It was memorial day weekend and I was craving meat... Go figure! Lol I guess I didn't have enough ribs on Sunday....
Anyhow, I was craving a nice juicy steak but I didn't want to shell out $$$$$ on a steak on the strip somewhere. I wanted a steak that wasn't going to break the bank and Outback came to mind... And it had been years since I've been to one but my vague old memories were of steaks that were decent for a decent price. So here I went! :)
We got seated after waiting for about 15 minutes which was cool since they had actually quoted us a 20 minute wait. We got a cozy 2 person booth by the entrance to the kitchen so occasionally all we could hear was "corner" being yelled out by the staff as they were walking around the corner... But it wasn't too bad. Ambiance decent...4/5
The BF was starving and so we got a sampler. It came with Mac n cheese balls, Aussie fries and bloomin onion petals. The portion size was decent for the price. The mac n cheese was very very cheesy which in my book always equal DELICIOUS! :D~ The Aussie fries had a good account of cheese and bacon bits on it... The bf scarfed it down... And the bloomin onion petals were so crunchy and battered perfectly. All of them could have been really greasy but they weren't. We pretty much cleared the plate. We had to wait a bit for our food but the server came and let us know that the food would be out shortly. Our server was actually really great. She touched our table a few times to refill our drinks and to see how we were doing. When our food finally came out... My ribeye was way overcooked. I requested medium and the steak came out well-done. Eeeewwwww! I pointed it out and they whisked it away and left me my steamed broccoli and baked sweet potato to eat while they recooked my steak. I was just expecting my steak back but no they brought me a whole new plate! Which in my book was a very nice touch. The manager came by and talked to us twice just to make sure that we were happy. And honestly, I was not all that annoyed that my steak was overcooked since my bf's steak was perfect and he was the one that was starving. Lol They salvaged a below par experience and totally made it a great night by exceeding my expectations. And the steak was cooked to perfection. It was medium leaning towards the med rare side which is how I like it. Ribeye was tender with a good amount of fat running through it and the seasoning on it was perfect. The sweet potato was baked perfectly and the broccoli was steamed to oh dare I say it again... Yup it was steamed to perfection. Still a bright green with a small bite so that it wasn't total mush. Flavor 5/5
Yes my experience could have been totally ruined but they cared enough to make sure that my ribeye was cooked to my standards.
Will I return... Yup! I will. :) Does it compare to the dry aged ribeye at CarneVino? No it didn't but then again it also didn't break the bank. For the price, Outback is totally worth it. When I'm craving steak... I'll be back! :)