Chili?s Desserts Take the Cake

772 Millsap Road, Fayetteville

Normally, we’re inclined to bad-mouth the chains, but we had to admit: Chili’s serves a mighty fine lunch.

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who thought so. The place was packed. We spotted more than a few people there wearing the khaki uniform of Tyson Foods Inc. in Springdale. Perhaps they were just following the chicken through to its final destination.

The waitress forgot about us for a while, but she showed up again before we started gnawing on the table. (Later we actually had to suck on ice cubes while waiting for a refill of water).

We started off with the “Triple Play,” ($7.50) a combination of “chicken crispers,” buffalo wings and “southwestern egg rolls.” It was accompanied by three sauces for dipping: avocado, bleu cheese and honey mustard.

All agreed it was good.

The boneless chicken fingers were deep fried and encrusted with batter, but all that fat just makes things taste better.

For an entree, one of the diners at our table had the “guiltless grill pita,” ($6), which consisted of grilled chicken, pico de gallo, lettuce and low fat dressing. It was served with black beans. According to the menu, the item contained about nine grams of fat, about the same as one chicken crisper, we figured.

The pita, which looked like a soft taco served in a napkin tray, was good, but there was space for rent in there. We were kind of looking forward to chicken in every bite. We ran out of chicken and had about one-third of the bread left over. But it was tasty, and the black beans were a good complement.

Another diner at our table had citrus fire chicken and shrimp ($12), a margarita-grilled chicken breast topped with garlic and lime shrimp, with sides of rice, grilled veggies and pico de gallo. He called the dish delicious and wished the spicy shrimp were available closer to downtown.

A friend joined us late, so the three of us ordered three different desserts. (We needed to get a good sampling, after all.)

The margarita pie reminded us a little of the lemon icebox pie mom used to make but with a much fancier meringue on top. Swimming in a scrawl of strawberry sauce, this was an excellent choice for dessert.

Another in our group had something that sort of resembled an erupting chocolate volcano.

The dessert consisted of a devil’s food cake served on a warm platter with vanilla ice cream that was smothered with chocolate shell sauce on top of the cake. Rich chocolate sauce and caramel flooded the surrounding plate.

“If you fast for a week, maybe your diet won’t notice,” she said.

Mortal words would not do justice to the carrot cake our third diner enjoyed. Suffice it to say, it’s 24-carrot gold.