Saturday & Sunday Brunch

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.