Our chef pits Cheesecake Factory against Outback Steakhouse against Olive Garden.

Seven years ago, I worked across street from the Brentwood, Calif., branch of the Cheesecake Factory. My co-workers and I would lovelessly dole out the occasional lunch hour to the brass 'n' fern holdover. Little did I know it, but as I jawed through monotonous salads and sipped passion fruit iced tea, I was tasting the future.

When a branch of the restaurant landed in downtown Seattle last year, I assumed it would draw the same glum business clientele. But the Factory has drawn lines of expectant diners that would impress Steve Rubell—not only in terms of how many people wait, but how dressed up they get for dinner at the restaurant. These diners aren't looking for a cheap pit stop: After all, a pasta dish can run $15.95, which is the same price you'd pay in any number of well-respected independent restaurants in Seattle.

And Seattle's not the only city to catch Cheesecake fever. According to the online Zagat guide, the chain ranks No. 9 in popularity in Los Angeles, No. 3 in Miami, and No. 1 in Orange County, Calif. (Where nine of the top 10 are chains.) This may say more about Zagat's populism than the quality of these restaurants, but it's still startling to see the Los Angeles Cheesecake Factories listed alongside such local culinary landmarks as Campanile and Matsuhisa.

These days, chains have more of a shot at competing with "real" restaurants than you might think. Freshness is the big buzzword. Waiters at Chevy's swear oaths of freshness before serving new diners (nothing from a can, salsas made every hour, hot tortillas every 53 seconds). Each Olive Garden makes soups and sauces from scratch every day. The menus are sophisticated: Cheesecake Factory offers a dish like Miso Salmon without explaining what miso is. P.F. Chang's boasts of its menu collaboration with Barbara Tropp, the late Chinese food scholar. Olive Garden sends its chefs and wine managers to Tuscany.

Clearly, these chains are defining fast food way upward. But is the food keeping pace with its ambition and the popularity? To find out, I gathered together my dinner companions (two to three per meal), unbuckled my belt, and set off on a tasting tour of the following restaurants:

Outback Steakhouse, North Seattle
Concept: Steak, Crocodile Dundee-style
Gimmick: Bloomin' Onion
Motto: No rules, just right
Prices: Strawberry 'Rita, $5.25; Bloomin' Onion, $5.99; Canberra Chicken, $13.99; Rockhampton Rib Eye Steak, $17.99; Pacific Rim Salmon, $17.49

A couple of Ned Kelly paintings and boomerangs hang on the wall, but Outback's Australian theme is mostly played out in the eye-rolling names on its party-hearty menu, starting with fried "Aussie-tizers." Outback does fry things well, from its massive, greasy whole fried onion to coconut-crusted shrimp. Unfortunately, it was at Outback that I developed my theory of anti-eponymy; in other words, don't order a dish if it's in the name of the restaurant. The rib eye steak seemed baked, not seared or grilled, and was devoid of the salty crust that makes steak so delicious. The "Pacific Rim" salmon, much recommended by our server, featured the first of many sweet, soy-flavored sauces served at the chains to exterminate any lingering flavor in their bland farmed salmon. It's a dismaying trend and, at $17.49, an expensive one.

Cheesecake Factory, Downtown Seattle
Concept: Something-for-everyone American
Gimmick: Enormous menu, enormous portions, plus cheesecake
Motto: No one goes home hungry from the Cheesecake Factory
Prices: Thai Lettuce Wraps, $9.50; Cajun Jambalaya Pasta, $15.95; Coffee Heath Bar Crunch Cheesecake, $6.25

Cheesecake Factory radiates Vegas grandeur: Faux-marble walls climb two stories up; spiral-bound menus run ads for diamonds and leather goods; huge plates are dressed up with colored sauces and toupees of fried noodles. With over 200 choices on the menu, CF serves as a repository for all other corporate-restaurant concepts. There's Americana (tiny hamburgers), Southeast Asian (Thai-style lettuce wraps), and absurd Sino-Latino fusion (Tex-Mex egg rolls). Everything was cooked competently, but way too many dishes were coated in syrupy sauces (including the Miso Salmon at $16.95—sweet salmon No. 2). The most scandalous thing about CF, and the clincher for the anti-eponymy theory, was the cheesecakes. In order to accommodate flavors from Coffee Heath Bar to Craig's Crazy Carrot Cake Cheesecake, all cheesiness has been removed from the cakes, leaving just sweet, bland fluff. Careful analysis revealed that the cheesecakes at Outback Steakhouse, the Olive Garden, and P.F. Chang's China Bistro were better.

P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Downtown Bellevue, Wash.
Concept: Contemporary Chinese
Gimmick: Tableside sauce mixing
Motto: Too classy for a motto
Prices: Mojito, $8; Northern Style Short Ribs, $6.25; Orange Peel Chicken, $10.95; Singapore Noodles, $8.95