The complete Cheesecake Factory menu with prices

Four to six slices, and for a mousse cake that's the size I'd buy. Mousse is cream with air whipped into it, and the air starts escaping after about 24 hours in the fridge. The layer sinks. It goes dense and heavy, and the texture you paid for is gone by day two, which is why a small cake eaten in one sitting beats a large one eaten over a week. 1,220 calories a slice, 94 grams of fat, and gluten, wheat, milk, egg and soy listed. Don't freeze it.

Four to six slices, and this is the one size in the range I'd tell you not to freeze. Frozen strawberries collapse when they thaw, the glaze turns cloudy, and you're left with a wet pink layer on a cheesecake that was fine before it went in. Buy it for two or three people and finish it within 48 hours. On a cake this small the whole berries cover almost the entire top, which makes it the best-looking of the strawberry sizes. 1,000 calories a slice. Gluten, wheat, milk, egg, soy.

Four to six slices. This is the one that makes sense for two people, and it's the only cake size here that doesn't commit you to eating cheesecake for a week. It's also the best of them to freeze. Plain cheesecake takes freezing better than anything topped or layered — no fruit to go watery, no mousse to separate. Portion it first, wrap each slice, then thaw one in the fridge for three or four hours when you want it. 830 calories a slice, gluten, wheat, milk, egg and soy on the list.

Four to six slices. Small enough for a household of two to finish before it gets tired, and the raspberry swirl through the filling means you can freeze whatever's left without wrecking it. 1,220 calories a slice, 89 grams of fat, chocolate cookie crust.

No 6-inch or 7-inch cake has more protein than its 18 grams a slice. Second-saltiest in that range, too: 750 mg, behind only the Oreo Dream Extreme. That salt keeps 94 grams of sugar from tasting like 94 grams. $40.95 to $43.95. Freeze any leftovers in single slices. The candy pieces soften a little when they thaw.

Six to eight slices, which is a family birthday rather than a party. The 10-inch is a lot of sprinkles to still be eating on Thursday. Same layered build: confetti sponge, pink and blue mousse bands, white frosting, 1,380 calories a slice. Buy it the day of. This isn't a cake that improves overnight — the mousse layers are the reason it looks good, and they start settling within about twenty-four hours.

Six to eight slices at 1,220 calories each. This is the size to buy if chocolate cake is the point of the evening but you're not feeding twelve people. Dense chocolate cheesecake under aerated mousse, 94 grams of fat a slice, 480 mg of sodium. Buy it the day you're serving it. The mousse is the reason — a plain cheesecake improves after a night in the fridge, but a mousse layer starts giving up its air within about 24 hours, and the texture that justifies the cake goes with it.

Six to eight slices. At 110 grams of fat each, only the Red Velvet has more among the 6-inch and 7-inch cakes. Dulce de leche is milk and sugar cooked slowly for hours until it thickens and browns, which makes it softer and more dairy-forward than caramel made from sugar alone. The caramel mousse on top settles within a day or two. So does the brickle's crunch. Buy it the day before, not earlier. Tree nuts are in the brickle.

For a cake that won't keep, smaller is smarter: $40.95 to $43.95, against $65.95 to $72.95 for the 10-inch. The fresh banana on top starts browning within hours of being cut. A cake that gets finished at one dinner beats a bigger one you're still working through on day three. 1,250 calories a slice. Classic Bavarian cream is custard set with gelatin and folded with whipped cream, which is why the top of this cake eats closer to banana cream pie than to cheesecake.

Six to eight slices. The strawberry cake sized for a family dinner rather than a party. Don't buy it to keep. A plain cheesecake will sit in the fridge for 5 days without complaint, but the glazed berries on this one go soft and watery within 2, and once juice has run into the filling there's no reversing it. 1,000 calories and 550 mg of sodium a slice.

Six to eight slices of the only cheesecake here made without flour. The base is flourless chocolate cake, so gluten and wheat are absent from the recipe, which makes this the size to buy for a small dinner with one guest who can't eat either. It's very rich. 1,400 calories and 105 grams of fat a slice, and dark enough that people tend to want smaller portions than they think — a 7-inch will stretch further than the serving count suggests. Milk, egg and soy are listed.

Of the 6-inch and 7-inch cakes, only the Fresh Strawberry and the Original are lighter, at 1,000 and 830 calories a slice against this cake's 1,040. Bring it after a rich main course. Lemon cuts richness. Chocolate adds to it. Sodium is 420 mg, the second-lowest in the range after the Godiva. Raspberry ladyfingers soften as the days go by. Serve it within two days of buying.

Six to eight slices, the size that fits a household. It's built the same as the 10-inch: chocolate cookie crust, cookies through the cheesecake, mousse and crumb on top. 1,510 calories a slice. Freeze it in portions if you won't finish it in 3 days. Wrap each slice on its own and freeze them flat, then move one to the fridge 4 hours before you want it. A whole cake frozen as one block thaws unevenly. The outside mousse goes wet while the middle is still hard.

Six to eight slices of the plainest cheesecake they make, which is the size to buy for a family dinner rather than a party. 830 calories a slice, the lightest of the standard cheesecakes. Sodium's 510 mg. What makes the Original the right choice at this size is that it keeps. A 7-inch will sit covered in the fridge for the best part of a week without turning, and nothing on top of it can go wrong — no strawberries weeping, no whipped cream collapsing. Cut what you need and put the rest back.

Six to eight slices, no nuts, and a caramel mousse layer on top that wants to be eaten within a day or two of collection. The glaze and the brownie base hold up fine in the fridge. The mousse is the part that softens first, so if you're buying for a weekend, buy on Friday rather than Wednesday. 1,240 calories and 130 grams of carbohydrate a slice.

At 1,580 calories and 116 grams of fat a slice, this is the heaviest cake in the whole 6-inch and 7-inch range, heavier even than the Chocolate Mousse. Six to eight slices, for a family occasion that still wants a cake that looks like one. Red layers, white layers, white chocolate curls. I think it's the best-looking cake at this size. The curls are the weak point. They soften fast at room temperature, so take the cake out of the fridge only when you're ready to cut.

Six to eight slices. Unlike the Fresh Strawberry, this one freezes, because the raspberry is swirled through the filling rather than sitting on top as whole fruit that goes watery on thawing. Wrap the slices individually and freeze them flat. A slice thaws in the fridge in about 4 hours with the marbling intact. 1,220 calories and 550 mg of sodium each.

It's a free add-on in the ordering menu, priced at $0 and listed across 214 locations, and ticking it is how you make sure forks and napkins go in the bag. Leave it unticked if you're eating at home. It saves plastic.

The ahi tuna is raw. That's what the asterisk on the menu means, and it matters if anyone at the table is pregnant or has a weakened immune system. Poke is Hawaiian for cutting something into pieces, and here the cubed tuna goes over crisp fried wontons instead of rice. Avocado, green onion, chillies, sesame and a sriracha aioli finish it. 1,020 calories. That's 38% of the Factory Nachos, which makes this the nacho plate to pick if you want the idea without the 2,670-calorie commitment.

No gluten, wheat or milk is listed, only eggs, fish, shellfish and sesame. 1,090 mg of sodium is second-lowest among the 26 appetizers. Lime juice turns raw fish opaque by denaturing its proteins, which looks like cooking, but acid doesn't kill bacteria the way heat does, so the asterisk still applies to the sushi-grade ahi, tossed here with shrimp, green onion and cilantro. It's served on avocado with crispy corn tortillas. 570 calories. Peru marks National Ceviche Day every June 28.

More than 4,000 people a month search for these, and the thing to know before ordering isn't in the name. The dipping sauce is tamarind and cashew, so this vegetarian appetizer contains tree nuts. It's 930 calories. That's heavy for something that arrives as a starter, and it splits well between 2 people. Avocado, sun-dried tomato, red onion and cilantro go inside the fried wrapper. The avocado turns buttery as it heats. It also goes flat once it cools, so eat them when they land.

7,080 mg of sodium. That's the highest figure on this entire menu, roughly three days of salt in one appetizer and about 2,400 mg more than the Louisiana Chicken Pasta. I checked it twice because I assumed it was a data error. It isn't. Chicken, cheese and buffalo sauce are sealed in a pastry wrapper and fried. 1,670 calories, 78 grams of protein, and a fish allergen that almost nobody expects from a chicken appetizer. If you want buffalo flavour with less damage, Buffalo Wings give you 109 grams of protein for 5,020 mg, still enormous but 2,060 mg better.

It's the same idea as the Buffalo Wings with the bones taken out, and the batter changes everything on the nutrition sheet. The strips carry 87 grams of carbohydrate to the wings' 16, and 76 grams of protein to their 109. Sodium barely moves: 4,950 mg here, 5,020 there. That's seventh-highest on the whole menu. Battered, fried and tossed in hot sauce, with blue cheese dressing. Order them for a child who won't eat off the bone. For anyone else, the wings are the better plate.

No dish on the menu with this much protein, 109 grams, has fewer carbs than its 16 grams. The Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, is credited with the first batch in 1964: wings fried unbreaded, tossed in hot sauce, served with blue cheese and celery. That's still the plate here. No batter is why the carbs stay so low. Sodium is the price, 5,020 mg, second among appetizers only to the Buffalo Blasts. For a low-carb diner who isn't counting salt, it's the best order on the menu.

12 grams of fat, the least of all 26 appetizers. The salt runs the other way: 2,550 mg, fifth-highest in the section, in a starter of only 380 calories. Potstickers take their name from the Chinese guotie, literally "pot stick", because the dumplings are fried in a pan until their bases stick and brown, then steamed with a splash of water so the tops stay soft. Soy sauce is the likeliest source of that sodium, so dip lightly. No milk is listed. 27 grams of protein.

15 grams of carbohydrate, the fewest of all 26 appetizers, which suggests the kitchen isn't stretching the crab with much breadcrumb, the thing Chesapeake Bay cooks judge a crab cake on first. 530 calories and 42 grams of fat. Six allergens are listed: crustacean shellfish, fish, eggs, milk, gluten and wheat. $15.95. The SkinnyLicious Crispy Crab Bites are 120 calories lighter. Order these when you want one crab starter, not a platter.

Eight allergens are listed, gluten, milk, eggs, fish, tree nuts, wheat, soy and sesame, and no other appetizer on the menu lists as many. That's the cost of four rolls on one plate. Avocado Eggrolls, Tex Mex Eggrolls, Cheeseburger Spring Rolls and Chicken Taquitos each bring their own list, and the tamarind-cashew sauce that travels with the avocado rolls is the likeliest source of the tree nuts. 1,320 calories. One order of Avocado Eggrolls on its own is 930, so the sampler gives you variety in smaller portions rather than more food. For a group that can't agree, it's the order I'd make.

2,670 calories and 192 grams of fat. Both of those are the highest figures on the entire menu. Not the highest appetizer — the highest anything, including every pasta, every steak and every dessert. It's a mountain of tortilla chips under jack and cheddar, guacamole, sour cream, red chile sauce, salsa and pickled jalapeños. Built for a table. Four people splitting one plate come away at about 670 calories each, which is a reasonable starter. One person finishing it has eaten more than a full day's energy before a main course arrives. Gluten, wheat and milk are listed. 63 grams of protein, 2,680 mg of sodium.

Rhode Island made fried calamari its official state appetizer in 2014, and the state's own style tosses the squid with pickled hot peppers before it reaches the table. This one is fried light and crisp with garlic dip and cocktail sauce instead. 105 grams of fat is third among the 26 appetizers. 1,520 calories. Squid turns rubbery when it's cooked past a minute or two, so eat it the moment it lands. Four people, one plate.

1,310 calories puts this in main-course territory. It's also 96 grams of fat, fourth-highest among the appetizers, and 2,140 mg of sodium, close to a day's limit. Add the Chicken Madeira and you're at 2,610 calories. Pasta, cheese sauce and a breadcrumb crust, fried hard. The marinara underneath is there for a reason. Its acidity cuts the fried cheese, so don't leave it on the plate.

The menu calls it enough for two, and at 1,730 calories that means 865 each before a main course arrives. Among the appetizers, only the Factory Nachos are heavier, and only the nachos carry more fat than this dip's 126 grams. Spinach, artichoke hearts, shallots and garlic go into a mix of melted cheeses. It's served warm with tortilla chips and salsa. I'd split it four ways. Vegetarian, with 1,590 mg of sodium.

Traditional German pretzels are dipped in a lye solution before baking, and that alkaline bath is what browns the crust dark and glossy and gives it the flavour no plain bread roll has. The menu says only that these are baked soft and warm and served with cheddar cheese sauce. Soft bread and melted cheese add up to 1,010 calories. 2,470 mg of sodium, sixth among the 26 appetizers. 34 grams of saturated fat, too. It's vegetarian, and it's a snack for 4, not 2.

The adult Quesadilla is 1,120 calories and the Kids' Quesadilla is 820, so the grown-up version is only 300 calories bigger. A grilled flour tortilla is filled with melted cheese, green onions and chiles. Guacamole, salsa and sour cream come on the side. It's vegetarian. 46 grams of saturated fat is the number I'd watch, well over twice the 20-gram daily value the FDA uses, and most of it comes from the cheese and sour cream. Split it as a starter.

Gluten and wheat are the only allergens listed, which gives these the shortest allergen list of all 26 appetizers: no milk, no egg, no sesame. White Castle made the small burger an American habit, starting in Wichita in 1921. These are bite-sized burgers on mini buns with grilled onions, pickles and ketchup. No cheese. 800 calories and 48 grams of protein, a fair split for 3 people. The Kids' Roadside Sliders plate comes to 360.

8 grams of protein, the least of any appetizer on the menu. Grilled avocado replaces the satay chicken, with carrots, bean sprouts, coconut curry noodles, lettuce leaves and the peanut, sweet red chilli and tamarind-cashew sauces. Fish drops off the allergen list when the chicken goes. That points to the chicken marinade as its source. 500 calories, vegetarian, with tree nuts and peanuts listed. 10 grams of fiber.

500 calories for $13.95 to $16.50. The full-size chicken wraps are 850 calories for $19.95 to $22.95. So the small plate gives you 59% of the calories for about 70% of the price, and with 27 grams of protein and 16 grams of fat it's a light starter for 2 rather than a meal for 4. Satay began as street food on Java. Here it's satay-style chicken strips with carrots, bean sprouts and coconut curry noodles. Seven allergens are listed, fish among them.

The soup changes daily, but the nutrition sheet gives one set of figures, 350 calories and 1,280 mg of sodium, so treat those as a rough guide rather than a label for whatever's in the pot today. Ask which soup it is. Then ask whether it's cream-based. A chowder and a broth won't land anywhere near the same number. On paper it's the lightest of the 26 appetizers. $9.95 to $11.95.

460 calories. Among the appetizers, only the Soup of the Day and the Chicken Pot Stickers are lighter. The tuna is raw, marked by the asterisk, and it sits on rice cakes that are pressed and seared until the outside crisps while the middle stays soft. Pickled ginger and scallion go on top. Fish, soy, sesame, egg, gluten and wheat are listed. It's a sensible starter before a heavy main, with 1,490 mg of sodium.

No gluten and no wheat in the recipe. Only two appetizers on the menu can say that, this and the Ahi Tuna and Shrimp Ceviche, and if you're coeliac that's a short list worth memorising. Tamale cakes are masa, which is corn treated with lime so the kernels soften and the flavour deepens, pressed with whole sweet corn and pan-fried. Sour cream, salsa, avocado and a tomatillo salsa verde go on top. They're heavy for a starter. 1,340 calories and 88 grams of fat, more than the Carne Asada Steak, so I'd order these to share across 3 or 4 people. Milk, egg and sesame are the allergens listed.

Same calories as the Avocado Eggrolls, 930, and three times the protein. 43 grams against 14. Chicken, black beans, corn, peppers, onion and melted cheese are rolled and fried, and served with an avocado dip and salsa. No tree nuts here, unlike the avocado version with its cashew sauce. Sodium is 2,030 mg. If you're choosing between the two eggroll plates for a table with a nut allergy, this is the one.

950 mg of sodium, the lowest of any dish in the appetizer section. The same section holds the Buffalo Blasts at 7,080, so that's a bigger difference than it sounds. The catch is fat. 52 grams, which is two-thirds of the 700 calories. Battered shrimp are tossed in a sweet garlic chilli aioli straight out of the fryer, so the coating clings instead of sliding off. Shellfish, soy, sesame, egg, gluten and wheat are listed.

