"outback steakhouse" news and stories

First it was the best Applebee's appetizers, now we head Down Under to the popular steak chain, Outback Steakhouse. With so many entrees on offer, we decided to start with the restaurant's tried-and-true classics: Outback Favorites.

Menu Overview: There are seven main courses in the "Favorites" section, including Baby Back Ribs, which had a great crust, but the meat was a little fatty. "Would have loved them with more sauce," one taster said. Next, we sampled the Grilled Chicken on the Barbie (the chicken was dry and lacked seasoning), the pleasantly spicy No Rules Parmesan Pasta (but where was the Parmesan?) and the Sweet Glazed Pork Tenderloin, a dish that prompted one taster to suggest it "could have been cardboard" underneath the heaping pile of overly-sweet sauce.

Find out our Outback Favorites Winner, Runner-up, and Loser after the jump.

Whether seeing the ads on television, listening to them on the radio, or seeing billboards on the highway, restaurants across America are pushing to get the word out on their budget-friendly recession menus. Last week, Outback Steakhouses around the country released their new and improved menu -- 15 Meals Under $15 and starting at just $9.95. At a closer look, this menu does more than just keep money in their customers pockets, this company is actually looking ahead into the future.

Sitting down with the co-founder of Outback last week, Tim Gannon announced this new menu, but also stated that this menu has been one year in the making. So while this menu is hitting the restaurants when times are the hardest, the company has been forecasting for the longevity of their restaurants long before "recession menus" were a common marketing ploy.

When Outback Steakhouses first opened, Gannon pictured his eatery as a place families could "come all the time, it wasn't meant to be for special occasions." Gannon says, "We have two good things playing for us right now. One, gas prices are down and two, commodity prices are down. Outback can come into the marketplace with commodities at a much better price."

So what's the new menu look like and how does it taste? Find out after the jump.

It's official. The Worst Food in America is not the Pizza-Crepe-Taco-Pancake-Chili Bag that was famous for about 30 seconds a couple of years ago. First of all, the PCTPCB doesn't actually exist, and second of all, the Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing from Outback Steakhouse, which does exist, has made its way to the top -- er bottom, as it were -- of Men's Health's list of the 20 Worst Foods in America.

The foods were chosen based on sheer caloric impact alone, because in the end, it all comes down to the number of calories we consume and burn. However, some "allowances" were made for excessive carbohydrates and fat, added sugars, trans fats, and sodium. After all their calculations, the Aussie Cheese Fries weigh in at 2,900 calories, 182 g fat, and 240 g carbs. Even if you do the polite thing and share the order with three other people, your starter alone will already put you over a dinner's worth of calories before the server even brings your entree to the table.

So I guess that means, order the Aussie Fries and a glass of water for dinner, right?

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