I ate the same meal at both Texas Roadhouse and Outback Steakhouse, and one was the clear winner
On the outside, the Outback Steakhouse in Manhattan looks like it belongs squarely in Manhattan.
Inside, the restaurant tries very hard to remind you that it's Australia-themed.
There were pictures of the Australian Outback...
And even pictures of kangaroos.
Are you in Australia yet?
Texas Roadhouse hits you over the head with its "Texas"-ness straight off the bat.
And the "Texas" only gets stronger once you walk through the doors.
Texas Roadhouse has a rustic, uber-patriotic vibe that Outback definitely does not. Outback's decor is sleeker, if equally thematic.
One major difference between the restaurants is the case showcasing red slabs of beef at the front of Texas Roadhouse.
Texas Roadhouse certainly goes more all-out with its decor. The hanging skulls, taxidermy heads, and Native American tapestries certainly took some effort to acquire.
Outback's complimentary honey oat bread impresses when it lands on the table. It's hot and well-presented. However, the pallet is made out of plastic, and I'm not quite sure what texture it's trying to emulate.
It was piping hot and deceptively airy with a faint hint of crust.
It came with plain whipped butter.
The bread itself was sweet, while the butter was light and added slight depth. It was like consuming a cloud. However, my server, Michael, revealed a secret butter hack...
If you ask for it, Outback will give you the honey butter it serves with its sweet potatoes.
It's sweet, without much of a honey flavor, but is the perfect complement to the sweet honey oat bread. It's also a closer proxy to Texas Roadhouse's sweet buns and cinnamon butter.
Texas Roadhouse wants to make sure you're stuffed by the time you leave, so there's a free, refillable bucket of peanuts at every table.
Texas Roadhouse's buns were presented simply in a basket. They had been sitting under heat lamps at the entrance.
They were warm with a crispy, oily crust.
The rolls themselves weren't sweet, but the cinnamon butter was. They were like a lighter version of a cinnamon roll — delightful. They were slightly denser and had more of a bite than Outback's bread.
No one comes to a steakhouse for the house salad. But a salad's freshness is a good indicator of the overall quality of ingredients used at a restaurant. Outback's house salad was basic: lettuce, tomatoes, onions, croutons, shredded cheese.
The dressing was very sweet, but otherwise it was a fairly standard salad. None of the ingredients were not fresh, but altogether it wasn't especially appealing. The lettuce was watery.
Texas Roadhouse's salad came in a slightly less fancy bowl with a plastic cup for dressing. However, it differed from Outback's salad in that it had eggs, more tomatoes, and no onions.
The dressing was lighter and more tart, while the lettuce was of slightly higher quality. Altogether, Texas Roadhouse's house salad won out over Outback's by an inch.
The Bloomin' Onion is Outback's most popular appetizer, and is also notoriously calorific. It comes with a side of horseradish sauce.
Since I was dining alone, I opted for the lonely diner's version of the Bloomin' Onion: Bloomin' Petals.
The petals themselves tasted burnt and undercooked at the same time, like they'd been fried too long and at too low a temperature to cook evenly. They were also soaked with grease, which was another giveaway that they weren't properly fried.
Not my personal cup of tea. They were too peppery and too salty, but didn't have anything to offer over a traditional onion ring. However, the horseradish sauce was addictive. Savory, spicy, grounded with paprika and a hint of ketchup, it was the sole reason I kept on eating these.
Texas Roadhouse's claim to appetizer fame is its Rattlesnake Bites.
They're deep-fried globs of jalapeño-studded pepperjack cheese, served with ranch and a house horseradish sauce.
Unlike the Bloomin' Petals, these had a lovely and even golden and crispy outside. Whoever fried them knew their way around a deep-fryer.
Crispy outside, melty and gooey inside, these are the perfect deep-fried cheesy appetizer. The horseradish and ranch sauce both went well with the bites, which were already spicy and full of flavor.
