"outback" 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.

OK, so maybe you don't have $5,000 to eat the the Vegas burger-and-booze excess-a-thon that chef Hubert Keller is offering up (read today's post "A Burger and A Bottle for 5 Grand"). Outback Steakhouse has you covered. From January 12 to February 22, the steakhouse chain is offering a sirloin steak along with grilled scallops and shrimp (oh, and some mango salsa and veg), starting at $10.99, according to Nation's Restaurant News.

Look at it this way. Opt for Outback's Steak & Seafood Mixed Grill instead of the Fleurburger over at Mandalay Bay, and that gives you almost $4,985 more (let's not forget tax and tip) to blow at the craps table, should you be in Vegas. Or take in about 400 movies, should you be elsewhere in the country.

Snapfinger, a new web and mobile phone app, allows you to order from several chain restaurants like Outback, Subway and California Pizza Kitchen. So you can simply type in the order for Kookaburra wings from Outback, pay online, and have them waiting for you as you pull up.

The app is linked to the restaurant's computerized cash register which tells you daily specials, store hours and if an item has run out. The service is available for 28,000 restaurants in over 1,500 cities nationwide and in Canada.

Restaurants love this new form of ordering. According to an article in the New York Times, people who use the app spend about 25 percent more than when they order the old-school way. Snapfinger offers the add-on items like sides, which are typically suggested by the server.

Kudzu Interactive, which launched Snapfinger, is currently working on an app for fast-food restaurants where you can order at the counter and not have to wait in line as well as an iPad app to replace menus at tables.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wants Outback Steakhouse, Inc. to look into a method of chicken slaughter that is allegedly more humane, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal. Called controlled-atmosphere killing, the method basically gasses the birds, thus putting them "to sleep." PETA raised the suggestion at the annual Outback shareholders meeting this week in Tampa. How did PETA get their item on the table? They own 80 shares of Outback stock, enough to have an issue voted on at the yearly meeting. According to the TBBJ, PETA has put similar items up for a vote to Kroger, KFC and Hormel. Every time, the proposals for investigation of controlled-atmosphere killing have received more than three percent of the vote. While that isn't much, it's apparently enough to allow the issue to be submitted again next year.

[Via Restaurant News Resource]