Swap the chicken for grilled avocado and the fiber doubles, from 9 grams to 18, while protein drops from 51 grams to 15, and that fiber is the most of any appetizer except the Factory Nachos. Fat goes up too, 42 grams against 27. Avocado is a fatty fruit. That's the trade for a vegetarian plate. 830 calories. Tree nuts and peanuts are listed, but fish isn't, unlike the chicken version.

69 grams of sugar, the most of any appetizer on the menu. The three dipping sauces, peanut, sweet red chilli and tamarind-cashew, are the obvious source. You build each wrap yourself, putting satay-style chicken strips, carrots, bean sprouts and coconut curry noodles into a lettuce leaf. That's why it works for a table. Everyone assembles their own. 850 calories, 51 grams of protein and 27 grams of fat is a lean profile for this section. Peanuts and tree nuts are both listed, the cashews in that tamarind sauce among them. A smaller portion comes in at 500 calories.

92 grams of fat. That's more than the entire Grilled Salmon plate, fillet and mashed potatoes included. Crab is lean. Artichoke hearts are lean. The fat is the melted cheese they're baked into. What you're ordering is hot cheese with crab through it, scooped up on garlic crostini. Split it across at least 3 people, and check for shellfish and fish allergies, since both are listed, because 1,220 calories and 1,720 mg of sodium is a lot for one person to take on before a main course.

Three slices in the case contain peanuts: this, the Reese's cake and the Chocolate Caramelicious made with Snickers. This is the lightest of them, at 1,250 calories. Creamy cheesecake is swirled with caramel, peanut butter, chopped Butterfinger and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and the Butterfinger is the part I'd order it for, because its flaky, brittle centre stays crisp against soft filling in a way a peanut butter cup can't. 750 mg of sodium. 94 grams of sugar. It's sweet and salty at once.

$9.95 at the low end. That's exactly what an Original slice costs. What you get for it is the lightest thing in the dessert section on calories, fat, carbs and sodium, with 250 calories and 15 mg of salt, and the 15 grams of fat belong to the dairy that comes with it, since milk is listed and strawberries carry next to no fat. I'd order it for a guest who wants to join dessert without committing. Or order it beside a slice. Strawberries and cheesecake were always going to work.

Turtle means chocolate, caramel and pecans together, and this cake uses all three in quantity — a pecan brownie base, caramel and fudge swirled through the filling, candied pecans and chocolate on top. Tree nuts. Obviously, given the name, but it's worth saying for anyone ordering on behalf of someone else. 1,300 calories, 88 grams of fat, and only 450 mg of sodium, which is low for a cake this heavily built. If you want caramel without nuts, the Salted Caramel is the swap.

1,720 calories and 122 grams of fat make this the second-heaviest dessert on the menu, behind only the Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake. Tree nuts are in it too, chopped and pressed around the sides. Carrot cake reads like the sensible choice on a dessert menu. That's exactly why it catches people out on both counts. Three layers of spiced sponge with cream cheese frosting between them, and it's a good version. Vegetables in a cake don't make it lighter than the chocolate options, and here it's heavier than most of them.

The cross-section is the whole product. Confetti sponge, a pink layer, a pale blue one, more sponge, all under white frosting with sprinkles pressed into the sides — it's built to be looked at before it's eaten, and that's a legitimate thing for a birthday cake to be. 1,380 calories a slice with 98 grams of fat. Cut it cold with a sharp knife. The mousse bands soften at room temperature and smear into one another, and once that happens the layering you paid for is gone.

Mars named Snickers after a favourite horse of the Mars family, and the bar went on sale in 1930. The cheesecake came 90 years later. Original cheesecake is swirled with Snickers and set on a brownie crust, then finished with chocolate, caramel and peanuts, and the peanuts on top are what keep the caramel from going cloying. 400 mg of sodium, low for a slice this rich. 19 grams of protein, fourth among the 44. Peanuts, obviously.

Two textures in one slice, which is the whole idea. Dense baked chocolate cheesecake underneath, aerated mousse on top, and the contrast is what stops it going heavy the way a solid chocolate cheesecake does. 1,220 calories with 94 grams of fat. That's more fat than the Vanilla Bean and less sugar, because mousse is mostly cream and air rather than more cake. Eat it cold. Mousse loses its structure fast at room temperature, and a slice left sitting through a long conversation turns into chocolate soup on a base.

1,770 calories. No slice in the dessert case is heavier. It isn't a cheesecake, and it's the dessert people order when they want the most chocolate the kitchen can put on one plate: fudge cake, chocolate truffle cream and chocolate mousse, six or seven layers high. 192 grams of carbohydrate and 111 grams of fat come with it. Order one for the table. Split three ways, it's 590 calories each, which is a normal dessert.

Tuxedo means black and white, and that's what the slice looks like from the side. Fudge cake sits at the bottom, then chocolate cheesecake, then mascarpone mousse, then chocolate ganache. Mascarpone is an Italian cream cheese made by adding acid to heavy cream. It's softer and sweeter than the cream cheese in the rest of the slice. 1,250 calories and 90 grams of fat. I'd pick it over the Godiva, because the mousse layer lightens every bite.

Cinnabon opened its first bakery in a mall outside Seattle in 1985, and this slice is built to taste like that smell. Cinnamon cheesecake layered with vanilla crunch cake, cream cheese frosting, a caramel drizzle. 141 grams of carbohydrate. That's ninth-highest among the 44 slices in the case, and it comes with only 10 grams of protein. The crunch cake is why I'd order it. Soft filling can't give you that texture.

It launched on National Cheesecake Day in July 2021 and stayed on the permanent menu. Four layers show in the slice. Coconut macaroon crust. A thin layer of chocolate. Coconut cheesecake over vanilla custard, 1,370 calories in all, with shredded coconut around the outside. Despite the macaroon crust, no tree nuts are listed, which makes it a safer coconut dessert than the Mango Key Lime, whose allergen list does include them.

Ruth Wakefield created the chocolate chip cookie at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, in the late 1930s, and this slice is built on the dough rather than the baked cookie. Creamy cheesecake is loaded with chocolate chip pecan cookie dough and topped with cookie dough frosting. That's cookie dough twice. 1,550 calories, tied with the S'mores Galore for fourth-heaviest in the case. The pecans are in the dough, so tree nuts are everywhere in it. Split it.

It's the fourth-fattiest slice in the case. 110 grams. Only the Carrot Cake, the Red Velvet and the Chocolate Tower carry more. Caramel cheesecake sits on a vanilla crust under caramel mousse and a scatter of almond brickle, and the brickle is the only thing on the plate that crunches, which is exactly why it's there. It also means tree nuts. 1,390 calories and 600 mg of sodium.

The banana on top is real sliced fruit. Artificial banana flavour leans on a single compound, isoamyl acetate, which is why banana sweets taste like banana sweets and not like the fruit on your counter. Fresh banana doesn't have that sharpness. Beneath the fruit sits Bavarian cream, then banana cream cheesecake. 1,250 calories, 90 grams of fat. It's the slice for someone who wants cream, not chocolate.

This is the Original with glazed whole strawberries on top, and the fruit costs you 170 calories. Original runs 830. This runs 1,000. I think that's a fair trade. Plain cheesecake is dense and fatty from the first bite to the last, and a strawberry every forkful brings acid back into it. The glaze keeps the berries whole and shiny rather than sliced and weeping into the cream. 69 grams of fat, 550 mg of sodium. Gluten, wheat, milk, egg and soy.

No dessert in the case is saltier than this one, at 1,140 mg, and that includes the Carrot Cake and Linda's Fudge Cake, which come closest. That surprised me until I thought about what shortcake is. It's a sweet biscuit. Biscuits rise on baking powder, a sodium compound, and the kitchen bakes its own before topping it with vanilla ice cream, fresh strawberries and whipped cream. 25 grams of protein, the most of any dessert. $13.95, the priciest in the section. The Kids' Strawberry Shortcake is 450 calories; this is 1,340.

No gluten and no wheat. It's the only full-sugar cheesecake in the case that can say that, because the base is flourless chocolate cake rather than a biscuit crust, and if you're coeliac this is the slice that changes the evening for you. Ask the kitchen about shared prep before you rely on it. A recipe without wheat isn't the same as a gluten-free kitchen, and this one isn't dedicated. 260 mg of sodium, the lowest of any cheesecake here. 1,400 calories and 105 grams of fat, so it's rich rather than light — dark chocolate all the way down, and closer to a truffle than a dessert.

Milk chocolate from top to bottom. It's the opposite of the Godiva slice, which is dark and bitter-edged. Hershey's cheesecake sits between layers of chocolate cake under chocolate frosting, with milk chocolate chips pressed around the outside, and at 135 grams of carbohydrate it's eleventh-highest of the 44 slices in the case. Order it for a child, or for the adult who finds the Godiva too much. 1,320 calories. 610 mg of sodium.

Key limes are smaller, more acidic and more floral than the standard Persian limes you get in a supermarket, and that acidity is the entire reason this works. It's the sharpest thing in the dessert case. 1,160 calories, 430 mg of sodium, and a shorter allergen list than most — gluten, wheat, milk and egg, with no soy. Order it after something heavy. It's the one slice here that resets your palate instead of piling onto what you've already eaten.

73 grams of fat, 21 fewer than the Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake. Meringue is egg white and sugar with no fat at all, so replacing a cream or mousse topping with it moves the numbers more than you'd expect. 1,170 calories, 510 mg of sodium. Lemon curd under torched meringue on cheesecake. The acidity does the same job the key lime does, cutting the richness underneath, and between the two this is the softer, sweeter one.

At 1,040 calories it's lighter than 33 of the 44 slices, and after a pasta dish it's the one I'd order, because citrus reads as a finish where chocolate reads as another course. Four layers, two fruits. The slice stacks raspberry-vanilla cake, creamy lemon cheesecake, raspberry ladyfingers and lemon mousse. Eat it top to bottom and the mousse goes first. Sodium is 420 mg, and there are no nuts.

233 grams of carbohydrate, the highest of any dessert on this menu, and the reason is that this isn't a cheesecake at all. It's a layer cake — chocolate sponge, fudge frosting, no cream cheese anywhere. That shows up in the fat figure too. 66 grams, against 88 for the Vanilla Bean and 94 for the Tiramisu. Less fat, far more sugar. Different dessert entirely, sitting on the same page. Order it if someone at your table doesn't like cheesecake. There are maybe four things in the case that qualify, and this is the most straightforwardly chocolate of them.

570 calories. No cheesecake in the case is lighter. There's no added sugar, no gluten listed, and 37 grams of carbohydrate. The texture holds up because the cream cheese is all still there. What changes is the sweetener. Walnuts are named in the menu's description of the crust, but tree nuts don't appear in the allergen data, so confirm with the kitchen if nuts are a concern.

$1.55 more than the plain slice. 10 more calories. 1 more gram of fiber. Fresh strawberries bring acidity, and acidity is what this cheesecake needs most, since a filling with no added sugar tastes flatter and a bite of sharp fruit wakes it up. I'd pay the difference. 580 calories, 7 grams of sugar, and no gluten listed.

Tree nuts are listed on a mango and lime cheesecake. Nothing in the name warns you. The menu doesn't say which ingredient triggers it, and the coconut macaroon crust isn't a safe guess, because the Coconut Cream Pie Cheesecake also sits on one and lists no tree nuts, so treat this as a nut dessert until the restaurant tells you otherwise. Underneath the mango mousse is sharp key lime cheesecake, and the two cover for each other: sweet and soft on top, acid below. It runs 1,300 calories with 123 grams of carbohydrate. That's 140 calories more than the plain Key Lime slice, most of it from the mousse.

166 grams of carbohydrate, 36 more than the Salted Caramel, and that's the number that tells you what this actually is — cookie, sugar and mousse stacked on a cheesecake base rather than a cheesecake with cookies in it. 1,510 calories. 93 grams of fat. 800 mg of sodium, which is high for dessert and comes from the cookie crumb. It's the slice teenagers order and it earns that. Chocolate cookie crust, cookies through the filling, mousse and more cookie on top. There's no restraint anywhere in it, and restraint isn't the point. Two people, one slice. I've watched enough of these get abandoned half-eaten to believe that's the right call.

830 calories, which makes this the lightest slice in the case that isn't the no-sugar-added version. Everything else runs a thousand and up. Graham crust, sour cream on top, nothing else. Whether that reads as boring or as the point depends entirely on you, and I'd argue it's the point — this is the cake the other forty are variations on, and it's the one that shows whether the kitchen can actually make cheesecake. Gluten, wheat, milk, egg, soy. Sodium's 510 mg.

Auguste Escoffier put peaches and raspberry together in the 1890s for the Australian soprano Nellie Melba, and peach Melba has been the model for the pairing ever since. This slice follows it. Cheesecake swirled with peaches sits on a vanilla crust under a raspberry drizzle. It launched on July 30, 2025. Tied with Linda's Fudge Cake at 1,450 calories. No nuts, and 13 grams of protein.

It has nearly double the sugar of the Original slice, 99 grams against 51. Almost all of the carbohydrate here is sugar, 99 of 109 grams, because an upside-down cake is traditionally baked over butter and brown sugar that caramelise under the fruit, and there are two layers of it. The pineapple cheesecake in the middle is the milder part. I'd eat it for the cake. 1,260 calories and 83 grams of fat put it in the middle of the 44 slices on both counts. No nuts.

Harry Burnett Reese, who had worked on Milton Hershey's dairy farms, started making his peanut butter cups in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in 1928. Chunks of those cups go into the cheesecake here, between layers of fudge cake and caramel. Next to the Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple, it's 260 calories heavier with 5 more grams of protein. It's also saltier. 940 mg against 750. Pick this for the cake layers, the Adam's for candy on top. Peanuts are in both.

If you want caramel and someone at the table has a nut allergy, this is the one. The Dulce de Leche has almond brickle on top and the Caramel Pecan Turtle has pecans throughout; this has neither. The base is blonde brownie rather than crumb, which makes it chewier and helps the slice hold together on the plate. Caramel cheesecake, caramel mousse, salted caramel glaze. The salt matters more than the name suggests. Caramel without it is just sweet, and at 130 grams of carbohydrate you'd notice. 1,240 calories, 750 mg of sodium.

This isn't cheesecake. It sits on the same menu page as forty-odd cheesecakes, and people order it assuming it's a variation — it's the Italian dessert, layered savoiardi soaked in coffee under whipped mascarpone, and mascarpone is a cream cheese only in the loosest sense. 340 mg of sodium, one of the lowest figures in the dessert case. 1,270 calories and 94 grams of fat, so it isn't light, it's just not salty. The coffee is what stops it cloying. If you've had tiramisu that tasted like sweet cream and nothing else, the biscuits weren't soaked long enough.

980 calories, which makes it one of the lighter slices in the case — most of what surrounds it runs between 1,100 and 1,700. It's a hybrid rather than either thing done properly. Coffee-soaked sponge under mascarpone cheesecake, so you get the flavour of tiramisu with the density of a baked cake. If you want actual tiramisu, they serve that separately and it's a different dessert. 70 grams of fat, 450 mg of sodium. The coffee is what earns it. Without it this would be a plain cheesecake with cocoa dusted on top.

The marshmallow is made in-house and torched to order. Sugar starts to caramelise at around 160°C, which is why the top comes out browned and faintly bitter where the flame hits. That bitterness keeps the slice from being unbearably sweet. Underneath is chocolate cheesecake on a graham crust, with graham crackers on top. 141 grams of carbohydrate and 1,550 calories. Eat it soon after it arrives, because torched marshmallow sets firm as it cools.

Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, with a touch of citrus. It joined the permanent menu on July 29, 2024, the day before National Cheesecake Day. The berries are layered with vanilla cake through the cheesecake, and the slice comes finished with whipped cream, fresh mint and a rim of pink and white chocolate curls, which makes it the best-looking slice to arrive at a birthday table. 1,300 calories. 11 grams of protein. No nuts.

Two desserts on one plate. Red velvet cake and cheesecake alternate in bands, under cream cheese frosting. 1,580 calories. That's the third-heaviest slice in the case, behind the Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake and the Carrot Cake, and at 116 grams it has more fat than the Chocolate Tower. The cake layers are lightly cocoa-flavoured rather than properly chocolate. Order it for the cream cheese frosting and the look of the cross-section.

