January is a month when many restaurants promote low-fat, low-calorie, nonalcoholic choices for diners with new year’s resolutions to eat healthy.
Then there’s places like Applebee’s, where on a recent visit the parking lot smelled like onion rings.
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Perhaps you’ve seen its commercials for an item called the O-M-Cheese Burger, possibly the Glendale-based chain’s most attention-grabbing ads since “Fancy Like” in 2021 with Walker Hayes singing about Applebee’s date nights and Oero Shakes with whipped cream.
The O-M-Cheese Burger is, as Applebee’s describes it, an all-beef burger topped with American cheese, Applewood-smoked bacon and spicy honey mustard served in a “sizzling skillet of molten queso and a blend of Cheddar cheeses.”
The commercials show a burger cut in half and soaking in a pool of cheese sauce. Brad Jones, the “Cinema Snob” on Facebook, described it as a cheese Jacuzzi.
Jones declared it a pretty good bacon cheeseburger. I agree, although I was a little afraid of it, and with reason. It packs 1,680 calories, including the fries; 109 grams of fat; and 40 grams of saturated fat, according to the nutrition calculator on Applebee’s website. That’s 140% of the daily recommendation for fat and 200% for saturated fat.
Also, don’t look for lettuce, tomato or any other nonstarchy vegetable on this plate.
What you get is a good photo op and a tasty meal. It was delivered with a pile of extra napkins and the warning of a hot plate. The queso was bubbling when it arrived but hardened as it cooled, making it more like grilled cheese than a sauce.
The O-M-Cheese Burger costs $11.99, but it can be ordered in a 2 for $25 combo, which includes one appetizer and two full-sized entrées. Other choices include an Oriental Chicken Salad, Fiesta Lime Chicken and an 8-ounce sirloin.
As for date night, Applebee’s has a new Sizzlin’ Cookie Dough Pie sitting next to the Oreo Shake on its dessert menu.
And it’s not sitting out Dry January. It’s getting a jump on Valentine’s Day with $6 Smoocho Sips, including a Tipsy Cupid topped with red gummy lips.
Want more cheese and inexpensive cocktails? Chili’s Grill & Bar brought back its Skillet Beef Queso last month after trying to replace it with a new item called Southwestern Queso, a move that proved unpopular.
Chili’s popular 3 For Me combos starting at $10.99 are still on the menu. They include an appetizer, entrée and beverage starting at $10.99. Appetizers include a Dip Trio, which includes the Southwestern Queso, for an extra $6.
Its $6 Margarita of the Month is called Resolution Breaker.
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