We ate at Outback Steakhouse in Bowling Green, Kentucky about a week ago and I’m already craving their steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and Chocolate Covered Heaven they call dessert again. In fact, writing this restaurant review is making it hard to think about anything but their amazing food!
The iced tea was perfect, the hostess was a sweetheart and our server was totally on the ball.
One of the things I’ve always loved the most about Outback (in addition to the Bloomin’ Onion!) is their great menu. Restaurants that give you precious few options give me a precious migraine. Outback has a fun wide variety of steaks, seafood, chicken, salads, appetizers, soup, desserts, and sides and I love them for that.
(Click here to check out a few delicious featured items like Crab Stuffed Mushrooms and Strawberry Waffle Shortcake – yes, you read that right… and you’re welcome.)
I love, love, love restaurants that provide you with complimentary bread and butter and keep it coming. Outback’s bread is as unique as their Bloomin’ Onion and our server never let us run low. He’s cool like that.
I also love a great salad. When a restaurant serves me a salad that looks like it came from a bag of tossed salad from Kroger, I’m tempted to tell the server, “You can have this back.” I never do, of course, because that would be tacky and my mom and dad didn’t raise a tacky daughter. An over-spending, free-spirited, tree-hugging, coffee-addicted animal lover that drives too fast? Yes. But never tacky. So I simply sit a disappointing salad to the side and occasionally scowl at it.
My mother would approve.
The salads at Outback never make me scowl. They’re simply beautiful. And fresh. And fantastic. If we’re being 100 percent honest, though, I don’t care much for their French dressing. It tastes closer to Russian dressing. I think it lost itself somewhere around Belarus or Poland (praying that my high school geography is finally paying off here). While I was eating my salad, my husband asked me how it was. I told him the salad, itself, was amazing but that I couldn’t decide if I loved or hated the dressing.
Curiosity made him reach over and take a bite for himself. He thought about it and said, “You’re right.” The dressing is sweet, though – I’ll give it that. While I tried to get a handle on my relationship with my dressing, he said his Blue Cheese Pecan Chopped Salad was perfectly delicious.
Great. So why I’d have to choose “It’s complicated” as my Facebook relationship status with MY dressing, he was able to say he was in a happy relationship with HIS dressing. Dressing envy ensued.
We both chose the Create Your Own Signature Steak option on the menu. He ordered his steak “Classic” and I chose “Wood-Fired Grill.” We were both convinced that our own personal choice was the best. Truth be told, you can’t possibly go wrong with steak at Outback. They know what they’re doing. Michael ordered a Blue Cheese Crumb Crust as an “add on” (what is it with this boy and Blue Cheese???). I didn’t choose any add on because the only thing I want between me and my steak is opportunity.
The steaks were beyond delicious – juicy, full of flavor you only get with a grilled steak, and cooked just like we ordered.
Michael ordered grilled asparagus as a side while I went with a favorite, garlic mashed potatoes. The asparagus was perfect. As someone who cooks a lot (I’d say daily qualifies for a lot, right?), I know there’s an art to getting asparagus “just right.” You don’t want to break a tooth when you bite into your asparagus, but – at the same time – limp, soft asparagus that has lost the will to live is a culinary sin. There’s a tiny window of opportunity to get asparagus just the way it should be and Outback does it like a champ. This asparagus was dead on perfect.
I’m equally wild about their garlic mashed potatoes. Outstanding. Outbacks garlic mashed potatoes are as good as anyone’s.
Some restaurants only give you one side with your meat, charging you extra for a salad. I love that Outback gives you a side and throws in the salad as well with the Choose your Signature Steak plan. When you find a restaurant that either gives you two sides or throws in a salad like Outback, program them into your GPS and visit them as often as family. That you like.
Generous restaurants are a dying breed. Seriously, restaurants are getting chintzy.
In the name of keeping calories within a range we can live with, we normally either choose an appetizer or dessert when eating out. The husband was more in the mood for dessert than he was for an appetizer on this trip, so I didn’t get to cozy up with one of my beloved Bloomin’ Onions. To keep our trip home to Owensboro from being a LONG one for him, he did – to his credit – make sure he ordered dessert which involved chocolate. A must when you’re married to a chocoholic like he is.
We got the Chocolate Thunder from Down Under. Oh. My. Heavens. SO GOOD! Outback’s website describes it like this: An extra generous pecan brownie is topped with rich vanilla ice cream, drizzled with our warm chocolate sauce and finished with chocolate shavings and whipped cream.
I describe it like this, Oh. My Heavens. SO GOOD!
We’re both right.
The Chocolate Thunder from Down Under is a mind-blowing creation. It’s more delicious than any dessert has a right to be.
This is some of the best chocolate this chocoholic has ever tasted and.. yes, as a matter of fact, I am an expert.
I don’t care where you live, you have to make your way to Bowling Green’s Outback Steakhouse. The food will blow your mind.
A special note to my neighbors in and around Owensboro, Kentucky (as well as Henderson, Madisonville, Sebree, Hanson…): I know a lot of you frequently go to Evansville, Indiana for shopping and dining. Evansville has restaurants we don’t have in Owensboro (yet) and it has a much bigger mall than we have in Owensboro (as of now… God willing that may change one day… would it help to beg?). Rather than heading off for Evansville, why not head for Bowling Green and keep your money in your own state?! Bowling Green has everything you enjoy about Evansville. If it’s been a while since you visited Bowling Green, you might be surprised.
This little girl has really grown up…. and filled out nicely!
Yes. Yes. This is me on my “Keep your money in Kentucky whenever possible!” platform but it’s even more a case of me offering my sexy, cool, intelligent, and witty readers the best advice possible. Bowling Green has some of the best restaurants in the entire area. They’re managed beautifully, impeccably staffed, and I can’t recall the last time I got bad service at a Bowling Green restaurant. You get “all that” served up with Kentucky’s infamous Southern hospitality.
Shopping is also outstanding in Bowling Green. The Greenwood Mall has 100 or more stores and I personally can’t think of one they DON’T have.
Seriously. Why even think of crossing a state border? Just promise me you’ll make a date with Bowling Green soon. You won’t believe what you’ve been missing.
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