The other day I went to The Cheesecake Factory for the first time. Personally, I’ve never had the urge to go because I hate cheese, so why would I go to a place that only sells cheesecake and cheese-containing food? While they do sell many cheesecakes, it turns out they offer tons of items.

The menu was multiple pages long and each page listed ten to twenty dishes. Their physical menu has little to no photos, so make sure to look at their online menu. Unfortunately, I did not know this and had to rely on the textual description. When I realized they sold more than just cheesecakes, I expected no more than spaghetti and hamburgers with slight variations to increase the menu count. Again, I was shocked to see chicken shawarma, ceviche, bang bang chicken, among others.

After many a minute of deliberation, I ended up choosing the orange chicken. It was pretty lit, easily the best orange chicken I’ve had. Panda Express could learn a thing or two. It wasn’t too sweet, or too strong; the chicken was tender and didn’t have any weird or chewy parts; there were actual strips of orange peel sprinkled on top! Were I to return to this establishment, I would definitely order this dish again (right after browsing the menu for ten minutes). Orange chicken

Next, it was time for dessert. I’m a fan of strawberry shortcake and given that it was one of the few dessert items without cheese, it was a simple choice. The orange chicken had left me full af, so I ordered to go. The waiter asked if I was sure I wanted it to go, since it had ice cream. He went on to add it wasn’t really a cake and more of a biscuit, but it was too late: my mind had already locked in. “Strawberry shortcake? With ice cream? A bit unusual but not unwelcome,” I thought. I got ice cream, strawberries, whip cream and biscuits. In retrospect, it is mostly my fault for not listening closely or at least googling what I was ordering. That being said, is it really that absurd to expect cake when it says cake in the name?

Strawberry shortfake

Turns out, there are different types of strawberry shortcake. This is what I, until now, identified as the archetypical “strawberry shortcake”:

Strawberry shortfake

According to Wikipedia, this is more of an Asian-style strawberry shortcake, composed of strawberries, cake and whip cream. The American-style one uses biscuits instead of cake. Its place of origin is the UK, so I wonder what they use there.

I guess we can define the Idea of a “strawberry shortcake” as a dessert containing:

  • Something that tastes like strawberries
  • Something bready
  • Something creamy