88 grams of fat in the plainest-looking slice in the case. Vanilla reads modest next to the Oreo and the Red Velvet, and it isn't — 1,170 calories puts it in the middle of the pack, not the light end. Order it anyway if you're the person at the table who wants dessert but doesn't want to negotiate about it. Vanilla is the only flavour nobody argues over. You can see the bean specks through the filling. That's the tell for real vanilla against extract, though most of the flavour comes from the oils infused into the cream rather than the seeds themselves. Gluten, wheat, milk, egg and soy. Sodium's 480 mg, which for a dessert here is unremarkable.

33 grams of fat, far below most desserts here. The carbs go the other way: 170 grams, third-highest of the 44. Baked apples with cinnamon sit under a walnut and oat streusel, served warm with vanilla ice cream, so the sugar comes from fruit, streusel and ice cream while the fat stays modest. Walnuts mean tree nuts. 1,000 calories. It's the dessert I'd order in winter.

Seedless raspberry. It sounds like a small detail and it's the reason this cake has lasted on the menu as long as it has, because raspberry seeds in a smooth cheesecake are gritty and wedge in your teeth. White chocolate through the filling, the raspberry swirled in rather than sitting on top, and a chocolate cookie crust. 1,220 calories and 89 grams of fat. White chocolate is sweet in a flat, milky way. The raspberry is what gives it an edge, and without it you'd struggle through half a slice.

It's the newest slice in the case, launched on National Cheesecake Day, July 30, 2026, with 25 cents from every slice sold through July 2027 going to Feeding America. Milk chocolate and white chocolate cheesecake are swirled together over a toffee brownie, with Hershey's ganache, mousse and pieces of Heath bar on top. Heath is a Hershey brand, and its toffee contains almonds, which is the likeliest reason tree nuts appear on the allergen list. 1,500 calories. Only seven slices in the case are heavier. Of the chocolate slices, it's the one I'd pick for texture, because the brownie base crunches where the Godiva stays soft all the way down.

Seasonal, roughly September through December, so this is the stretch to order it. It's spiced like pumpkin pie, with cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. At 1,040 calories it's lighter than most of the case, and pumpkin purée is mostly water, which pulls the figure down against the cream cheese. 79 grams of fat, 500 mg of sodium. The allergen list is the standard five for this bakery: gluten, wheat, milk, egg and soy.

230 calories more than the plain Pumpkin Cheesecake, which is what a layer of pecan pie costs you. The slice stacks pumpkin cheesecake on pecan pie and finishes it with caramel and more pecans. It's a Thanksgiving dessert table in one wedge. Both pumpkin cheesecakes come back each fall for a limited run, so there's a window of a few months to order it. I prefer this one to the plain pumpkin. The pie layer gives it chew. Tree nuts, obviously. 1,270 calories and 90 grams of fat.

400 calories, for $3.50 to $4.50. That scoop of vanilla ice cream adds close to half an Original slice again. On the Original it makes 1,230 calories. Put it beside the Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake and the total reaches 2,170, which only three dishes on the entire menu exceed, the Factory Nachos among them. Egg is listed with milk. That points to a custard base. I'd put it on the Original, the plainest slice in the case, and nowhere near anything already carrying mousse or frosting.

An add-on, not a dish. 280 calories, 20 grams of fat and 20 mg of sodium, the second-lowest salt figure on the menu after the Bowl of Fresh Strawberries. Milk and soy are listed. Pour it over a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you want a sundae without the almonds that come on the Hot Fudge Sundae.

The initials belong to Jeff Wiley, the bartender who created the drink at The Cheesecake Factory in Redondo Beach, California, and it became one of the chain's best-known cocktails. At the bar it's citrus vodka, black raspberry liqueur and the house lemonade, served with a sugar rim. The takeaway bottle is 11% ABV. That ties it with the Sangria as the mildest cocktail sold to go. $29, the lowest price on the at-home cocktail list alongside the Sangria. Pour it over lots of ice.

Two rums go into this rather than one. Don Q Cristal is a clean Puerto Rican rum and Bacardi rounds it out, mixed with housemade limeade and sold as a bottle that serves 3. No nutrition figures are published for the takeaway cocktails, so there are no calories to give you. What I can tell you is how to serve it. Pour it over crushed ice, not cubes, so it gets cold fast without watering down in the first 10 minutes. If you add fresh mint, press 6 or 8 leaves against the glass with the back of a spoon. Tearing them releases a bitter, grassy taste instead of the oil.

No nutrition is published for the takeaway cocktails, so there's no calorie count here, and the listing doesn't give an ABV either. In the restaurant, this drink is Milagro Silver tequila and passion fruit, chilled and served up in a martini glass. Milagro is Spanish for miracle. The brand was started in 1998 by two friends from Mexico City, and its silver tequila is unaged 100% blue agave. $31, the same as the Ultimate Margarita. Pour it over ice, because passion fruit is sharp enough to need the dilution.

The Moscow Mule was invented in 1941 to sell two things Americans weren't buying yet, vodka and ginger beer. The copper mug came with it. This version adds pineapple juice to the vodka, lime and brewed ginger beer, and a bottle serves 3. There's no published nutrition for it. Pineapple juice is sweet. Pour it over plenty of crushed ice so it stays sharp.

Red wine steeped with fruit, sold as a bottle rather than by the glass. No nutrition figures are published for the takeaway cocktails, so I can't give you calories or sugar for this one — that data doesn't exist on the menu. What I can tell you is that it needs time. Give the fruit at least 4 hours in the wine, ideally overnight, or you get wine with orange slices floating in it rather than sangria. The pith is the thing to watch: leave citrus in past about 12 hours and it turns bitter. Ice goes in the glass, never the bottle. A bottle serving 3 people will water down to nothing otherwise.

24% ABV. The J. W.'s Pink Lemonade and the Sangria sit at 11%, so this bottle is more than twice as strong as the mildest cocktails on the list. Two orange liqueurs go in alongside Altos Plata tequila. Cointreau is a clear triple sec, while Grand Marnier is built on cognac, which adds weight and a darker edge. Fresh lime and organic agave nectar balance it. The bottle serves 2, and no nutrition figures are published for the takeaway cocktails, so there's no calorie number I can give you.

Traditional balsamic from Modena has to age at least 12 years before it can carry the protected name. A pint of house vinaigrette for $8.95 is a different product, and that's fine. The published figures, 80 calories and 8 grams of fat a serving with 75 mg of sodium, give it the least salt of the five dressings that have data. Gluten, wheat and soy are listed. None of those belong in a basic oil-and-vinegar dressing. Ask what's in it if you're coeliac.

$12.95, the most expensive of the eight pints. It's the dressing that comes with the Buffalo Wings. The blue veins come from Penicillium roqueforti, a mould that cheesemakers add to the milk and then feed with air by piercing the wheels with needles, so the mould can grow along the channels. Milk, eggs and fish are listed. The menu doesn't say where the fish comes from. 60 calories and 5 grams of fat a serving, with the serving size unstated.

Caesar Cardini is credited with inventing the salad in Tijuana in 1924, without anchovies, since the Worcestershire sauce in his dressing, itself made from anchovies, supplied that flavour. Either way, fish sits on this dressing's allergen list, next to milk and eggs. A pint costs $10.50. The published 80 calories, 7 grams of fat and 90 mg of sodium describe a single serving, not the pint. The figures we have don't state how big that serving is. A pint holds 32 tablespoons.

$8.25, the cheapest of the eight pints. Ranch takes its name from Hidden Valley Ranch, the California guest ranch where Steve Henson served his buttermilk dressing in the 1950s, and it has since become the best-selling salad dressing in the United States. Milk and eggs are the allergens. Unlike the Caesar and the Blue Cheese, it lists no fish. The published 70 calories and 7 grams of fat are per serving, and no serving size comes with them.

This is the dressing from the Santa Fe Salad, and the restaurant's own published recipe for that salad builds it by blending a Southwestern dressing with spicy peanut sauce. No nutrition or allergen figures are published for the pint. The Santa Fe Salad itself lists peanuts and milk. Assume both until the restaurant tells you otherwise. $11.50. Use it on grilled chicken as well as greens.

60 calories and 4 grams of fat a serving, the least fat of the five dressings with published figures. It's also the saltiest of them, at 180 mg. Peanuts, gluten, wheat and soy are all listed, and soy sauce is the likeliest reason a vinaigrette picks up both gluten and extra sodium, since traditionally brewed soy sauce is made with wheat as well as soybeans. $9 a pint. 4 grams of carbohydrate, the most of the five. Keep it away from anyone with a peanut allergy.

Nothing is published for it. No calories, no allergens. The tamarind sauce served with the Avocado Eggrolls and the Thai Lettuce Wraps is a tamarind-cashew sauce, with nuts in it. The listing for this pint doesn't say whether it's the same recipe. Ask before you buy it for anyone with a tree nut allergy. Tamarind is the sour-sweet pulp of a pod that grows on a tropical tree, and it's the same ingredient that gives Worcestershire sauce its tang, and at $12.25 this pint is second only to the Blue Cheese in price among the eight on offer.

Peanut sauce is one of the three dips that come with the Thai Lettuce Wraps, alongside sweet red chilli and tamarind-cashew, and this pint lets you take it home for $9.95. No nutrition or allergen figures are published for it. Peanuts are in the name, so treat it as a peanut product. Peanut sauce in Thai cooking goes back to satay. It thins with a splash of warm water. Try it on cold noodles.

$4.95, and 360 calories. It's 100 calories more than a side of toast and 170 more than an English Muffin. The earliest written mention of bagels comes from Jewish community regulations in Kraków in 1610, and cream cheese arrived much later, in upstate New York in the 1870s, before a New York company sold it under the Philadelphia name. 10 grams of fat and 12 of protein. Gluten, milk and wheat are listed. It's the cheapest filling breakfast here.

Brioche is bread enriched with butter and eggs, so this sandwich starts rich before anything goes inside it. Then comes the filling. Scrambled egg, smoked bacon, grilled ham, grilled tomato, melted cheddar and mayonnaise, with seasoned breakfast potatoes on the side, add up to 1,030 calories and 48 grams of protein. The sodium is 1,920 mg. That's the second-highest among the egg dishes. Order it as brunch, not breakfast before a big lunch.

13 grams of carbohydrate with 55 grams of protein. No dish on this menu with that much protein has fewer carbs. So it's the low-carb breakfast. It's not a light one. 91 grams of fat come from three kinds of cheese, avocado and sour cream folded into three eggs. Milk and eggs are the only allergens, it's vegetarian, and with no gluten or wheat listed it's a breakfast plate a coeliac can order, as long as the toast that comes with it stays off the plate.

At 190 calories and 1.5 grams of fat, it's the leanest bread choice at breakfast, and lighter than a side of toast by 70 calories, though milk and soy are both on its allergen list where the toast has neither. Samuel Bath Thomas started baking his muffins in New York in 1880. The nooks and crannies he advertised come from splitting it with a fork rather than slicing. A knife flattens them. $2.95. 6 grams of protein.

You pick any four fillings from a list of 15, which works out to 1,365 possible omelettes, and the nutrition sheet gives just one figure for all of them. That figure is 630 calories with 4 grams of carbohydrate. Treat it as a starting point. Bacon, ham and the four cheeses on offer will push it up; spinach, tomato and peppers won't. Only eggs and milk are listed. For a low-carb breakfast, pick avocado, spinach, mushrooms and Swiss.

Two eggs, 280 calories, 150 mg of sodium. It's the lowest-salt plate in the eggs and omelettes section. The plate comes with potatoes or tomatoes and a choice of toast, bagel or English Muffin, and that choice changes the meal more than the eggs do, since the Side of Breakfast Potatoes alone runs 630 calories. Pick tomatoes. Pick the English Muffin. The eggs and muffin come to about 470 calories before the tomatoes.

The calories add up exactly, 280 for the eggs and 240 for the Side of Chicken Sausage making this plate's 520, so ordering them together is a pricing decision rather than a different recipe. And the price favours the combination. $18.95 here against $20.45 for the eggs and the sausage side ordered separately. That's $1.50 saved. 40 grams of protein, second to the ham among the three. Sodium is 1,440 mg.

44 grams of protein for 440 calories. No breakfast plate in the section gives you more protein per calorie. The trade is sodium, 1,770 mg, the third-highest in the eggs and omelettes section, because ham is cured in salt long before it reaches the grill, and grilling drives off water and concentrates it further. $18.95. Choose tomatoes over potatoes. Drink water.

The published sodium for this plate is 220 mg, yet the Side of Bacon on its own is listed at 540, so one of those two figures has to be wrong. The calories do line up. 280 for the eggs plus 200 for the bacon side makes 480, exactly this plate's number. I'd trust the calories and assume the lower sodium is the error. 25 grams of protein, the least of the three meat versions. $18.95.

$31.50 to $33.95, the most expensive breakfast on the menu by more than $10. It's a grilled ribeye with two eggs, potatoes or tomatoes, and toast. The plate itself is 660 calories with 2 grams of carbohydrate, which makes it the most protein you can get at breakfast without a starch, 45 grams, as long as you take tomatoes and skip the toast. The dinner Grilled Rib-Eye is 1,360 calories. This is about half that. Order it medium-rare.

The story places the first loco moco at the Lincoln Grill in Hilo, Hawaii, in 1949, where teenagers from a local sports club wanted something cheap and filling that wasn't a sandwich. It's rice, a hamburger patty, a fried egg and brown gravy. Here the patty is Certified Angus Beef, with grilled onions, a sunny-side-up egg and shiitake mushroom gravy over steamed rice. 1,750 calories. The heaviest plate in the eggs and omelettes section on every count. Oddly, gluten isn't listed, only milk and eggs.

200 calories and 14 grams of protein. No allergens are listed. Pork isn't one of the nine major allergens under US labelling law, which is why bacon can come up clean on an allergen list while still being off limits for anyone keeping halal or kosher. 540 mg of sodium. $6.95, the same as the Side of Chicken Sausage. The sausage gives you 12 more grams of protein.

24 grams of protein in 160 calories, 15 grams for every 100 calories, which beats every other item in the eggs and omelettes section. Salt is what you pay for it. 980 mg, the most of the three breakfast meats. Ham is cured, and cured meat is salty by design. At $5.95 it's also the cheapest of them. 6 grams of fat.

At 630 calories, this side outweighs the entire Farm Fresh Eggs with Old Smokehouse Bacon plate, two eggs and bacon together, by 150 calories, which is worth knowing before you choose potatoes over tomatoes. 37 grams of fat. 66 grams of carbohydrate. Milk is listed. $4.95. If breakfast is supposed to be light, the tomatoes are the whole decision.

26 grams of protein for 240 calories. That's the most protein of the three breakfast meat sides. Chicken sausage runs leaner than pork because chicken meat carries less fat, and here that shows up as 14 grams of fat against 16 in the Side of Bacon, even though the sausage portion has 40 more calories. No allergens are listed. 680 mg of sodium. $6.95.

260 calories, 4 grams of fat and 480 mg of sodium, and gluten and wheat are the only allergens, so it's the simplest bread choice on the breakfast menu for anyone avoiding milk or soy. $2.95, the same as the English Muffin. The muffin is 70 calories lighter. Toast is for eggs. Get it with the Farm Fresh Eggs. Dip it into the yolk.

46 grams of saturated fat, the most in the eggs and omelettes section, ahead even of the Loco Moco, and more than twice the 20-gram daily value in a single omelette. Fresh spinach, smoked bacon, sautéed mushrooms, green onion and melted cheese go inside. 1,050 calories. Gluten and wheat are listed, while the California Omelette lists neither. 14 grams of carbohydrate and 48 of protein. For a coeliac, order the California instead.

114 grams of fat. That's 30 more than the Grilled Salmon, from the same fish. Blackening was popularised by the New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme in the 1980s: the fillet is coated in butter and spice and seared in a very hot cast-iron pan until the crust chars. Add a Creole sauce, mashed potatoes and buttered corn and the plate reaches 1,570 calories, the second-heaviest in the seafood section. The allergen list stops at milk and fish. No gluten.

The heaviest plate in the seafood section: 1,930 calories, 115 grams of fat and 3,580 mg of sodium, first on all three counts. Fried fish and chips were being sold together in London by the 1860s, and Joseph Malin's shop in the East End is the name most histories give as the first. The formula hasn't moved much. Here the fish is hand-battered and fried crisp, with fries, coleslaw and tartar sauce. A side order of fries on this menu is 1,060 calories by itself, so the fries are where I'd leave some behind. 79 grams of protein.

