Salads

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.