MENU GUIDES • 5 min read
Sweetness, and Where It Hides
Four sauces with honey in the name, onions cooked until they turn, and sweetcorn among the starters. None of it is accidental.
Sweetness counterbalances salt and fat, and blunts heat without using dairy — which is why two of the four honey sauces are hot ones. It is also in the grilled onions, the onion rings, the corn nuggets and both Smokehouse builds.
There is more sugar on this menu than anyone orders on purpose. Four of the sauces have honey in the name. The onions are cooked until they go sweet. The Smokehouse has BBQ sauce and honey mustard on it at the same time. Corn nuggets are sweetcorn in batter, and they sit among the savoury starters.
None of that is a sweet menu by accident. Sweetness is doing a specific job against salt and fat, and it is worth knowing where it is.
What sweetness does against salt
Salt and fat are the two things fried food has in abundance, and both are fatiguing in quantity. Sugar cuts across them — not by removing anything, but by giving your palate a second thing to pay attention to.
It also rounds off sharp edges. Sugars soften the perception of both acidity and heat, which is exactly why honey turns up attached to hot sauces here rather than to mild ones.
The four honey sauces
Look down the sides menu and the pattern is hard to miss:
| Sauce | The sweet part is doing | Best on |
|---|---|---|
| Honey BBQ | Carrying smoke and salt, with no heat at all | Wings, anything fried |
| Honey Mustard | Balancing the sharpness of the mustard | Chicken, and on the Smokehouse burger |
| Honey Hot | Taking the edge off the heat without removing it | Wings, for people who want heat but not only heat |
| Honey Hot Lemon Pepper | The same, plus citrus for a third note | Wings |
Two of those four exist specifically to make heat manageable. That is a real choice rather than a coincidence — sugar is one of the few things that genuinely blunts capsaicin on the palate, and it does it without the dairy that a ranch or blue cheese cup brings. Our guide to what is actually spicy ranks all of them by heat.
Where else it hides
- Grilled onions — the free option on every Philly, and the sweetest thing you can add to one
- Onion rings — sweeter than fries, which is the whole argument for them next to sauce
- Corn nuggets — sweetcorn in a fried shell, and genuinely sweet rather than savoury
- BBQ sauce on both Smokehouse builds
- The potato bun on the Smokehouse burger, which is slightly sweet itself
- Marinara — cooked tomato is sweeter than raw
The grilled onion is the one worth acting on. It costs nothing, it is the biggest change available on the Philly menu, and what it adds is sweetness rather than volume. More in what to add, and what not to.
When there is too much of it
The Smokehouse burger is the test case. It has BBQ sauce, honey mustard, grilled onions and a potato bun, which is four sweet elements against bacon and American cheese.
It works, but it is right at the edge — and it is why adding anything else to it is the most reliable way to unbalance a sandwich on this menu. If you want to add to a Smokehouse, add something sharp on the side rather than anything on the bun. There is more in the Smokehouse, two ways.
- Two sweet elements in one item is comfortable
- Three is the Smokehouse, and it is deliberate
- Four is what happens if you add honey BBQ to it as well
- The fix is always something sharp beside it, not less sweetness in it
Ordering wings for someone who says they do not like heat? Honey hot rather than mild. Mild is simply less hot; honey hot is hot with something else going on, and it is a far more interesting order for somebody who thinks they do not like spice.
Why nothing here is sweet on its own
Worth noticing: apart from the two desserts, there is no dish on this menu where sweetness leads. It is always attached to something else — sugar in a sauce that is mostly savoury, sweetness in an onion that is mostly vegetable, sweetcorn inside a savoury batter.
That is a deliberate constraint rather than an oversight. Sweetness works as a counterweight and stops working as soon as it becomes the point — which is why a sweet main course is a rare thing on any savoury menu, and why the honey sauces are cups you add rather than glazes applied in the kitchen.
The one place sweetness is a warning
Corn nuggets catch people out more than anything else on the menu, because nothing about the name says sweet. They are creamed sweetcorn in a savoury batter, and they land closer to a fritter than to a nugget.
That is not a criticism — they are one of the better things on the appetizer list. But ordering them expecting chicken nuggets in a different shape is a specific disappointment worth heading off, and it is why the appetizer guide puts them first in its list of items people are unsure about.
And dessert, obviously
The two desserts sit at opposite ends. Fried donuts are sweetness with fat — ten of them, and effectively more of what the rest of the menu already does. Thai rolled ice cream is sweetness with cold, which is a genuine contrast rather than a continuation.
That is the argument for the ice cream after a heavy meal and the donuts after a light one. Our guide to how the rolled ice cream is made covers the ten flavours, four of which are fruit-led.
This is one of five pieces on the things that make food here taste the way it does. The others are on acidity, temperature, and the rest of this set.
The short version
Sweetness on this menu is a counterweight to salt and fat, and a way of making heat manageable without dairy. It is in four sauces, the grilled onions, the onion rings, the corn nuggets and both Smokehouse builds. Two sweet elements in a dish is comfortable; four is where it tips.
Sixteen cups, four with honey
Honey BBQ, honey mustard, honey hot and honey hot lemon pepper.
Frequently asked questions
Why do so many sauces have honey in them?
Sugar blunts the perception of heat and acidity without adding dairy, so a honey-based hot sauce is hot and manageable at the same time.
What is the sweetest thing on the savoury menu?
Corn nuggets — sweetcorn in a fried shell. Grilled onions and onion rings are next.
Should I order honey hot or mild?
Honey hot if you want something interesting; mild is simply less hot. Honey hot has heat with sweetness behind it.
Why do onion rings work better with sauced food than fries?
Onions are sweeter than potato, and that sweetness cuts across salt and vinegar in a way a mild fry cannot.
Is the Smokehouse too sweet?
It carries three sweet elements deliberately — BBQ sauce, honey mustard and a potato bun. Adding a fourth is what unbalances it.
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