The SkinnyLicious Branzino is 530 calories. This one is 1,410. Both are the same fish, the European sea bass that Greece and Turkey farm in huge numbers, but this plate is charbroiled with lemon and fresh herbs and served with mashed potatoes and green beans, and it picks up gluten and wheat on the allergen list along the way. 94 grams of fat, third-highest in the seafood section. 72 grams of protein. I'd order the SkinnyLicious version and add a side if I'm still hungry.

No gluten and no wheat are listed. Milk, egg and fish are the whole list. For a coeliac guest, it's a straightforward main. It runs 1,270 calories with 84 grams of fat, which is more than people expect from grilled fish, and on this menu a side of mashed potatoes by itself is 450 calories. Salmon is an oily fish, so a good share of that fat is the fillet itself. It's still the second-lightest plate in the seafood section, with 62 grams of protein and 1,640 mg of sodium.

The crust brings gluten. The Grilled Salmon has none. Beurre blanc is butter whisked into a reduction of white wine and shallots until it emulsifies into a sauce, and it's rich by definition, so with the crust on top this plate reaches 93 grams of fat and 1,350 calories. Asparagus and mashed potatoes come alongside. 64 grams of protein. Sodium is 1,620 mg, the second-lowest in the seafood section.

90 grams of protein with only 29 grams of fat. In the Fish & Seafood section, where it sits despite being chicken, nothing has more protein, and only the Jamaican Black Pepper Shrimp has less fat. The catch is carbohydrate. 192 grams, from white rice, black beans, sweet plantains and marinated pineapple. The sauce is very spicy. The menu calls it black pepper sauce rather than jerk, whose backbone is allspice and Scotch bonnet chillies. Fish is on the allergen list even though there's no fish on the plate, so ask if that matters.

Splitting the protein between chicken and shrimp costs you 18 grams against the chicken-only version, 72 against 90, for 50 fewer calories, and it ties the shrimp-only plate for the most carbohydrate in the seafood section, 195 grams. White rice, black beans, plantains and marinated pineapple carry most of that. The sauce is very spicy. 17 grams of fiber. Shellfish joins gluten, milk and fish on the allergen list. If you like both, it's a reasonable middle, but the chicken version is the better plate.

27 grams of fat. That's the lowest of any main course on the menu over 1,000 calories, which on a list full of cream sauces and breaded cutlets makes this a quiet outlier. Where the calories go instead is carbohydrate. 195 grams, from white rice, sweet plantains and black beans around the shrimp. Scotch bonnet chillies bring the heat, and they're considerably hotter than a jalapeño, with a fruity edge the black pepper sauce is built around. Order it expecting spice. Fish, shellfish, gluten and milk are listed. 1,290 calories, 67 grams of protein.

1,430 mg of sodium, which sounds like a lot until you compare it to the rest of this menu — it's less than half what the Louisiana Chicken Pasta does and about a fifth of the Buffalo Blasts. Miso is fermented soybean paste, and fermenting is what gives the glaze that dark savoury depth without needing much sugar. It also means soy is in the allergen list alongside fish and milk. 1,340 calories, 64 grams of protein. On a menu where the healthy-sounding options frequently aren't, this one holds up to the numbers. Order it if the rest of the table is having something enormous and you'd rather not.

84 grams of protein. Shrimp, chicken and andouille sausage all go in, so this is one of the more protein-dense seafood plates on the menu at 1,450 calories. Traditional gumbo is built on a dark roux of flour and fat cooked until it's the colour of chocolate, and it doesn't use cream. This one adds cream to a spicy Cajun broth, which makes it richer and softer than a New Orleans version would be. Different, not wrong. Fish and shellfish are both listed. 82 grams of fat, 2,280 mg of sodium.

Scampi properly means langoustine, not shrimp, and not garlic butter — the sauce got the name in American kitchens because that's how the langoustines were cooked. Nobody's going to correct you. But it explains why this dish is garlic, white wine, lemon and butter rather than anything more elaborate. 1,260 calories with 41 grams of protein, which is modest for seafood at that size. Angel hair underneath soaks up the sauce fast, so eat it before it stiffens. Both fish and shellfish are listed. If you're avoiding one of the two, this dish rules out both.

Roberta's in Brooklyn made the bee sting pizza famous, hot chilli and honey over cured pork, and this flatbread takes the idea and adds more meat to it. Italian sausage, pepperoni, bacon and Calabrian chiles go on with mozzarella, vodka sauce and parmesan. Honey finishes it. The sweetness is what makes three salty meats work together. 1,170 calories, tied with the Pepperoni for the heaviest flatbread. 3,280 mg of sodium.

The adult Cheese Flatbread and the Kids' Cheese Flatbread have identical published figures. 1,000 calories and 2,530 mg of sodium, each. Either the portions are the same or the data repeats itself, and I can't tell you which, but if you're ordering for a child it's worth knowing the kids' version isn't a smaller meal on paper. Mozzarella, fontina and parmesan over tomato sauce, no toppings. Vegetarian. 49 grams of protein.

It's the Margherita with more cheese. Fontina and parmesan join the mozzarella, and that adds 90 calories and 530 mg of sodium. Fontina comes from the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps, a mountain cheese that melts smooth and tastes faintly of nuts, and parmesan brings the salt, which is why this lands at 2,300 mg where the Margherita sits at 1,770. 84 grams of carbohydrate, the fewest of the seven flatbreads. Vegetarian. I'd order it over the Margherita for the fontina alone.

Sam Panopoulos, a Greek immigrant running a restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, put pineapple on a pizza in 1962, so the Hawaiian is Canadian, and people have argued about it ever since. This version is sold at the Hawaii restaurants. Canadian bacon, ham, fresh pineapple and red onion go over red pizza sauce and mozzarella. 960 calories. 54 grams of protein and 2,870 mg of sodium. I'm on the pineapple side of the argument.

65 grams of protein, the most of the seven flatbreads. It's one of the Hawaii-only items. Kalua pork is traditionally cooked whole in an imu, an underground oven lined with hot stones and banana leaves, until it shreds, and here it goes on the flatbread with red onion, red bell pepper, pineapple and mozzarella and no tomato sauce. 1,100 calories. 2,490 mg of sodium. If you're in Honolulu, order this over the Hawaiian.

Of the seven flatbreads, this one is lightest on calories, fat and sodium alike, with 760 calories, 30 grams of fat and 1,770 mg of salt. Fresh mozzarella, basil and tomato sauce. The popular story says a Naples pizzaiolo named Raffaele Esposito made it in 1889 for Queen Margherita, in the colours of the Italian flag. Historians doubt the details. 34 grams of protein. Vegetarian.

The adult Pepperoni Flatbread is 1,170 calories. The Kids' Pepperoni Flatbread is 990. That's only 180 calories apart, so the children's version isn't much of a smaller meal, and the salt gap is 710 mg, with this one at 3,430, the saltiest of the seven flatbreads. Pepperoni is an Italian-American invention, first recorded in New York around 1919. It curls into cups as it cooks because the casing shrinks faster than the meat. 66 grams of fat.

Chocolate, vanilla or strawberry share one published figure, 1,210 calories and 138 grams of sugar, which is the most sugar of all six frozen drinks, ahead even of the Oreo Milkshake. Milk is the only allergen. No gluten or wheat is listed, unlike the Oreo version. That makes this the milkshake for a coeliac. $8.95. Share it, since 138 grams of sugar is more than five days of the American Heart Association's 25-gram limit for women.

Tree nuts are the only allergen listed, and while coconut is the obvious suspect, since the FDA counted it as a tree nut until January 2025, the Coconut Limeade lists no tree nuts at all, so the menu's data doesn't settle it. Mango, tropical juices and a hint of coconut are blended with ice, then swirled with raspberry purée. It's tagged vegan. 360 calories. 76 of its 80 grams of carbohydrate are sugar. I'd order it as a dessert, not a drink with lunch.

At 1,630 calories, it's heavier than every slice in the dessert case except the Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake and the Carrot Cake. Oreo cookies blended with vanilla ice cream. The cookies add 420 calories to the plain Creamy Milkshake. Nabisco first sold Oreos in 1912. 134 grams of sugar. It leads the six frozen drinks on calories, fat, protein and sodium. Order it instead of dessert, never with one.

Of the six frozen drinks, it's the only one with no allergens listed, since each of the other five carries tree nuts or milk, and it's tagged vegan. Crushed peaches and juice blended with ice, swirled with raspberry. 330 calories, the lightest of the six. No fat. Nearly all of its 82 grams of carbohydrate is sugar, 78 grams. Treat it as dessert in a cup.

5 grams of fiber, the most of the six frozen drinks. Banana is part of the reason. Strawberries, orange and pineapple juices, coconut and banana are blended with ice, and at 62 grams its sugar is the lowest of the four fruit-based frozen drinks. Tree nuts are listed, and nothing named in it is a nut. 340 calories. Tagged vegan.

Tree nuts are on the list. Coconut is the only candidate in the description, yet the Coconut Limeade lists none. Mango, passion fruit, pineapple and coconut are blended with ice, and at 83 grams of sugar it's the sweetest of the four fruit-based frozen drinks, just ahead of the Peach Smoothie's 78. 400 calories. 5 grams of fat, from the coconut. It's tagged vegan.

Potato chips on a burger. It sounds like a dare, and it's the best idea on the Glamburgers list, because the crisps keep crunching after the cheese has melted into everything else. American and cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, pickles and secret sauce complete it. James L. Kraft patented his method for processed cheese in 1916. Cheddar brings the flavour; American brings the melt. 1,390 calories and 3,410 mg of sodium, third-saltiest of the 13 burgers.

The lightest of the 13 Glamburgers on calories, fat and sodium, at 930 calories, 45 grams of fat and 1,650 mg, and it isn't beef at all. It's island-style slow-roasted kalua pork with barbecue sauce, piled high on a brioche bun. It's sold at the Hawaii restaurants. 59 grams of protein. Fish and sesame are listed with gluten, milk, eggs and wheat. For a pork sandwich, that's a long list.

3,530 mg of sodium, the saltiest of the 13 burgers, and 75 grams of protein, also the most. Two kinds of bacon go on it. Thin crispy strips for crunch, and thick-cut, slow-roasted smoked bacon for chew. Then cheddar, American cheese and the house secret sauce over a charbroiled patty, with lettuce, tomato and onion. The French Dip Cheeseburger beats it on calories by 10, at 1,620. Every other burger is at least 30 calories lighter. Between those two, I'd take this one, because two bacons is a better idea than a burger you dunk.

Fish is on the allergen list, and the likeliest reason is the housemade steak sauce, since Worcestershire, a standard steak-sauce base, contains anchovies. Bacon, caramelized onion, arugula, that steak sauce and garlic aioli go on a toasted roll rather than a brioche bun. It works because the peppery arugula cuts the sweet onion. Sesame isn't listed. 106 grams of carbohydrate, tied for second-most among the burgers. 3,190 mg of sodium.

The menu calls it a chop house hamburger, and it comes with one slice of grilled onion, lettuce and tomato, no cheese and no sauce listed. Without them, it still reaches 83 grams of fat. That's 23 more than the Old Fashioned Burger, which has mayonnaise on it. The patty is doing the work. 61 grams of protein, third among the 13 burgers. It's the one to order if you like your beef plain and your plate heavy.

Pressing a thin patty hard onto a very hot griddle puts more of the beef in contact with the metal. More contact means more browned crust. This one doubles it, two patties, double cheese, grilled onions and special sauce on a toasted brioche roll, and at 1,140 calories it still comes in lighter than eight of the other Glamburgers, while 3,180 mg of sodium puts it fifth-saltiest. $18.50 to $19.95. Only the Old Fashioned Burger costs less. Eat it straight off the grill, before the crust softens.

It's a turkey burger at 1,060 calories. The Old Fashioned beef burger is 990. The patty is mixed with fresh mushrooms, garlic and spices, then charbroiled and topped with fontina, avocado, tomato, arugula and marinated onion, all on the restaurant's brown bread bun with garlic aioli, and fontina, avocado and aioli are all fat-heavy. It does have the fewest carbs of the 13 burgers, 59 grams. The SkinnyLicious Grilled Turkey Burger is 560. If turkey was the reason you ordered it, order that one.

1,620 calories and 118 grams of fat, the most of the 13 burgers on both counts. The French dip sandwich is a Los Angeles invention, and two downtown restaurants, Cole's and Philippe's, have argued for more than a century about which one created it. This burger borrows the dip. A charbroiled cheeseburger comes on a toasted brioche roll with grilled onions and sriracha mayo, with au jus on the side. Dip the edge, not the whole thing. Brioche soaks up liquid fast and falls apart. Sodium is 3,470 mg, second only to the Bacon-Bacon.

New Mexico takes this burger seriously enough that its tourism department has run a Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail since 2009, with Hatch, the self-styled chile capital of the world, at the centre of it. Here the patty gets green chile and melted cheese, with crispy tortilla strips on top for crunch. 1,270 calories. 61 grams of protein, tied for third among the 13 burgers. It carries a single $20.95 price across locations. Sodium is 2,570 mg.

This burger is 1,340 calories. The Fried Macaroni and Cheese appetizer on its own is 1,310, so the beef patty, the bun and everything else here costs you 30 more calories than a plate of fried mac and cheese. That arithmetic tells you the mac and cheese on top is a smaller portion than the appetizer. Still. Fried macaroni balls, cheddar sauce, lettuce, tomato, pickles and onion sit on brioche over a charbroiled patty. It's excess that's honest about itself. Its 2,430 mg of sodium is lower than 9 of the other 12 burgers here, which surprised me, and 60 grams of protein comes with it.

At 990 calories it's the lightest beef burger among the Glamburgers, and the only one under 1,000. Nothing on it needs explaining. Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and mayonnaise on a toasted brioche bun, over a charbroiled patty. It lands 290 calories under the Classic Burger and carries 640 mg less sodium. This is the burger I'd order to actually taste the beef. $17.50 to $19.95.

42 grams of sugar, the most of the 13 burgers. Barbecue sauce is the likeliest source. Smoked bacon, melted cheddar, crispy onion strings, barbecue ranch sauce and lettuce go on a charbroiled patty. 1,580 calories makes it the third-heaviest burger, and 68 grams of protein puts it second to the Bacon-Bacon. Onion strings go soggy under sauce within minutes. Eat it first, before the fries.

19 grams of protein, the lowest of the 13 burgers on the menu. It also carries the most carbohydrate of any of them, at 129 grams. The patty is brown rice, farro, mushrooms and black beans, so grain does the work a beef patty would. Farro is wheat. That's why gluten is on the list. Vegetarian, 1,040 calories and 2,920 mg of sodium, and if protein is the reason you want a burger, this isn't it.

100 calories, 40 fewer than the Cafe Latte. Less milk, in other words. Café con leche is how Spain and Cuba take coffee in the morning, strong coffee with hot milk, and the Cuban version in Miami bakeries comes with buttered toast for dunking. 8 grams of sugar, which is about what the milk alone would carry. Milk is the only allergen. $6.50.

In Miami's Cuban cafés a cortadito is sweetened before the milk goes in, with sugar whipped into the first drops of espresso until it foams, yet this one lists 1 gram of sugar, so it arrives unsweetened. 15 calories. The lightest milk coffee on the list. Cortado is Spanish for cut, meaning the espresso is cut with a little steamed milk. Add your own sugar if you want it Cuban. $6.50.

Latte is simply Italian for milk. Order a latte in Milan and you'll get a glass of it. Here it's espresso with steamed milk, 140 calories and 10 grams of protein, and its 160 mg of sodium ties the Factory Hot Chocolate for the most of the nine hot drinks, which is simply what a large volume of milk carries. No added sweetness shows in the figures. 14 grams of sugar sits in line with milk sugar. $6.50 to $6.95.

The name comes from Mocha, the Yemeni port that shipped much of the world's coffee in the 17th and 18th centuries, and chocolate got attached to it later. Espresso meets chocolate and steamed milk. 630 calories. That's 4.5 times the Cafe Latte, and 29 grams of saturated fat say cream is involved. Soy is on the allergen list, which lecithin in the chocolate would explain. $7.50.

The name comes from the Capuchin friars, whose brown habits matched the colour of coffee cut with milk. Italians treat it as a morning drink. At 100 calories it ties the Cafe Con Leche and comes in 40 under the Cafe Latte, because foam takes up room that liquid milk would otherwise fill. Milk and soy are listed. 7 grams of protein. $6.50 to $6.95.

