There are a few corndog restaurant chains that chefs and serious food people laud more than others. The Cheesecake Factory is one of them. So is Hillstone, even though no one has ever actually been there. And of course there’s Outback Steakhouse. Known for their “Aussie hospitality” as well as their Bloomin’ Onion®, an appetizer-y onion ring-y situation you can find cool knockoffs of in Brooklyn for twice the price, Outback is an Australian-inspired steakhouse chain that exists both as a serious restaurant and a meme. I had been but once, at the one across from the Glendale Americana after filming a Kickstarter video featuring my favorite gay porn star and the night was a complete blur. Now that I had another chance to go while visiting Chris’ family over the holidays, I finally had the chance to rediscover it. Is Outback Steakhouse actually the most underrated, best restaurant of all time?

Spoiler alert: no. It’s not. This in fact was originally going to be an “ironic” post making fun of food people putting “normal restaurants” on a pedestal, as if it’s clout to say you like something that literally millions of other people also like. But keeping true to our 2026 Ins and Outs, that kind of detached bitterness is dead. Ilya came to the cottage, we’re going back to the mall. We no longer have to take our shoes off at the airport, and we don’t have to take our laptop out of our bag. For deranged food-heads like us, we can’t help but view Outback Steakhouse through the Vaseline blur of… something smudged on our f1.4 55mm lens. Part of that something is nostalgia. Part of it is novelty, either real or imagined. Part of it is something else…

The Outback Steakhouse near Chris’ mom’s house sits in a strip mall across from the Magic City casino, on the lot of a former Blockbuster. The interior is inoffensively brown – one large room with a bar made of builder-grade material that can hold up to 187 people at a time. It’s well-lit, as in it’s bright. There is a five-minute wait before our table is ready. There’s a mini iPad on the table that displays a digital menu as well as physical menus and traditional table-side service.

The menus advertise a handful of sections: “Boozie Bevies,” “Aussie-Tizers®,” and, of course, an entire page called “So Many Ways to Steak,” where you can choose from “Seasoned and Seared,” Slow-Roasted,” or “Char-Grilled “. The Outback Center-Cut Sirloin is what they’re known for it seems, but what the fuck is a center-cut sirloin? Chris and I opt for the Delmonico ribeye and the New York strip (a NEW! item) respectively. A 22 oz Porterhouse for two is still a few dollars cheaper than, say, the 10 oz Prime Hanger at Sunny’s, and each steak here comes with soup or salad AND a side. There’s no doubt you can’t beat that value. It feels wrong, in fact –– it’s gotta be bad if it’s that (relatively) cheap, right? No, wait, maybe it’s fine? Maybe it’s good, actually, maybe it’s great. I remember now, being jaded is for ugly people.

Chris orders a margarita flight served on a boomerang. I order the Castaway Cocktail from the “Boozy Bevies” section. All are cloyingly sweet, one part booze to three-or-four parts flavored syrup juice.

A small loaf of dark brown Cheesecake-Factory-like bread with a small stainless steel ramekin of butter is set down on the table, along with a steak knife that we can use to cut slices with. The bread has been warmed and is Uncrustable® soft. It is soon gone and we order another, something that we’ll come to regret…

The Bloomin’ Onion® arrives. The dipping sauce is a mustard-heavy 1000 Island, the onion itself is salty and greasy. They forgot to give us silverware and napkins, and it takes us a while to finally get them. In the meantime, we rub Bloomin’ Onion® residue on our good pants.

Our salads arrive: a Caesar and a Blue Cheese Pecan. The Caesar would be a decent potluck item at an afterschool student council meeting. The Blue Cheese Pecan is downright offensive, composed mostly of bagged Romaine-carrot-cabbage mix dressed in a sweet, tan goo. Next,the sides: Chris’ premium mashed potatoes (an up-charge) came loaded with cheap-ass bacon bits, my loaded baked potato was strangely dry and also came with those same-ass bacon bits.

At this point, we really didn’t have high hopes for the steaks, given the distinct mid-ness of everything else. They looked well-seared, but their sides were still gray. I cut into mine, expecting my medium-rare New York strip to be medium at best. It was medium rare. It was well-seasoned with salt and a flavor-enhancing spice blend. It was well-rested, warm and juicy. It was fatty, but I don’t mind the fat.

All you need to read is “flavor-enhancing spice blend above” to know this steak was not as flavorful as a dry-aged grass-fed steak might be. But it was also $25.99, and it was Monday night. Chris’ Delmonico was just as flavorful and well-prepared as my New York was, and it also tasted completely different.

Our second order of bread finally came, which was cleared mostly untouched because we were already full. Chris’ mom put down her card and soon, we were back out in the warm December air. A sense of melancholy washed over me. Yes… that’s it. Melancholy.

If you ask the normal person what they think of Outback, they will likely say it’s “good.” Indeed, every Outback in Miami has 3.5 stars at most, and, while I’m not actually going to do the research for the sake of this one blog post, I have a feeling the same is true with most Outbacks in the country. As a suburban outpost, it makes sense. Suburbia is a place where people go to live comfortably. To not be challenged. To enjoy meat devoid of context on an ancient burial ground where a Blockbuster used to be. A former sad boy of suburbia myself, of Agoura Hills to be exact, whose slogan is “The Good Life,” plastered on banners hanging on concrete LED street lights that decorate Thousand Oaks Blvd, I grew up resenting it.

As food people, we yearn for delicious things, we yearn for food and restaurants that are good: as in “of a high or desired quality.” But when we quiet the critic, and relax back into our own “normie”, we can remember that we also yearn for things that are good, as in “agreeable, pleasant” and “that can be used or relied on” and “conforming to a standard” and “free from turmoil” and even “virtuous, moral, ethical.” To be good not (just?) in quality, but in goodliness – ”that which is morally right.”

In Outback’s case, it’s a place to celebrate, to splurge, to connect with family and friends, or to just have dinner. But above all, it is a good place to get a good steak at a good price. Most of the great restaurants we go can’t say the same. I will be going back.

But probably not anytime soon.

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