Many years ago I worked on an American summer camp, the food was dire so on every day off we would go out to eat. One of the places I remember eating was Outback Steakhouse so when I was looking through the Entertainer for somewhere to eat last weekend and found a voucher for the Outback at Lagoona Mall off we went.
The restaurant is very similar in design and concept to places like Chilis and Applebees and is in the outside food court area. We were seated quickly and given a small loaf of bread with a bread knife sticking out of it and some whipped butter – so far so good. I suggested to Greg that we shared the ‘Bloomin Onion’ their signature starter consisting of a whole onion cut open then battered and deep fried which I have had before and its so bad its good. For mains I chose fillet steak and Greg chose a burger. When we ordered we specifically said to only bring our main course after or starter which the waitress was happy to do.
When our ‘Bloomin Onion’ arrived it looked pretty good, nicely golden with crunchy batter and the horseradish mayonnaise added a little kick and cut through the greasiness. However, the parts towards the centre of the onion weren’t cooked and were coated in a dry, spicy flour which didn’t taste nice at all. A couple of minutes into us eating our starter our mains arrived. I reminded the waitress we asked for our mains after the starter but unfortunately she didn’t quite know what to do and just hovered around our table holding our mains in the hope we would change our minds. We asked for them to be taken back to the kitchen and that point I knew they would not be great as they would be simply left aside to be kept warm. It is one thing that drives me mad eating out here – the rush to give you all the food you’ve ordered at once even when you have politely asked for that not to happen!
About 10 minutes later with the onion pretty much demolished we asked for our mains and they were, as expected, quite disappointing. My steak although flavoursome was dry, the skin on the jacket potato was grey and soggy and the veg were hard – the courgette was bitter and inedible. Gregs burger was better, the meat was juicy it was cooked well and the salad was fresh. We were so full as our food had been brought so quickly ( we had ordered, been served and eaten in about 20 minutes) we asked for it to be boxed up for us which they were happy to do.
Overall for a starter, 2 mains, 2 soft drinks plus a tip it came to 200QR using our Entertainer voucher – the cost of the burger was deducted. Based on this experience I wouldn’t rush back there are too many places doing the same thing better.
Eat. Sleep. Repeat 