebee's, Fridays, maybe a notch above Chili's (two notches lately, anyone else feel like Chili's has gone downhill lately? or have my standards just improved with adulthood? I digress). HOWEVER. As I have periodically patronized the Cheddar's in my area, their menu, food preparation standards, and staff have gotten better and better.

My favorite dish at Cheddar's is their Asian Salad. It sounds standard enough, most places have an Asian salad nowadays, but Cheddar's Asian Salad stands tall above the rest, and not just literally.

[Photo source: www.thedallassocials.com (via Google Image)]

Not only is this a low guilt meal, - - - - - No, I'm going to skip the cliche, commercial-sounding review of the obvious and just describe this dish. It has crunchy, crispy wontons layered between a cold, dark-leaf, crispy shredded lettuce salad, tossed with diced mango, cucumber, spicy relish, grated carrots, tomatoes and grilled chicken breast, dressed with an Asian vinaigrette with chopped cilantro, and lightly drizzled with a thicker, salty sauce. 

It's not just about what's in this salad, it's about how they work together. First, of course, there's the taste- most important, and then the texture. The sour, tangy dressing with the slightly spicy, bitter cilantro (but just the smallest sprinkle- I'm not a member of the cilantro-loving camp, but I really like Cheddar's' use of it here), the cool, quenching, crunchy cucumber (again, not usually a fan of cucumbers but I like them in this salad!) with the slightly sweet, super crunchy carrots, juicy fresh tomatoes and the soft, sweet, aromatic mango pieces- all of this finished with lovely surprise bursts of spiciness from the infrequent bits of relish smattered throughout. The grilled chicken is well-cooked, never dry, and sliced thinly, adding a touch of smokiness and a welcome soft, al dente bite you can only get from properly cooked meat. The method they use to slice the chicken and toss it in with the salad, rather than laying it on top, allows easy fork-fulls and perfect bite-ratios (when you have a little bit of everything on one fork for the best bite). The wontons work perfectly, with the touch of oil from frying mellowing out some of the acid from the dressing, and the unimposing, super crispy starch converting me from croutons forever. All of this finished with the lightest sprinkle of some kind of salty Asian sauce that puts it over the top. 

[Phone photo of my dinner more than half eaten, I dug in before I could stop and get a photo of it fresh]

All the best elements: Sour, Tangy, Crunchy, Acidic, Sweet, Cool, Quenching, Bitter, Juicy, Soft, Smokey, Spicy, Aromatic, Salty- and most of all, Satiating. I usually make two meals of it. 

The cherry on top is that the salad comes with a warm, honey-butter drizzled croissant, which in all my professional experience I am willing to bet is baked freshly in-house.

Anyway, Cheddar's always has excellent food, and while I could make this stupidly long, suffice it to say you'll get your money's worth on pretty much every menu item except the chips and queso- queso is a little too thick and bland, chips are stale about 40% of the time. Still worth checking it out for a date, whether with your significant other or your grandmother.

Best Meal Of Your Life (Part 2): Soup or Salad

Link to Part 1

Now, for the purposes of this metaphor, I've chosen to only compare this stage of a relationship to the Salad option for a second course. I do this purely for simplicity's sake, because I could make the exact same comparisons with slightly different adjective choices, and ultimately be unnecessarily redundant for the sake of beating a nice metaphor into the ground just to be more literally accurate, but it really doesn't appeal to me. So if anyone just likes soup better, they can give their imaginations a much needed stretch, or request my alternative adjectives in the comments and I will oblige. Onward!

Salad

The salad course is VITAL to a perfect meal. Whether it's a medley of seasonal fruits with a light, citrus and yogurt vinaigrette, arugula and spinach greens with dried cranberries, walnuts, a robust, crumbly cheese and a sweet dressing, or cold, crisp romaines with garlic croutons and a creamy Parmesan dressing... (uhh, whew, sorry, got myself a little hungry there- I'll just get myself something to eat so I can remember the point I was making)... Ahh, right- salad- anyway, regardless of what kind it is, every salad has essential characteristics which only that course can contribute to a meal. When you think of a great salad, it invokes words like light, simple, crisp, fresh, not-too-heavy, flavorful, tangy, zippy, refreshing, and guilt-free. 
These words should apply to the second stage of a budding, quality relationship. Salad is the actual going on dates part of dating- and it is vitally important and grossly underrated (perhaps I'm enjoying the italics button too much, but the emphasis is sincere!). If you can't actually spend a whole afternoon with each other without being deep and heavy, and enjoy each other, you'll eventually burn out on the relationship like when you eat way too much rich food and have no desire to order dessert. The salad has the perfect timing in the meal, between the first tastes of hearty goodness and the heavier, meat-and-potatoes focal point. If you go straight from eating buffalo wings to plowing into your steak, you're going to fill up and quit before you finish your meal. Backing off my brilliant metaphor for a moment, this stage in the relationship really will contribute to its success or eventual breakdown. Whether it's early in your time together, or much later on down the line, there will come a point when all the heavy dramas that brought you together and kept you together, or even just the intense, deep emotions that you had from the very beginning start to subside, and you look up at each other and wonder "was that all we had? Can we be anything without drama and intensity?" So often the answer to this question is no. That is (in my humble opinion) usually a direct result of rushing through or skipping the salad altogether. When we have taken the time early on in the relationship to enjoy each other, laugh with each other, play and be light, simple, refreshing for each other, when the heavy times eventually settle down or subside, we can look at each other and say, "now that we know each other, let's think back and remember how fun we can be together, and how excited we can be about each other." It initiates a really healthy cycle of light, zippy enjoyment of each other and deep, hearty support and understanding- a well balanced relationship. BUT don't jump too far ahead! There are 3 more courses to come, and that super important, extra special, most-essential element that I KNOW you haven't forgotten because the suspense is KILLING you! In the meantime, if you're in a relationship, reflect on when you had your salad- and whether it's coming time to enjoy it again.

Link to Part 3