I ordered Outback's house margarita, the Sauza Gold Coast 'rita. Outback will never convince me that Australians drop the entire "marga" before "rita".
It was your standard frozen margarita from mix with a very lightly salted rim. It was nice and tart, but much too sweet for my taste. There was more sugar than alcohol in this. Although, for $5 in Manhattan, who can complain?
Texas Roadhouse's $9 Sangria Margarita is a gorgeous beast of a drink. Kaleidoscopic fruity colors evoke its namesake, while the rim is crusted in a generous layer of salt.
It, too, was tangy and slightly too sweet for my taste. However, it packed more of a punch and was incessantly drinkable. I was also impressed with the fruit slices.
Dinner at Texas Roadhouse also comes with a show. Every night, the staff will perform a line dance for the guests at least once.
For my main course, I ordered a bone-in ribeye with a loaded baked potato side and mixed vegetables at both restaurants.
Still, the presentation was significantly different.
Outback's baked potato was dripping with sour cream, cheese, and toppings. It was crinkly and cracked open, as if to welcome my fork.
The baked potato was the highlight of my meal at Outback. It's soft and light, with more subtle and varied flavors than Texas Roadhouse's baked potato. There's more focus on the sour cream and onion, which really tie together all the elements of the potato. The cheese is also perfectly melted.
Texas Roadhouse's baked potato was loaded with just cheddar and bacon. Ostensibly, there was cream cheese in there somewhere.
It tasted like the sum of its simple components: greasy, salty, and satisfying. It wasn't bad, but it was nowhere near as good as Outback's baked potato.
Outback's steak came with a side of mixed vegetables: broccoli, carrots, and yellow squash. These steamed affronts to my veggie-loving soul were soft, mushy, and utterly devoid of flavor, oil, or salt. Did someone forget to tell Australia — I mean Florida — that vegetables aren't supposed to be a chore?
Texas Roadhouse's veggie side was, as my server put it, "just broccoli." These were likely steamed as well, but definitely had more flavor than Outback's pallid legumes, probably from salt and butter. They were significantly more appetizing.
Finally, it was time for the steakhouse's raison d'être. Medium-rare, of course.
Outback's steak was tough to cut. It hadn't been trimmed, and there were sinewy bits that battled my knife.
It was gristly and chewy — I had to spit some of it out. It was tough, unevenly cooked, and didn't have that smooth, buttery texture you crave from a steak. It was also coated in a distractingly gritty spice mixture and was oversalted in places.
I originally mistook the coating of spice mixture for char, but a scratch of the fork revealed what I already knew from the taste: there was no char. The steak was probably cooked at a lower-than-ideal temperature, which would explain the thick layer of brown around its pink core.
But the char on Texas Roadhouse's bone-in ribeye was self-evident.
The first cut revealed a near-flawless steak: a lightly charred, crispy exterior and a smooth, buttery interior. There was no gristle whatsoever.
Although it was also oversalted in parts, Texas Roadhouse's steak was far superior to Outback's steak. It was juicy and seasoned in a way that kept the focus on the meat.
The service at Outback was excellent. My server, Michael, was friendly and helpful, and the vibe was slightly more laid-back than the vibe at Texas Roadhouse. I was impressed by the bread and the baked potato, and nothing was outright bad except for the vegetables. Outback also beat Texas Roadhouse out in presentation, but in the end, it's taste that matters. And Outback fell short on what it ought to do best: deep-fried onion and steak.
Although its presentation is humbler than Outback's, Texas Roadhouse isn't going for fancy. The experience delivers on the things that matter for a steakhouse: good service, appetizing accoutrements, and most importantly, a solid steak. Sure, there are areas for improvement — namely the dancing and the baked potato, but my dinner there was thoroughly enjoyable. Texas Roadhouse has won the rainy heart of this Pacific Northwest gal — and that's a feat for a place with so much "Texas" in its bones.
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