74 grams of sugar, the most of all nine hot drinks, more even than the Factory Hot Chocolate, and almost twice what a Kids' Mini Hot Fudge Sundae carries. Double espresso, hot caramel, vanilla and steamed milk. Macchiato means marked in Italian. Originally the mark was a spot of milk foam on espresso, not a cup of caramel. Gluten appears on its allergen list, oddly for a coffee. 660 calories.

5 calories and no allergens. The nutrition data lists its caffeine as 0 mg, which can't be right. USDA figures put a single shot of espresso at about 63 mg of caffeine, so a double lands somewhere around 125 mg, more than the 30 mg listed for a to-go soft drink and roughly what a strong cup of brewed coffee delivers. $4.95. Drink it standing, the Italian way. It's the cheapest hot drink here.

At 820 calories, it's 250 more than a slice of Low-Licious Cheesecake. It leads the nine hot drinks on calories, fat and protein, and 34 grams of that fat is saturated. Whipped cream goes on top. Gluten is on the allergen list, which you wouldn't expect in hot chocolate. Soy and milk are too. Split it between two.

It's one of the newer drinks, added with the 2026 spring menu, and at 170 calories with 27 grams of sugar it sits between the Cafe Latte and the heavy chocolate drinks. Matcha is green tea grown in shade for the last weeks before harvest, then stone-ground into powder. You drink the whole leaf. Uji, near Kyoto, is its best-known source. The data lists 0 mg of caffeine here too, though matcha does contain it. Milk is the only allergen.

750 calories, almost two scoops' worth of the A La Mode's 400. It's the lightest of the three ice cream desserts, and the only one with no tree nuts. Vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world after saffron, because every flower of the orchid has to be pollinated by hand outside Mexico, and Madagascar grows most of the global crop. 32 grams of saturated fat. Milk and eggs are listed. $7.95 to $10.50.

Godiva was founded in Brussels in 1926 by the Draps family, who named it after the Lady Godiva of Coventry legend, and the brand has belonged to the Turkish food group Yıldız since 2007. Here the chocolate comes as a brownie, under vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream and toasted almonds. The brownie adds 470 calories to the plain Hot Fudge Sundae. 1,750 in all. 71 grams of saturated fat, sixth-highest on the menu. Four spoons.

Tree nuts. Almonds go on top and they're in the allergen list, which catches people who assume ice cream and chocolate sauce is a safe order for a child with a nut allergy. 1,280 calories, 86 grams of fat, and 220 mg of sodium — very low, because there's almost no salt in ice cream, fudge and cream. You can ask for it without the almonds. It's the only allergen on the dish that comes off the top rather than out of the recipe.

45 grams of sugar, just 1 gram less than the Kids' Chocolate Milk, so picking juice over chocolate milk doesn't cut the sugar in any meaningful way. The chocolate milk at least brings 13 grams of protein. Juice brings none. 190 calories. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests no more than 4 to 6 ounces of juice a day for children aged 4 to 6. Water it down by half.

The kids' version costs $10.50, the adult Cheese Flatbread $12.95. On the nutrition sheet they're the same food. Both show 1,000 calories, 50 grams of fat and 2,530 mg of sodium, which is more salt than the FDA's 2,300 mg daily value for adults, so either the portions match or the data is duplicated, and for a child it makes no difference which. Vegetarian. 49 grams of protein. Split it between two children.

59 grams of protein, the most of anything on the children's menu, and for $2 more than the plain Kids' Quesadilla the chicken adds 19 grams of protein and 120 calories. 940 calories, though. That's within 180 of the adult Quesadilla. 35 grams of saturated fat. Gluten, milk, wheat and soy are listed. Order it with fruit, not fries.

550 mg of sodium. No main on the children's menu has less. The adult Chicken Tenders carry 3,230 mg, almost six times as much, so this is the fried chicken order where the kids' portion is genuinely scaled down rather than just smaller. 460 calories and 24 grams of protein. Gluten, milk, eggs and wheat are listed. It's the plate I'd order for a picky eater.

Grilled cheese became an American lunch staple in the 1920s and 1930s, once sliced bread and processed cheese were both cheap and on every grocery shelf. This one is 700 calories. The salt is the surprise. 1,960 mg, fifth-highest on the children's menu, from bread, butter and cheese together. Only 18 grams of protein. Eggs and soy are listed along with gluten, milk and wheat.

Milk is the only allergen on this plate. On a children's menu full of breaded, fried and cheese-sauced options, that makes it one of the simplest dishes to order for a child with allergies. 460 calories. 33 grams of protein, the fifth-highest figure among the kids' dishes. Grilled chicken breast comes with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. The 1,600 mg of sodium is the one number I'd want lower.

540 calories, which is 43% of the adult Grilled Salmon plate. A smaller fillet comes with mashed potatoes and vegetables. 32 grams of protein is the sixth-highest figure on the children's menu. Milk and fish are the only allergens. Gluten isn't one of them. If your child eats fish, this is the best-balanced plate they'll find here, with 910 mg of sodium against the 2,040 in the macaroni and cheese.

No nutrition figures are published for it. Of the children's menu items, 26 have figures and this isn't among them. It's made in-house and served cold over ice.

1,160 calories. That's the heaviest dish on the children's menu, 320 calories more than the adult Filet Mignon. Sodium is 2,040 mg, close to a full adult day's limit, in a bowl meant for a child. I'd still order it, just not for one kid. Split it between two and each gets 580 calories and 14 or 15 grams of protein, which is a normal dinner. Vegetarian, with gluten, wheat and milk listed.

Whole milk, 200 calories and 10 grams of fat. $1.95, the same price as the non-fat version. For a child under two, whole milk is what paediatricians recommend, because the fat supports brain development at that age, and after the second birthday the Kids' Non-Fat Milk gives more protein for 80 fewer calories. 10 grams of protein. 16 grams of sugar, all lactose. Milk is the only allergen.

Two places claim the corn dog, the Cozy Dog Drive In on Route 66 in Springfield, Illinois, and the Pronto Pup stand at the Minnesota State Fair, and both date theirs to the 1940s. These are the mini version. 610 calories and 42 grams of fat. That's 190 calories more than the Kids' Pigs in a Blanket. 1,790 mg of sodium, sixth-highest on the children's menu. I'd pick the pigs in a blanket instead.

No tree nuts are listed. The adult Hot Fudge Sundae lists them. That makes this the sundae to order at a table with a nut allergy, at 480 calories, 38% of the adult version's 1,280, with milk, eggs and soy the only allergens. 38 grams of sugar. 20 grams of saturated fat. $5.95 to $7.50.

37 grams of saturated fat, second only to the Kids' Macaroni and Cheese on the children's menu, and nearly double the 20-gram daily value set for adults. 910 calories. That's 47% of the adult Fettuccini Alfredo. The butter pasta is half the calories. Vegetarian, with 1,370 mg of sodium. I'd order it only for a child who won't eat anything else.

The cheapest pasta on the children's menu, at $8.95. Also the least salty of the three. 950 mg of sodium against 1,370 for the Alfredo and 1,600 for the marinara, which surprised me, because tomato sauce is the one that looks light, but a seasoned tomato sauce carries more salt than butter and a little parmesan. 460 calories. 11 grams of saturated fat. Vegetarian.

It's the only pasta on the children's menu with no milk on the allergen list, and at 1 gram of saturated fat and 0 mg of cholesterol it's the leanest of the three by a distance. Salt runs the other way. 1,600 mg, the most of the three pasta choices. The sauce accounts for that. Gluten and wheat are the only allergens. 470 calories, vegetarian.

2,720 mg of sodium. Nothing on the children's menu is saltier. That's more than the FDA's 2,300 mg daily value for an adult, on one plate for a child, and it comes with 990 calories and 86 grams of carbohydrate, tied with the Kids' Cheese Flatbread for the most carbs on the kids' menu. $11.50, against $14.95 for the adult Pepperoni Flatbread. The adult one is only 180 calories heavier. Share it between two kids.

The plain Kids' Quesadilla carries 34 grams of saturated fat, more than the Kids' Grilled Cheese Sandwich at 21, even though both are essentially cheese in bread. 820 calories. 40 grams of protein. Adding chicken turns it into the Kids' Chicken Quesadilla, for 120 more calories. Vegetarian, with milk, soy, gluten and wheat listed. 1,440 mg of sodium, 520 less than the grilled cheese.

360 calories, the lightest main on the children's menu. Two bite-sized burgers on mini buns. Gluten and wheat are the only allergens listed, with no milk, eggs, soy or sesame, which makes this one of two kids' mains, alongside the marinara pasta, that list neither milk nor egg. 22 grams of protein. 750 mg of sodium. The adult Roadside Sliders run 800 calories.

320 calories, which is 80 fewer than the A La Mode scoop added to a slice of cheesecake, so the children's scoop is simply the smaller portion, and at $4.25 it's the cheapest dessert a kid can order. Milk and eggs are listed. No nuts. 25 grams of sugar. The Kids' Mini Hot Fudge Sundae adds hot fudge for 160 more calories. I'd skip the fudge.

The figures show 0 calories, which describes a diet or zero-sugar soda, not a regular cola, and a 12-ounce Coca-Cola carries 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar. Ask which one you're getting. The adult to-go soft drink lists 30 mg of caffeine. This one lists none. For a young child, a caffeine-free lemon-lime soda is the safer pick. $1.95 to $2.50.

One meatball, singular. The adult Spaghetti and Meatballs is 1,920 calories; this is 680. The salt doesn't shrink as far, 2,180 mg against the adult plate's 5,550, so the child's portion keeps 39% of the sodium on 35% of the calories, and it's the third-saltiest thing on the kids' menu. 8 grams of saturated fat, low for this menu. 29 grams of protein. Eggs are listed, from the meatball.

180 calories. The Kids' Fresh Fruit is 50. Strawberries on their own carry almost no fat, so the 14 grams here, 9 of them saturated, come from dairy, and milk on the allergen list points to cream served with the berries. 15 mg of sodium. $4.95. For a child who wants dessert, it's the lightest one on the kids' menu.

450 calories. That's under 40% of the Kids' Macaroni and Cheese, so the dessert here weighs less than the heaviest main on the children's menu by more than 700 calories. It's a small bowl. Sugared biscuit on vanilla ice cream, strawberries and whipped cream around it. 25 grams of fat and 380 mg of sodium. Order it after a Kids' Grilled Chicken plate and the two come to 910 calories together.

Pastry-wrapped hot dogs, 420 calories, with 780 mg of sodium, less than half the salt of the Kids’ Mini Corn Dogs. In Britain, pigs in blankets means sausages wrapped in bacon, a Christmas side dish. The American version wraps the sausage in dough. That's what this is. Gluten, milk, soy and wheat are listed, but no egg. $8.95.

A child's portion of fries carries 870 mg of sodium, which is more than the entire Kids' Pigs in a Blanket plate, pastry and hot dogs included, at 780. 300 calories. That's 28% of the adult French Fries, while the salt is 59% of theirs. The small portion gets salted as if it were the big one. Swap in Kids' Fresh Fruit at the same $3.50 and the plate loses 250 calories and all 870 mg. No allergens are listed on the fries.

50 calories and 0 mg of sodium. Nothing else on the children's menu has less salt. It costs $3.50, the same as Kids' French Fries, so the swap is free, and it takes 250 calories off a child's plate without anyone needing to explain why. The menu tags it gluten-free. No allergens are listed. The fruit mix isn't specified on the menu, so ask if your child is picky.

46 grams of sugar, which is 8 more than the Kids' Mini Hot Fudge Sundae. Plain Kids' Milk has 16 grams, all of it lactose, the sugar milk carries naturally, so the chocolate adds roughly 30 grams of sugar and 130 calories. The American Heart Association sets 25 grams of added sugar a day as the upper limit for children. $2.25. 13 grams of protein. I'd pour it as dessert, not with the meal.

$1.95. 120 calories. 0 grams of fat. Against the regular Kids' Milk, it saves 80 calories and 10 grams of fat and gives your child 2 more grams of protein, since removing the fat concentrates everything else in the glass. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends whole milk from 12 to 24 months and low-fat or non-fat milk after that. So this is the one for anyone past their second birthday.

At 1,950 calories this is the heaviest salad on the menu, heavier even than the Chicken Parmesan Pizza Style, which is a breaded chicken breast under melted cheese with Alfredo pasta on the side. Chicken, avocado, tomato, grilled corn, black beans, cucumber and romaine are tossed in barbecue ranch dressing. Then come the crispy fried onion strings, lots of them. 124 grams of fat. It does have 22 grams of fiber, tied for the most on the whole menu. Get the dressing on the side, and ask for half the onion strings.

Roberta's in Brooklyn made the bee sting pizza famous, hot chilli and honey over cured pork, and this flatbread takes the idea and adds more meat to it. Italian sausage, pepperoni, bacon and Calabrian chiles go on with mozzarella, vodka sauce and parmesan. Honey finishes it. The sweetness is what makes three salty meats work together. 1,170 calories, tied with the Pepperoni for the heaviest flatbread. 3,280 mg of sodium.

114 grams of fat. That's 30 more than the Grilled Salmon, from the same fish. Blackening was popularised by the New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme in the 1980s: the fillet is coated in butter and spice and seared in a very hot cast-iron pan until the crust chars. Add a Creole sauce, mashed potatoes and buttered corn and the plate reaches 1,570 calories, the second-heaviest in the seafood section. The allergen list stops at milk and fish. No gluten.

The adult Cheese Flatbread and the Kids' Cheese Flatbread have identical published figures. 1,000 calories and 2,530 mg of sodium, each. Either the portions are the same or the data repeats itself, and I can't tell you which, but if you're ordering for a child it's worth knowing the kids' version isn't a smaller meal on paper. Mozzarella, fontina and parmesan over tomato sauce, no toppings. Vegetarian. 49 grams of protein.

This chicken dish lists fish among its allergens. A classic piccata is lemon, butter, capers and white wine with no fish at all, and the menu doesn't say which ingredient adds it, so if you avoid fish, ask before ordering. The plate itself is one of the better-judged ones here. 1,420 calories with 79 grams of protein. Compare the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka at 1,570 calories and 34 grams and you can see which one feeds you. Capers are pickled flower buds, and they do the same job as the lemon, cutting through the butter. I'd eat around a lot on a plate, but not those. Sodium is 2,920 mg.

Tree nuts. Almonds through the salad, listed in the allergens, and nothing in the name suggests it — this is one of seven salads here that contain nuts, and people ordering a salad tend not to check. 102 grams of fat and 1,630 calories, which puts it above the Carne Asada Steak. The dressing and the fried wonton strips account for most of that; the lettuce underneath doesn't offset any of it. 50 grams of protein and 2,960 mg of sodium. It's a good salad. It just isn't a light lunch, and the section it sits in encourages you to think it is.

30 grams of carbohydrate with 66 grams of protein. On a menu where almost everything comes with pasta, rice or fries, that ratio is genuinely hard to find — only the California Omelette, the Buffalo Wings and the Tuscan Chicken beat it. The catch is fat: 124 grams, from the bacon, egg, blue cheese, avocado and dressing. 1,480 calories total, and 2,460 mg of sodium. So it's low-carb rather than low-calorie, and those aren't the same thing. If you're eating that way deliberately this is one of the best orders in the building. If you picked it because it says salad, the numbers will surprise you. Ask for the dressing on the side. It's the single change that moves this plate most.

107 grams of protein, third-highest on the entire menu behind only the Chicken Parmesan and the Buffalo Wings, and it does it at 1,800 calories. Several pastas here cost more calories and give you half that. Romano and parmesan are both hard aged cheeses, high in salt and low in moisture, which is why crusting chicken in them browns into a shell rather than going soft the way breadcrumbs do. The tomato-herb sauce underneath is deliberately thin. It's there to stop the cheese running the whole plate. That cheese costs you 4,420 mg of sodium — close to twice a day. If you track salt, plan the rest of the day around this rather than skipping it, because on protein there's almost nothing better here.

Vegetarian, 1,270 calories and 29 grams of protein, which gives it the second-worst protein-to-calorie ratio of any adult pasta here, after the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka. Penne comes tossed with broccoli, asparagus, courgette, peppers and basil in olive oil and a light tomato sauce. It's a vegetable-led plate, not a cream pasta with vegetables stirred in. Sodium is 2,520 mg, gentle by the standards of this section. As a light vegetarian dinner it works. As a main, add a starter with some protein in it.

