Take-Out/Drive-Through/Delivery Dessert:Good Bad & Ugly

The GOOD

The Cheesecake factory has over 30 flavors of cheesecake, but our favorite is the Strawberry cheesecake. Hands down it is the best cheesecake in the marketplace. The cheesecake is served with fresh strawberries with a glaze and cool whip topping. During the first bite it melts in your mouth, it's a little tart, with a blend of smooth & light cream cheese, blended with the fruity strawberry flavor. Your eyes light up at the presentation of the desert and how the items are strategically placed on the plate. My family loves the Cheesecake Factory and best of all one slice (a Huge Slice) can be shared between the four of us; however, most time we order individual slices w/ take out boxes and it is very yummy.

Maggianos Nonna’s Toasted Pound Cake. The family style meal is the draw that gets everyone in the restaurant, but the dessert earns you a follow up visit. The toasted pound cake with caramelized bananas is the star of the show. After you indulge in the family style meal that includes the appetizer, salad, pasta, and entrée it’s desert time. Maggianos Nonna’s Toasted Pound Cake is delicious. It taste so much like it was baked in someone’s home kitchen. The cake is light, with a hint of fresh squeezed lemons, moist (touch and taste), buttery, vanilla that's not too sweet or overbearing. It’s so good that it melts in your mouth. As soon as the pound cake hits the table it’s eaten by everyone and the waiter brings unlimited refills. The pound cake is topped with bananas, hot fudge, and vanilla bean ice cream. Again, in my opinion to date this is the best pound cake that I’ve ever tasted.

Chick-Fil–A is best known for chicken sandwiches, but a not so well kept secret is their hand-spun milkshakes. Chick-Fil-A must have an old fashioned ice cream churner hiding somewhere in the back of the restaurant. The Chick-Fil-A cookies and cream milkshake is creamy with the right blend of flavors to make you desire a second order before driving away from the take out window. The milkshakes are hand-spun, with whipped cream topping that makes it taste so good with one cherry on top. The cookies taste like Oreos and chopped and mixed in perfectly with the shake. You can chew the cookies and taste and feel the real crunch of the texture. I used to purchase my milk shakes from other establishments; however, there is no comparison to the bold taste with the hint of real cookies finely blended with every slurp. The size of the milkshake comes in large and kids size that are large enough to satisfy your cravings.

The BAD & UGLY

The Kentucky Fried Chicken Double Chocolate Chip Cake is not one of my favorites. The cake is not moist, the chocolate taste has a bad aftertaste, and the fudge is too overbearing on the overall cake flavor. The best part of the cake is the chocolate chips, which will not entice me to purchase in the future. This cake reminds of going to a NY Deli at 2AM and looking at a cake dish wondering if the cake has been in there for 30 days. The size of the bundt cake is surprising large and feeds a family of four, but the taste does not entice you to want to eat it.

My family loves Starbucks beverages, coffee , hot chocolate, espresso, Frappuccino, and teas. The kids are big fans of the hot chocolate and the wide varieties of teas. We have tried several of the deserts on the menu and our all-time worst dessert is the Iced Lemon Pound Cake. The cake is too thick, dry, not moist at all and is difficult to eat in one setting. We thought the cake may have exceeded its shelf life and decided to order another slice at different location, but the results were the same: thick and unappetizing. The iced glaze topping is good, but what a waste of a good pound cake. Going forward, I plan to stick with only the beverages, no dessert from Starbucks.

The Burger King Cinnamon Minibon Rolls with a cream cheese spread taste more like a store brought Cinnamon roll. The Cinnabon shops within the many malls across America can breath a sigh of relief because Burger King does not deliver on presentation or taste. The Burger King Cinnabons tastes bad, lacks the chewy and soft melt in your mouth taste and warm on the inside feeling it provides from the local Cinnabons shop. It’s warm at best, never hot, doughy in spots, and the flavoring is not consistent throughout the roll. This is wasted calories many store brought products such as Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls taste better. The cream chees frosting is sweet, but it just does not measure up to the Cinnabon shop roll. The name describe s exactly what's delivered upon purchase a minibon, which is rather small compared to store brand product. The kids did not like the taste, complained about the rolls being hard and just plain awful.