SkinnyLicious

Last night I took Carter out to dinner.  As we were driving to a place I thought would be an easy diet place Carter begged to change locations and go to the Cheesecake Factory. Before I said anything Carter said, “I understand if you don’t want to go there since they won’t have anything you can eat.”  Thinking it might not be too crowded on a Wednesday night and since it had been some time since we had been there I gave in.

I was right on the lack of crowd part so we were seated immediately.  I was not even going to open the giant book of a menu because I knew that I would get the luau salad without the wontons or nuts and the light soy dressing on the side.  Can you tell I’ve ordered that before?  As Carter was reading the manuscript of choices I noticed a small folder that was under my menu.  I pulled it out and thought I read the word “SkinnyLicious,” but was unsure until I got my reading glasses out.

Hooray!  A whole menu of choices of lighter fare at the Cheesecake factory!   When I say a whole menu I mean it.  There were 47 choices not including the skinny cocktails. I am not sure how skinny it is because the heading at the top of the salads sections said, “Each one under 590 calories.”  I thought that 590 calories is not usually a small amount for one meal, but in comparison to the regular Cheesecake Factory food it must be a huge reduction.

I ordered the Asian Chicken Salad asking for the dressing on the side, hoping I could reduce the calories that way.  Well, when this giant serving platter sized salad arrived I thought I had hit the jackpot.  I was able to get my dinner fill with only half the salad and brought the other half home for today!  So now that 590 calories turned into 295 and I was happy.

After dinner the waitress brought the dessert menu.  She had a new sales technique.  She told us that if we ordered from a certain list of cheesecakes  .25¢ of our bill would be given to Feeding America.  What a way to relieve guilt.  You eat dessert so others will be fed.  Twenty-five cents does not seem like a large enough donation to push many people over the edge to order dessert if they were not already going to do it.  If the Cheesecake Factory really wants to increase sales they should consider bumping up the donation to at least a dollar.

I do want to thank them for finally offering a number of choices that are a little healthier than their average fare.  I hope it is successful and other restaurants will follow suit.