5,100 mg of sodium, fourth-highest on the whole menu, and 1,930 calories, which puts this comfort dish ahead of every steak on offer. Fish is also on the allergen list. Worcestershire sauce is a standard meatloaf seasoning and it's made with anchovies, which is the likeliest explanation, though the menu doesn't confirm it. Ask if fish matters to you. Mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, grilled onions and buttered corn come with it. It's two meals.

Roasting is what the garlic is there for. Raw, it's sharp and aggressive, but after an hour in the oven the sugars caramelise and a whole clove goes soft and sweet enough to spread on bread. Those cloves go into the cream sauce whole, over bowtie pasta with chicken. 1,870 calories, 95 grams of protein, 4,130 mg of sodium. That sodium is close to double a day's limit. It's heavy, though the Louisiana Chicken Pasta still outweighs it by 400 calories. For the same flavour family lighter, the Pasta Da Vinci is 330 calories down and carries about 1,750 mg less sodium.

Alfredo di Lelio's original, served in Rome from around 1914, had no cream at all: fresh fettuccine, butter and parmesan, tossed at the table until the cheese melted into a sauce. Hollywood made it famous. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford ate it on their 1920 honeymoon in Rome and brought the dish's name home with them, and the American version grew a cream sauce along the way. The Cheesecake Factory's is a rich parmesan cream sauce. 78 grams of saturated fat, nearly four days of the FDA's 20-gram daily value. Vegetarian, 1,930 calories.

Adding chicken to the Fettuccini Alfredo costs $4 and 190 calories and gives you 41 more grams of protein, which is the best trade on this particular plate. It doesn't fix the rest. 2,120 calories, tied with the Bruléed French Toast for fourth-heaviest on the whole menu. The 78 grams of saturated fat stay exactly where they were. 91 grams of protein. Take half home before you start.

$2 more than the chicken version. 19 fewer grams of protein. Shrimp adds 120 calories and 22 grams of protein to the plain Fettuccini Alfredo, where chicken adds 190 calories and 41 grams, so per calorie the chicken is the better protein buy even before the price. 2,050 calories. Crustacean shellfish joins gluten, milk, eggs and wheat on the allergen list. Order it for the shrimp, not the numbers.

The heaviest plate in the seafood section: 1,930 calories, 115 grams of fat and 3,580 mg of sodium, first on all three counts. Fried fish and chips were being sold together in London by the 1860s, and Joseph Malin's shop in the East End is the name most histories give as the first. The formula hasn't moved much. Here the fish is hand-battered and fried crisp, with fries, coleslaw and tartar sauce. A side order of fries on this menu is 1,060 calories by itself, so the fries are where I'd leave some behind. 79 grams of protein.

At 1,280 calories it's among the lighter pastas here, and it's vegetarian, which makes it the obvious pick for a meat-free table. The sodium undoes some of that. 4,110 mg. That's close to twice a day's limit. Cheese is salt-cured, and four of them baked into one dish add up fast. People assume the calorie saving carries over to the salt. It doesn't. Mozzarella gives the pull, ricotta the softness, and romano and parmesan the sharp edge, all baked into marinara with basil. It's baked rather than sauced. Gluten, wheat and milk are listed, so it suits vegetarians and not a dairy-free guest.

It's the Margherita with more cheese. Fontina and parmesan join the mozzarella, and that adds 90 calories and 530 mg of sodium. Fontina comes from the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps, a mountain cheese that melts smooth and tastes faintly of nuts, and parmesan brings the salt, which is why this lands at 2,300 mg where the Margherita sits at 1,770. 84 grams of carbohydrate, the fewest of the seven flatbreads. Vegetarian. I'd order it over the Margherita for the fontina alone.

The lunch salmon costs $8 less than the dinner Grilled Salmon, $19.95 against $27.95, and on the nutrition sheet it's heavier: 1,330 calories to 1,270. The fish isn't where the difference sits. This plate shows 86 grams of carbohydrate and 25 grams of sugar, against 64 and 5 on the dinner plate, which points to different sides rather than a bigger fillet. Protein is almost level, 63 grams to 62. Milk, eggs and fish are listed. No gluten. At that price, it's the better buy of the two.

Sam Panopoulos, a Greek immigrant running a restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, put pineapple on a pizza in 1962, so the Hawaiian is Canadian, and people have argued about it ever since. This version is sold at the Hawaii restaurants. Canadian bacon, ham, fresh pineapple and red onion go over red pizza sauce and mozzarella. 960 calories. 54 grams of protein and 2,870 mg of sodium. I'm on the pineapple side of the argument.

The crust brings gluten. The Grilled Salmon has none. Beurre blanc is butter whisked into a reduction of white wine and shallots until it emulsifies into a sauce, and it's rich by definition, so with the crust on top this plate reaches 93 grams of fat and 1,350 calories. Asparagus and mashed potatoes come alongside. 64 grams of protein. Sodium is 1,620 mg, the second-lowest in the seafood section.

65 grams of protein, the most of the seven flatbreads. It's one of the Hawaii-only items. Kalua pork is traditionally cooked whole in an imu, an underground oven lined with hot stones and banana leaves, until it shreds, and here it goes on the flatbread with red onion, red bell pepper, pineapple and mozzarella and no tomato sauce. 1,100 calories. 2,490 mg of sodium. If you're in Honolulu, order this over the Hawaiian.

4,660 mg of sodium. Double the daily maximum in one bowl, and that's only the fourth-highest pasta here — Spaghetti and Meatballs runs 5,550. The calories reach 2,270, third-highest of anything on the menu. It's built to stack salt: parmesan crust on the cutlets, cream sauce underneath, Cajun seasoning through the peppers and onion. Three salted components, layered rather than balanced. You get 98 grams of protein for it, so this isn't empty weight. It'll feed two people properly. One thing that catches people: fish is in the allergen list. Most cream pastas here aren't, and nothing about parmesan-crusted chicken suggests otherwise.

Of the seven flatbreads, this one is lightest on calories, fat and sodium alike, with 760 calories, 30 grams of fat and 1,770 mg of salt. Fresh mozzarella, basil and tomato sauce. The popular story says a Naples pizzaiolo named Raffaele Esposito made it in 1889 for Queen Margherita, in the colours of the Italian flag. Historians doubt the details. 34 grams of protein. Vegetarian.

1,430 mg of sodium, which sounds like a lot until you compare it to the rest of this menu — it's less than half what the Louisiana Chicken Pasta does and about a fifth of the Buffalo Blasts. Miso is fermented soybean paste, and fermenting is what gives the glaze that dark savoury depth without needing much sugar. It also means soy is in the allergen list alongside fish and milk. 1,340 calories, 64 grams of protein. On a menu where the healthy-sounding options frequently aren't, this one holds up to the numbers. Order it if the rest of the table is having something enormous and you'd rather not.

233 grams of carbohydrate, exactly the same as Linda's Fudge Cake. A chicken dinner and a chocolate layer cake, level. The reason is the glaze and the rice underneath rather than the chicken. Battered, fried, coated in a sweet citrus sauce — sugar is doing structural work here, not just seasoning. 1,750 calories, 52 grams of protein, 2,730 mg of sodium. Gluten, wheat, soy and sesame are listed. No dairy, no egg, which is unusual for something fried on this menu.

139 grams of fat, third-highest on the menu. 2,030 calories. Real carbonara has no cream in it — egg yolk, hard cheese and pasta water emulsify into a sauce, and that's the whole technique. This is the cream version, which is what almost every restaurant outside Rome serves, and there's no point pretending otherwise. It's rich in a different way. Heavier, more forgiving, less likely to split. Bacon rather than guanciale, again the American convention. 50 grams of protein, 3,480 mg of sodium, and gluten, wheat and milk on the allergen list. Split it or take half home. Eaten alone, that's 61 grams past the FDA's daily value for fat.

I send people here when they want the Madeira sauce without the damage. It's the same reduced fortified wine as the Chicken Madeira, at 1,540 calories and 2,380 mg of sodium, which is about half the salt in the Louisiana Chicken Pasta. Reducing Madeira burns off the alcohol and concentrates the sugar. That's the faintly caramelised edge. Caramelised onions push the same direction, and the mushrooms pull the whole thing back toward savoury before it gets sweet. Gluten, wheat and milk are listed, and nothing else. With 71 grams of protein it's a proper main, so if the pastas here usually beat you, start with this one.

At 5,090 mg of sodium it's the fifth-saltiest dish on the whole menu, and both proteins arrive already seasoned, since Italian sausage is salted and spiced before it ever meets the pan. Rigatoni, shrimp, sausage, onions and mildly spicy peppers are tossed in marinara with fresh basil. The ridges on rigatoni are there to hold a chunky sauce. This is the right shape for it. 1,780 calories and 68 grams of protein. Drink water with it.

The adult Pepperoni Flatbread is 1,170 calories. The Kids' Pepperoni Flatbread is 990. That's only 180 calories apart, so the children's version isn't much of a smaller meal, and the salt gap is 710 mg, with this one at 3,430, the saltiest of the seven flatbreads. Pepperoni is an Italian-American invention, first recorded in New York around 1919. It curls into cups as it cooks because the casing shrinks faster than the meat. 66 grams of fat.

The menu lists the half sandwich alone at 850 calories, then adds a cup of soup at 310 to 390 and a small green salad at 260, so the whole lunch lands between 1,420 and 1,500. That's a lot for a half. The full Chicken Salad Sandwich is 1,180. A half-portion at 72% of the whole doesn't add up as a simple halving. Tree nuts and fish are both listed. Swap the green salad for a Caesar and you add 180 calories for $1.

790 calories for half a turkey sandwich. That's before the cup of soup and the small green salad that come with it. Add the soup at 310 to 390 calories and the salad at 260, and this lunch comes to 1,360 to 1,440, heavier than the whole triple-decker turkey sandwich in The Club, at 1,290 before its side. 32 grams of protein in the half sandwich. No fish or tree nuts, unlike the chicken-almond version. $17.95.

This salad contains peanuts, and it's one of only three salads on the menu that do. Nothing in the name suggests it. The second surprise is size: 1,670 calories and 112 grams of fat, more calories than the Grilled Rib-Eye Steak. Chicken, avocado, cheese, tortilla strips and dressing all stack on top of each other. The lettuce doesn't offset any of it. It's still a good plate, with 68 grams of protein and proper Southwest flavours. Order it as a full meal, because that's what it is.

124 grams of fat, and only 16 of them are saturated. The Fettuccini Alfredo carries almost the same total, 128 grams, with 78 saturated. Avocado, cashews and a citrus-honey-peanut vinaigrette explain it. Those fats come from plants and nuts, not butter and cream. Chicken, mixed greens, crisp tortilla strips, carrots and cilantro fill out the bowl. It's still 1,820 calories, second only to the Barbeque Ranch Chicken Salad among the salads, and with peanuts and tree nuts both listed, but no milk or egg, it suits a dairy-free diner with no nut allergy.

Milk is the only allergen on this dish. No gluten, no wheat, no egg, no soy, no nuts — and on a menu where almost everything lists five things, that's remarkable enough to be the reason to order it. Ground beef and vegetables under mashed potato, 1,400 calories, 74 grams of protein. Sodium runs 3,290 mg, which is the real cost. Strictly a shepherd's pie is lamb and a cottage pie is beef. Almost nobody outside Britain observes that, and the kitchen here doesn't either. It's beef.

570 calories and $12.50 make this the lightest and the cheapest of the 28 lunch favorites, and nothing else in that section comes within 200 calories of it. The soup changes. Renee's Special lists a cup at 310 to 390 calories. So one fixed figure can only be approximate. Gluten, milk and wheat are listed. Ask for a broth-based soup if you're here for the lightness.

5,550 mg of sodium, the second-highest figure on the entire menu, beaten only by the Buffalo Blasts. That's close to two and a half days of salt. The meatballs account for part of it, because they're made with Italian sausage and parmesan as well as beef. Tomato sauce adds more. 1,920 calories, 179 grams of carbohydrate. Split it, and keep the starter light.

Chipotle is a smoked, dried jalapeño, and smoking is what separates this from every other cream pasta on the menu. You get heat, but it arrives late and low rather than sharp. That's the whole appeal. It runs 1,770 calories and 3,230 mg of sodium, which is heavy but not the worst here — the Farfalle with Chicken and Roasted Garlic beats it on both counts. The 67 grams of protein come from the grilled chicken, and the asparagus and peppers do more work than you'd expect, because they're the only things breaking up the cream. Gluten, wheat and milk are the only allergens listed. No egg, no nuts, no fish. For a dish this loaded that's a genuinely short list, and it makes this one of the easier pastas to order for a table with restrictions.

I'd order something else. Of every adult pasta here, this one gives you the least protein for the calories, 34 grams against 1,570, which puts it dead last. Vodka's job in the sauce is mostly structural. It keeps the cream from splitting as the sauce reduces, and most of the alcohol cooks off. The sauce is genuinely good. Its texture is what you're paying for. There's no meat in it, though, and 4,470 mg of sodium, so add grilled chicken or take the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta, which is 300 calories lighter with 83 grams of protein.

Vegan, which on this menu is rare enough to matter. It's also 89 grams of fat, about 76% of its 1,060 calories, from the almonds, pepitas, avocado and vinaigrette. Protein is only 16 grams. White beans, quinoa and farro are all in there and still don't get you close to what a chicken salad delivers, so this eats more like a large side than a main. Farro contains gluten and the almonds are tree nuts, both listed. Asparagus, beets, green beans, tomato, cucumber and carrot fill the rest of the bowl.

The Factory Nachos are 2,670 calories. These are 730. Fried wonton chips replace tortilla chips, and chicken, cheese, Thai peanut sauce, green onion, sesame and wasabi cream go over them, which puts peanuts, sesame, soy and egg on a seven-item allergen list. $7.95. 30 grams of protein. It's the nacho plate I'd order for two.

340 calories and 610 mg of sodium. Both are the lowest figures in its section of the new menu. It's also close to protein-free at 5 grams. Three slices of toasted sourdough carry mashed avocado, rocket, cherry tomatoes, pickled red onion, grated parmesan and lemon zest, and the parmesan is why milk appears among the allergens alongside gluten and wheat. Treat it as a snack. It won't hold you until dinner.

The white rind on brie is a mould, Penicillium candidum, and it's edible, so there's no need to cut it away before spreading the soft cheese underneath onto the bread. Warm bread comes with brie, truffle-honey butter and housemade orange marmalade. The truffle honey is the same idea that drives the Truffle-Honey Chicken. 610 calories. Vegetarian, with gluten, milk and wheat listed. 860 mg of sodium, second-lowest of the 10 bites.

David Chang put pork belly buns on the menu at Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York in 2004, and they became one of the most copied dishes of the decade. This version slathers pork belly in barbecue sauce and tops it with coleslaw, crispy onions and pickles on warm rolls. 1,820 mg of sodium is the most of the 10 bites. 81 grams of fat. Fish is on the allergen list. At 1,080 calories, only the Chicken & Biscuits is heavier among the bites.

It's on the Bites menu and carries 1,240 calories, 90 more than the entire Steak Diane plate. Housemade buttermilk biscuits come topped with Southern fried chicken, sausage gravy and hot honey butter, three rich things stacked on a fourth. In the Bites section it has the most calories, the most fat, at 88 grams, and the most protein, at 44. At $9.50 to $11.50, it's a cheap way to eat a full meal. I think that's the honest way to order it. Don't treat it as a starter. Sodium is 1,460 mg.

25 grams of fat, the least of the 10 bites. 480 calories. Housemade meatballs are covered with vodka sauce, melted mozzarella and parmesan on slider rolls, and vodka sauce is tomato sauce finished with cream, with the vodka there to sharpen the flavour rather than to add alcohol you'd notice. 21 grams of protein. 1,390 mg of sodium. Egg sits on the allergen list with milk, gluten and wheat.

Fat supplies about 70% of the 600 calories, 47 grams of it, which is more than you'd guess from shrimp in a tomato-based Creole sauce over toasted bread. The name says Cajun and the sauce says Creole. Louisiana cooks will tell you those aren't the same thing. 18 grams of protein. Shellfish and fish are both listed. $8.50 to $9.95.

Most truffle oil sold today gets its smell from a lab-made compound called 2,4-dithiapentane rather than from truffles, and the menu doesn't say which kind goes into these fries or their truffle aioli. 940 calories. That's 120 fewer than a side of French Fries, parmesan included. Eggs are listed, from the aioli. 85 grams of carbohydrate, the most of the 10 bites. Vegetarian.

