Applebee’s is another one of those nice chain restaurants that is trying to jump on board the Health Train by offering some low-cal/low-fat/healthy options. In fact, not only do they have a menu for “Under 550 Calories,” but they also have a “Weight Watchers” menu! So, if you’re trying to watch your weight, there’s no reason to avoid Applebee’s. I’ve ordered healthy items off their menu a couple of times, and the food is extremely passable. Well…they don’t really give you a tremendous amount of food, but what do you expect for under 550 calories?
For my money, though, I think I’d rather have a nice salad! So I decided to find out what the house salad at Applebee’s would be like, and in many ways, I was not disappointed. The salad is of a truly acceptable size, and is garnished with croutons, cheese and bacon. Not real bacon, but not hard “bacon bits,” either. Chewy bacon pieces, I guess you could say, which lend an interesting flavor to the salad.
And that’s a good thing, because the one complaint I had about this salad was that I did not find the lettuce to be very tasty. On the plus side, it was not iceberg lettuce—or at least it was mostly not iceberg lettuce (there might have been a little iceberg in there, I’m not sure), but you know how sometimes lettuce can have this “not ripe yet” flavor? Sort of TOO green. Like you went out in your front yard and picked some leaves off the trees? That’s how this lettuce tasted.
I think I would like to try this salad again, though, as it was only $2.99, and I enjoyed the toppings. Maybe next time the lettuce will be “in season” and taste better. If not, then I might have to discount the Applebee’s house salad. And that would be too bad, because other than the lettuce, I thought this was a fine salad, and a good deal. But really: what is a salad but lettuce? If you don’t have that right, you might as well give up.
But I’m not giving up yet. I’ll check in on Applebee’s again, maybe later in the summer, when lettuce is in full bloom. And I’d like to go back to Applebee’s again because, in addition to this salad, I also decided to try their side of rice and beans, which, at $1.49, was a great price, and very tasty! I certainly wouldn’t mind some more of that!
Keep you posted.