$6.95, the cheapest of the bites. Guss' Pickles supplies the spears. The pickles are peeled, dipped in flour and buttermilk, coated in seasoned breadcrumbs and fried, then served with spicy ranch, which is why 47 grams of fat supply about 81% of the 520 calories. 18 grams of carbohydrate, the fewest of the bites. 3 grams of protein. Vegetarian.

Arancini means little oranges, the Sicilian name for fried rice balls, and here the rice is spicy Creole rice with andouille sausage, peppers and onions instead of saffron risotto. 59 grams of fat on 730 calories. The frying does that. Fish is listed, though nothing in the description explains it. 12 grams of protein. $7.50 to $8.50.

Swapping rice for mixed greens saves 230 calories, yet the greens version carries more fat, 30 grams against 22, and more sodium, 1,650 mg against 1,470. So the dressing on the greens is doing something the rice isn't. Both cost $19.95. At 600 calories this is still the lightest of the 10 bowls. Edamame, avocado and cucumber come in both. The tuna is raw.

22 grams of fat and 1,470 mg of sodium. Both are the lowest of the 10 bowls. Raw sushi-grade tuna is tossed with soy, sesame and garlic and served over white rice with edamame, avocado and cucumber, and the rice is why this version carries 124 grams of carbohydrate to the greens bowl's 54. 830 calories. 38 grams of protein. Pick this over the greens version unless you're counting carbs.

At 4,560 mg of sodium it's the saltiest of the 10 bowls by more than 1,500 mg, and 12th-saltiest on the whole menu, which is two days of the FDA's daily value in one bowl. Tender steak comes with snow peas, broccoli, peppers and onion over garlic noodles. It's also the heaviest bowl, at 1,610 calories. 50 grams of sugar. Sesame and soy are listed. Ask for the sauce light.

Milk and shellfish are the only allergens. No gluten, no wheat, no egg. Chipotle-honey shrimp sit over rice and beans with roasted corn salsa, guacamole and crispy tortilla strips, and at 940 calories it's the lightest of the three Baja Bowls, though its 43 grams of protein trail the chicken version by 21. $16.95, the same as the chicken. 2,010 mg of sodium. Chipotles are smoke-dried jalapeños.

Milk is the only allergen on this bowl, and 64 grams of protein is the most of all 10 bowls, which together make it the easiest bowl to recommend. Grilled chicken, rice and beans, roasted corn salsa, guacamole and crispy tortilla strips. 1,080 calories. 15 grams of fiber. $16.95. For the same price, the shrimp version gives you 21 fewer grams of protein.

Of the three Baja Bowls, only this one lists gluten and wheat. The chicken and shrimp versions don't. Carnitas come from Michoacán, where pork is simmered slowly in its own fat until it falls apart and then crisped, and here it joins rice, beans, poblano chile, roasted corn salsa, sour cream and guacamole. 17 grams of fiber, the most of any bowl. 1,150 calories. 2,630 mg of sodium.

Tokyo's Rengatei restaurant began serving breaded, deep-fried cutlets in 1899, adapting a European dish for Japanese diners, and katsu has been Japanese comfort food ever since. Here the crispy chicken gets teriyaki glaze, with edamame, mushrooms, cucumber and sesame over rice. 190 grams of carbohydrate is the most of the 10 bowls. No milk is listed. At $14.95 it's the cheapest bowl. 1,380 calories.

60 grams of protein, second among the 10 bowls. 1,200 calories. Peru's pollo a la brasa, spit-roasted chicken, dates to 1950 in Chosica, outside Lima, and this bowl takes the idea to a charbroiler, with black beans, plantains and salsa over white rice. The allergen list runs to five items, eggs and soy among them. 2,350 mg of sodium. $16.95.

It's a whole Southern dinner stacked in one bowl, fried chicken with buttered corn, green beans and a buttermilk biscuit over mashed potatoes and gravy, and 44 grams of saturated fat is the most of any bowl. 1,540 calories. Only the Asian Tenderloin Bowl is heavier. 3,000 mg of sodium. The Chicken & Biscuits bite gives you the same fried chicken and biscuit idea for 300 fewer calories. I'd order that.

Teri means shine and yaki means grill. The glaze is supposed to gloss the fish. Charbroiled salmon goes over white rice with pineapple, sautéed vegetables and sesame seeds, and between the glaze and the pineapple the bowl carries 49 grams of sugar, second only to the Asian Tenderloin Bowl. 1,130 calories, 210 fewer than the Miso Salmon. 44 grams of protein. $19.50.

If you order one pasta here, make it this one. At 1,270 calories with 83 grams of protein it delivers more protein per calorie than any other full-size pasta on the menu, and it isn't close — the Fettuccini Alfredo needs 1,930 calories to give you 50 grams. Chicken and shrimp both go in, over linguine, in a spiced tomato sauce with peppers and onion. The shellfish matters for allergies. So does the fish listed alongside it. I spent a long time assuming the Cajun dishes here would be the heaviest things on the menu, on the theory that anything described as spicy and creamy usually is. This one isn't creamy at all, and that's why the numbers work. Sodium still lands at 3,000 mg, which is the price of Cajun seasoning anywhere.

Vegetarian, 1,270 calories and 29 grams of protein, which gives it the second-worst protein-to-calorie ratio of any adult pasta here, after the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka. Penne comes tossed with broccoli, asparagus, courgette, peppers and basil in olive oil and a light tomato sauce. It's a vegetable-led plate, not a cream pasta with vegetables stirred in. Sodium is 2,520 mg, gentle by the standards of this section. As a light vegetarian dinner it works. As a main, add a starter with some protein in it.

Roasting is what the garlic is there for. Raw, it's sharp and aggressive, but after an hour in the oven the sugars caramelise and a whole clove goes soft and sweet enough to spread on bread. Those cloves go into the cream sauce whole, over bowtie pasta with chicken. 1,870 calories, 95 grams of protein, 4,130 mg of sodium. That sodium is close to double a day's limit. It's heavy, though the Louisiana Chicken Pasta still outweighs it by 400 calories. For the same flavour family lighter, the Pasta Da Vinci is 330 calories down and carries about 1,750 mg less sodium.

Alfredo di Lelio's original, served in Rome from around 1914, had no cream at all: fresh fettuccine, butter and parmesan, tossed at the table until the cheese melted into a sauce. Hollywood made it famous. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford ate it on their 1920 honeymoon in Rome and brought the dish's name home with them, and the American version grew a cream sauce along the way. The Cheesecake Factory's is a rich parmesan cream sauce. 78 grams of saturated fat, nearly four days of the FDA's 20-gram daily value. Vegetarian, 1,930 calories.

Adding chicken to the Fettuccini Alfredo costs $4 and 190 calories and gives you 41 more grams of protein, which is the best trade on this particular plate. It doesn't fix the rest. 2,120 calories, tied with the Bruléed French Toast for fourth-heaviest on the whole menu. The 78 grams of saturated fat stay exactly where they were. 91 grams of protein. Take half home before you start.

$2 more than the chicken version. 19 fewer grams of protein. Shrimp adds 120 calories and 22 grams of protein to the plain Fettuccini Alfredo, where chicken adds 190 calories and 41 grams, so per calorie the chicken is the better protein buy even before the price. 2,050 calories. Crustacean shellfish joins gluten, milk, eggs and wheat on the allergen list. Order it for the shrimp, not the numbers.

At 1,280 calories it's among the lighter pastas here, and it's vegetarian, which makes it the obvious pick for a meat-free table. The sodium undoes some of that. 4,110 mg. That's close to twice a day's limit. Cheese is salt-cured, and four of them baked into one dish add up fast. People assume the calorie saving carries over to the salt. It doesn't. Mozzarella gives the pull, ricotta the softness, and romano and parmesan the sharp edge, all baked into marinara with basil. It's baked rather than sauced. Gluten, wheat and milk are listed, so it suits vegetarians and not a dairy-free guest.

4,660 mg of sodium. Double the daily maximum in one bowl, and that's only the fourth-highest pasta here — Spaghetti and Meatballs runs 5,550. The calories reach 2,270, third-highest of anything on the menu. It's built to stack salt: parmesan crust on the cutlets, cream sauce underneath, Cajun seasoning through the peppers and onion. Three salted components, layered rather than balanced. You get 98 grams of protein for it, so this isn't empty weight. It'll feed two people properly. One thing that catches people: fish is in the allergen list. Most cream pastas here aren't, and nothing about parmesan-crusted chicken suggests otherwise.

139 grams of fat, third-highest on the menu. 2,030 calories. Real carbonara has no cream in it — egg yolk, hard cheese and pasta water emulsify into a sauce, and that's the whole technique. This is the cream version, which is what almost every restaurant outside Rome serves, and there's no point pretending otherwise. It's rich in a different way. Heavier, more forgiving, less likely to split. Bacon rather than guanciale, again the American convention. 50 grams of protein, 3,480 mg of sodium, and gluten, wheat and milk on the allergen list. Split it or take half home. Eaten alone, that's 61 grams past the FDA's daily value for fat.

I send people here when they want the Madeira sauce without the damage. It's the same reduced fortified wine as the Chicken Madeira, at 1,540 calories and 2,380 mg of sodium, which is about half the salt in the Louisiana Chicken Pasta. Reducing Madeira burns off the alcohol and concentrates the sugar. That's the faintly caramelised edge. Caramelised onions push the same direction, and the mushrooms pull the whole thing back toward savoury before it gets sweet. Gluten, wheat and milk are listed, and nothing else. With 71 grams of protein it's a proper main, so if the pastas here usually beat you, start with this one.

At 5,090 mg of sodium it's the fifth-saltiest dish on the whole menu, and both proteins arrive already seasoned, since Italian sausage is salted and spiced before it ever meets the pan. Rigatoni, shrimp, sausage, onions and mildly spicy peppers are tossed in marinara with fresh basil. The ridges on rigatoni are there to hold a chunky sauce. This is the right shape for it. 1,780 calories and 68 grams of protein. Drink water with it.

5,550 mg of sodium, the second-highest figure on the entire menu, beaten only by the Buffalo Blasts. That's close to two and a half days of salt. The meatballs account for part of it, because they're made with Italian sausage and parmesan as well as beef. Tomato sauce adds more. 1,920 calories, 179 grams of carbohydrate. Split it, and keep the starter light.

Chipotle is a smoked, dried jalapeño, and smoking is what separates this from every other cream pasta on the menu. You get heat, but it arrives late and low rather than sharp. That's the whole appeal. It runs 1,770 calories and 3,230 mg of sodium, which is heavy but not the worst here — the Farfalle with Chicken and Roasted Garlic beats it on both counts. The 67 grams of protein come from the grilled chicken, and the asparagus and peppers do more work than you'd expect, because they're the only things breaking up the cream. Gluten, wheat and milk are the only allergens listed. No egg, no nuts, no fish. For a dish this loaded that's a genuinely short list, and it makes this one of the easier pastas to order for a table with restrictions.

I'd order something else. Of every adult pasta here, this one gives you the least protein for the calories, 34 grams against 1,570, which puts it dead last. Vodka's job in the sauce is mostly structural. It keeps the cream from splitting as the sauce reduces, and most of the alcohol cooks off. The sauce is genuinely good. Its texture is what you're paying for. There's no meat in it, though, and 4,470 mg of sodium, so add grilled chicken or take the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta, which is 300 calories lighter with 83 grams of protein.

4,910 mg of sodium — more than the Louisiana Chicken Pasta, and third-highest of any pasta on this menu. A tomato and basil dish sounds like the restrained choice. It isn't. Where it earns back some ground is protein: 72 grams for 1,720 calories, which is a better ratio than most of the cream pastas manage. Fresh tomato, basil, garlic and parmesan over penne with grilled chicken. Soy appears in the allergens alongside gluten, wheat and milk, which is unusual for an Italian-style dish here and worth a look if soy is something you avoid.

At 1,950 calories this is the heaviest salad on the menu, heavier even than the Chicken Parmesan Pizza Style, which is a breaded chicken breast under melted cheese with Alfredo pasta on the side. Chicken, avocado, tomato, grilled corn, black beans, cucumber and romaine are tossed in barbecue ranch dressing. Then come the crispy fried onion strings, lots of them. 124 grams of fat. It does have 22 grams of fiber, tied for the most on the whole menu. Get the dressing on the side, and ask for half the onion strings.

860 calories and 75 grams of fat, before you add any chicken. Most of the searches for this dish are people asking how many calories it has, and the answer tends to surprise them. The lettuce isn't the problem. The dressing and the croutons are. Fish is also in the allergen list, because a proper Caesar dressing is made with anchovy. Vegetarians order this constantly on the assumption that a salad with no meat on it is safe, and it isn't. 1,100 mg of sodium, 30 grams of carbohydrate.

Tree nuts. Almonds through the salad, listed in the allergens, and nothing in the name suggests it — this is one of seven salads here that contain nuts, and people ordering a salad tend not to check. 102 grams of fat and 1,630 calories, which puts it above the Carne Asada Steak. The dressing and the fried wonton strips account for most of that; the lettuce underneath doesn't offset any of it. 50 grams of protein and 2,960 mg of sodium. It's a good salad. It just isn't a light lunch, and the section it sits in encourages you to think it is.

30 grams of carbohydrate with 66 grams of protein. On a menu where almost everything comes with pasta, rice or fries, that ratio is genuinely hard to find — only the California Omelette, the Buffalo Wings and the Tuscan Chicken beat it. The catch is fat: 124 grams, from the bacon, egg, blue cheese, avocado and dressing. 1,480 calories total, and 2,460 mg of sodium. So it's low-carb rather than low-calorie, and those aren't the same thing. If you're eating that way deliberately this is one of the best orders in the building. If you picked it because it says salad, the numbers will surprise you. Ask for the dressing on the side. It's the single change that moves this plate most.

780 calories, 700 fewer than the Cobb Salad it resembles. Both have chicken, bacon, avocado, tomato and blue cheese. This one adds corn and diced apple, chops everything to the same small size and tosses it in vinaigrette, where the Cobb lays its toppings out in rows. 34 grams of protein. 1,360 mg of sodium. It's the chopped salad I'd order over the Cobb.

At 1,560 calories it's the heaviest of the seven salads in its section, and exactly double the Factory Chopped Salad's 780, which shares the bacon and blue cheese. The difference is the fried chicken. Mixed greens, bacon, blue cheese, tomato, cucumber and onion go into a honey-Dijon vinaigrette. 123 grams of fat. Fish and soy are listed too. Order the Chopped Salad instead.

75 grams of fat, the same as the Caesar Salad. Its sodium is almost double: 2,050 mg against 1,100. Little Gem is a small, sweet lettuce somewhere between romaine and butterhead, crisp enough to hold a heavy dressing, and the allergen list here, with tree nuts, fish, milk, eggs, soy, gluten and wheat, tells you this salad carries a lot more than leaves. 880 calories. 17 grams of protein. Check the tree nuts before ordering for a table.

This salad contains peanuts, and it's one of only three salads on the menu that do. Nothing in the name suggests it. The second surprise is size: 1,670 calories and 112 grams of fat, more calories than the Grilled Rib-Eye Steak. Chicken, avocado, cheese, tortilla strips and dressing all stack on top of each other. The lettuce doesn't offset any of it. It's still a good plate, with 68 grams of protein and proper Southwest flavours. Order it as a full meal, because that's what it is.

16 grams of carbohydrate, fewer than any other salad in the section, including the 190-calorie Tossed Green Salad. Tataki is a Japanese technique from Kōchi, on the island of Shikoku, where bonito is seared over a straw fire just long enough to colour the outside and then sliced. Here the fish is ahi, left raw in the centre. That's what the asterisk warns about. Avocado, tomato, cilantro, sesame and soy go over mixed greens in shallot vinaigrette, for 450 calories and 34 grams of protein. No milk or egg is listed. It's the salad I'd order at lunch.

124 grams of fat, and only 16 of them are saturated. The Fettuccini Alfredo carries almost the same total, 128 grams, with 78 saturated. Avocado, cashews and a citrus-honey-peanut vinaigrette explain it. Those fats come from plants and nuts, not butter and cream. Chicken, mixed greens, crisp tortilla strips, carrots and cilantro fill out the bowl. It's still 1,820 calories, second only to the Barbeque Ranch Chicken Salad among the salads, and with peanuts and tree nuts both listed, but no milk or egg, it suits a dairy-free diner with no nut allergy.

Peanuts, tree nuts and fish all appear in the allergen list. That's three of the allergen groups most likely to cause a serious reaction in one salad, so if anyone at your table carries an EpiPen, check this one first. Otherwise it's a genuinely better lunch than the Chinese Chicken Salad next to it on the menu. 1,210 calories with 73 grams of protein, where the Chinese Chicken Salad needs 1,630 calories to deliver 50. Satay chicken, greens, rice noodles, cucumber, bean sprouts, carrot, cilantro and roasted peanuts in a spicy vinaigrette. 2,670 mg of sodium, mostly from the dressing.

At 190 calories it's the lightest of the seven salads in its section, but the menu's own words are mixed greens, assorted vegetables, tomato and croutons with your choice of dressing, and the dressing is where the number moves. Croutons explain the gluten. Milk is listed too. 6 grams of protein. Pick a vinaigrette and ask for it on the side. $11.95.

Vegan, which on this menu is rare enough to matter. It's also 89 grams of fat, about 76% of its 1,060 calories, from the almonds, pepitas, avocado and vinaigrette. Protein is only 16 grams. White beans, quinoa and farro are all in there and still don't get you close to what a chicken salad delivers, so this eats more like a large side than a main. Farro contains gluten and the almonds are tree nuts, both listed. Asparagus, beets, green beans, tomato, cucumber and carrot fill the rest of the bowl.

1,830 calories and 121 grams of fat, in a sandwich. That puts it above the Grilled Rib-Eye Steak, the Chicken Madeira and the Shepherd's Pie. Parmesan-crusted chicken cutlets, marinara, melted mozzarella and fontina on a toasted French roll. The roll is sturdy for a reason, because hot marinara and melted cheese will turn softer bread to pulp within a couple of minutes. 87 grams of protein and 3,600 mg of sodium. Eat it immediately or don't order it to go.

It has the same calories as the Grilled Chicken and Avocado Club, 1,180, with 41 grams of protein to the club's 100. It's housemade chicken salad with roasted almonds, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on grilled brioche, and the mayo binding the chicken is why the fat, 78 grams, crowds out the protein. It's the least protein of the seven sandwiches. Seven allergens, tree nuts and fish among them. I'd order the club. Or the Renee's Chicken-Almond Salad Sandwich at lunch, which is 850 calories.

5,350 mg of sodium. Only the Buffalo Blasts and the Spaghetti and Meatballs carry more on the entire menu, and this is a sandwich. The pickles are part of it, house-cured and salty by design, and so is the spiced chicken and the garlic toum. Each of those is seasoned hard because each is meant to cut through the others, and the salt accumulates. It's a good sandwich. 1,890 calories, 59 grams of protein, 106 grams of fat. Tomatoes, red onion and cilantro in warm pita. I'd skip the fries and have a salad on the side. The plate is already over two days of sodium before anything comes with it.

Purists will tell you mayonnaise has no business on a Cuban sandwich. They're right. The version that came out of the Cuban communities in Tampa and Miami is roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard pressed flat on a hot plancha, and nothing else. This one adds mayo, and the mojo pork, the ham and the pickles are all salted, so it lands at 3,070 mg of sodium. It's also 1,200 calories with 71 grams of protein, 630 calories under the Chicken Parmesan Sandwich. Eat it hot, while the melted Swiss still holds the layers together.

100 grams of protein and 1,860 mg of sodium. Among the seven sandwiches, the first figure is the highest and the second is the lowest. Put it next to The Club and the gap is plain. This has 44 more grams of protein and 1,380 fewer milligrams of sodium, for 110 fewer calories. Grilled chicken breast, avocado, bacon, tomato, melted Swiss and herb mayonnaise. The one figure that goes the other way is fat, 81 grams against 68. If I were ordering a sandwich here, it would be this one, no contest.

The menu lists the half sandwich alone at 850 calories, then adds a cup of soup at 310 to 390 and a small green salad at 260, so the whole lunch lands between 1,420 and 1,500. That's a lot for a half. The full Chicken Salad Sandwich is 1,180. A half-portion at 72% of the whole doesn't add up as a simple halving. Tree nuts and fish are both listed. Swap the green salad for a Caesar and you add 180 calories for $1.

790 calories for half a turkey sandwich. That's before the cup of soup and the small green salad that come with it. Add the soup at 310 to 390 calories and the salad at 260, and this lunch comes to 1,360 to 1,440, heavier than the whole triple-decker turkey sandwich in The Club, at 1,290 before its side. 32 grams of protein in the half sandwich. No fish or tree nuts, unlike the chicken-almond version. $17.95.

The sauce choice moves the calories by 80. Spicy Buffalo sauce puts the sandwich at 1,090. Chipotle mayo takes it to 1,170. With the Buffalo sauce, it's the lightest of the seven sandwiches, with the least fat, 66 grams, the fewest carbs, 62, and 62 grams of protein in a crispy chicken breast under melted cheese on a brioche bun. Take the Buffalo. Chipotle mayo is extra fat on something already fried. 2,710 mg of sodium.

No milk is on the allergen list, which makes it the only one of the seven sandwiches a dairy-free diner can order as it comes. The club sandwich is usually traced to the Saratoga Club House in Saratoga Springs, New York, in the 1890s, and this one keeps to the classic build: roasted turkey breast, bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on white toast. Fish is listed too. The menu doesn't say why, so ask if that matters. 3,240 mg of sodium. The white toast and the stacked layers give it 112 grams of carbohydrate, second among the sandwiches to the Chicken Shawarma.

It carries 1,070 mg of sodium, while the classic Eggs Benedict with Canadian bacon on the same brunch menu carries 2,360. So it's the Benedict for a salt-watcher. It's also 170 calories heavier, with 125 grams of fat. Poached eggs, crisp bacon, avocado, tomato and arugula sit on a grilled English muffin under hollandaise made with Calabrian chillies. Those come from the toe of Italy and add a fruity heat. Fish is on the allergen list. Hollandaise doesn't explain it, so ask.

At 4,580 mg of sodium, 2,080 calories and 88 grams of protein, it tops the 16 brunch dishes on salt and protein. Scrambled eggs, bacon, chicken chorizo, cheese, avocado, peppers and onions go into one warm tortilla over spicy ranchero sauce, with sour cream, salsa, crispy corn tortilla and black beans alongside. Mexican chorizo is a fresh sausage, traditionally pork, seasoned hard with chilli and vinegar. This one is made with chicken. 20 grams of fiber, fifth on the menu. Split it. One person eating this is eating two meals.

Only the Factory Nachos, a platter meant for a table, carry more fat on the entire menu than this plate's 161 grams. Brûlée is French for burnt, the same word as in crème brûlée, and here it means a crust of caramelised sugar over thick slices of custard-soaked bread, with powdered sugar and maple-butter syrup. It's vegetarian. 83 grams of that fat is saturated, again second only to the nachos. 2,120 calories, which ties it with the Fettuccini Alfredo with Chicken. I'd order it for the table as dessert at brunch and cut it four ways. Weekends only.

Two eggs, bacon and buttermilk pancakes on one plate. 1,110 calories. The Buttermilk Pancakes on their own come to 1,670 calories and 3,650 mg of sodium, so taking fewer pancakes with eggs and bacon beside them saves 560 calories and 2,640 mg of salt. 26 grams of protein. 50 grams of sugar. It's the brunch plate I'd send a first-timer to.

The plainest pancakes on the brunch menu are the saltiest. 3,650 mg of sodium, more than the Cinnamon Roll Pancakes and the Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes. Buttermilk's acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the batter, and baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, so a batter built on it brings its own sodium before any salt goes in. At $11.50 they're also the cheapest of the three. 214 grams of carbohydrate. Vegetarian.

2,370 calories. Only the Factory Nachos beat it, and this arrives at breakfast. The sodium surprised me more: 3,510 mg, over a day and a half, in a dish that tastes sweet. Pancake batter carries more of it than you'd expect. Baking soda and baking powder are both sodium compounds. It's a good dish that delivers what the name promises, with cinnamon-brown sugar swirled through the batter and cream cheese icing on top. Split it. Between two people it's a rich, sensible brunch, and alone it's more food than the Grilled Rib-Eye. Vegetarian, with gluten, wheat, milk and egg listed.

Pork appears as an allergen here, one of only two brunch dishes where the menu flags it, and Canadian bacon is the reason, since it's cured pork loin rather than belly. Poached eggs and Canadian bacon sit on an English muffin under hollandaise. 50 grams of carbohydrate, the fewest of the 16 brunch dishes. 48 grams of protein. 2,360 mg of sodium, more than double the Bacon and Avocado Benedict. 1,350 calories.

Harlem's Wells Supper Club is usually credited with pairing fried chicken and waffles in the 1930s, feeding musicians who came off stage too late for dinner and too early for breakfast. Here it's the giant Belgian waffle topped with crunchy fried chicken. 1,190 calories. The plain Giant Belgian Waffle is 690, so the chicken adds 500 calories and 38 grams of protein. It's lighter than the Benedict version by 480 calories. I'd order this one and skip the hollandaise.

Putting fried chicken strips and hollandaise on a Belgian waffle gets you 128 grams of fat, level with the Fettuccini Alfredo and the Jambalaya Hash & Eggs. Poached eggs and hollandaise go over the chicken, with maple-butter syrup alongside. So you're pouring syrup onto hollandaise. Sweet against rich is the whole idea. It's 480 calories heavier than the plain Fried Chicken & Waffles. Fish is listed, as on the Bacon and Avocado Benedict.

Belgian waffles came to American attention at the 1964 New York World's Fair, where Maurice Vermersch sold them topped with strawberries and whipped cream as Bel-Gem waffles, and the name stuck to any thick, deep-pocketed waffle. This plain one is 690 calories. 6 grams of protein, the least of the 16 brunch dishes. It's also the lowest in sodium at 680 mg. Order it for a child or share it as a sweet course. $10.95.

The toppings add 260 calories and $3 to the plain waffle. Pecans add tree nuts. Chantilly cream is sweetened whipped cream, named for the Château de Chantilly north of Paris, and together with strawberries and pecans it turns the plain waffle into something close to the 1964 World's Fair version, which is how Belgian waffles were first sold in America. 950 calories. 76 grams of sugar. Vegetarian.

Chilaquiles started as a way to use up stale tortillas. Mexican cooks fry the pieces, then simmer them in salsa until they soften at the edges but keep some crunch. This version uses tomatillo-chile sauce with slow-cooked pork, roasted poblano peppers, cheese, onions and cilantro, finished with eggs, tomato and sour cream. Chicken is an option, at 1,620 calories against 1,650 for the carnitas. The Cheesecake Factory has published the recipe on its website. 85 grams of protein, second at brunch only to the Breakfast Burrito.

Of the 16 weekend brunch dishes, this is the only one without gluten or wheat on its allergen list, which stops at milk, eggs and fish. Jambalaya splits into two Louisiana styles: Creole, cooked with tomatoes, and Cajun, cooked without. This hash crosses them. Tomatoes go in with the peppers, onion and potatoes, but the sausage is Cajun andouille, and the whole thing sits over white rice under fried eggs. 128 grams of fat and 1,750 calories, among the ten fattiest dishes on the menu. That's a lot for a breakfast. Split it.

Pork is in the allergen list. It's the bacon, and nothing in the name tells you — for families avoiding pork on religious or dietary grounds that's the detail worth catching before the plate arrives. Otherwise this is one of the better-built children's plates on the weekend menu. 680 calories, which is under a third of what the Cinnamon Roll Pancakes will do to an adult, with 22 grams of protein from the egg and bacon. The choice between mini French toast and buttermilk pancakes barely moves the numbers. Pick whichever they'll actually eat. Gluten, wheat, milk and egg are all listed too. If pork's the issue, the standard kids' menu has plenty that isn't built around it.

Berries and lemon make this plate look like the light brunch order. It isn't. 2,110 calories, and 258 grams of carbohydrate, the second-highest figure on the entire menu, behind only the Cinnamon Roll Pancakes. Ricotta pancakes became a café fixture after Bill Granger put ricotta hotcakes on the menu at his Sydney restaurant in 1993, and folding the cheese into buttermilk batter with lemon zest keeps the middle soft and damp under the lemon glaze. 138 grams of sugar. Share the stack, and eat the strawberries and blueberries first. Saturdays and Sundays only.

1,960 calories, which makes this brunch sandwich the eleventh-heaviest dish on the entire menu. It's a ham and cheese sandwich dipped in custard and fried as French toast, a descendant of the French croque-monsieur. Bacon and scrambled egg go in too. Powdered sugar and strawberry preserves come on the side. 121 grams of fat and 74 grams of protein. Split it, because sweet and salty at that weight stops being enjoyable about halfway through.

18 grams of fat on a plate of broccoli. 10 of them saturated. Milk is listed. Broccoli itself is nearly fat-free, so the milk on the allergen list and the saturated fat point to butter, which is the usual restaurant finish for a steamed green vegetable. 260 calories, nearly double the Green Beans at 140. If you want the lightest green side, order the Grilled Asparagus, at 120.

No allergens are listed and the menu tags them vegan, which makes a side of fries one of the few things here that suit almost any diet on paper. The portion is large. 1,060 calories and 1,480 mg of sodium. The Kids' French Fries are 300. 12 grams of fiber, second among the 11 sides. $6.95 to $7.95.

8 grams of fiber. Among the 11 sides, only the two kinds of fries have more. Corn is sweet on its own, 11 grams of sugar here, and milk on the allergen list points to butter, which is what takes the side to 270 calories and 14 grams of fat. 610 mg of sodium. Vegetarian. $7.50 to $8.50.

At 140 calories, only the Grilled Asparagus, at 120, is a lighter side. They also have the least protein of the 11 sides, 3 grams. Milk is listed and 6 of the 10 grams of fat are saturated, which points to butter. Butter is the right finish for a green bean. Order them beside a steak. At 300 mg of sodium, they barely register.

At 120 calories and 8 grams of carbohydrate it's the lightest of the 11 sides on both counts, and the one I'd put beside any heavy main on this menu. Milk is listed. So there's butter. 380 mg of sodium. The spears also come with the Grilled Steak Medallions and the Herb Crusted Filet of Salmon. $8.95 as a side.

It's listed as a side dish, yet at 1,550 calories it outweighs the Chicken Madeira entrée by 250. No other side comes close. French Fries, the next-heaviest, are 1,060, and the Mashed Potatoes are 450. This bowl also has 109 grams of fat and 2,690 mg of sodium, the highest figures in the section on both counts, along with 50 grams of protein. Order it as a vegetarian main. Next to a 1,300-calorie entrée, it more than doubles the meal.

A side of mashed potatoes is 450 calories. The entire Kids' Grilled Chicken plate, chicken and vegetables and its own scoop of mash included, is 460. That's the butter and cream. Potatoes on their own are mostly starch and water. These are coarse rather than whipped, with the red skins left in, and milk is the only allergen. Vegetarian. With 25 grams of fat, 820 mg of sodium and 5 grams of protein, the mash is the thing to leave behind on any plate that comes with it if you're watching calories.

At 650 calories, a side of spinach outweighs the Mashed Potatoes by 200, which is the reverse of what I'd have guessed. Spinach itself is almost nothing. A pound of raw leaves wilts to about a cup and a half, so the fat it cooks in does the heavy lifting, and here that means 67 grams, 41 of them saturated. Milk is listed. Only the Macaroni & Cheese carries more fat among the sides. Sodium is 1,100 mg.

15 mg of sodium, the lowest of the 11 sides. No allergens. Against the white rice it has 20 fewer calories, 6 grams of fiber to 2 and less than a fifth of the sodium, because the bran layer stays on, though the white rice oddly shows more protein, 10 grams to 7. $2.95. Swap it in under any saucy plate. 420 calories.

At $2.50 it's the cheapest side on the menu, 1.5 grams of fat make it the leanest, and at 440 calories it's nearly level with a side of Mashed Potatoes. 98 grams of carbohydrate. No allergens listed. 80 mg of sodium. Brown rice costs 45 cents more and brings 4 more grams of fiber. I'd pay it.

Order these for flavour, not health. They carry 156 grams of carbohydrate against 152 in the French Fries, and 32 grams of sugar against 1. Where they do win is salt and fiber, with 1,120 mg of sodium to the regular fries' 1,480 and 14 grams of fiber to 12, plus the beta-carotene that makes the flesh orange. 1,010 calories. No allergens are listed. They're the highest-carb side on the menu.