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Restaurant review

Time for an Aussie update, mates

The competition has caught, and in some cases passed, the once-dominant Outback steakhouse chain. But it's not too late to rejuvenate.

By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published September 14, 2006

	[Times photo: Cherie Diez]
	A new entree on the Outback menu is bronzed chicken breast, topped with shrimp and mushrooms in a vermouth cream sauce and served with grilled corn cakes.

I ate at my first Outback in '89, when there were only two. That was something like 900 Outbacks ago. The Aussie-themed chain born on Henderson Boulevard in Tampa now is spread across the states and as far away as Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Sydney, Australia.

When the local guys who founded the chain stepped down from full-time management recently, I thought back to those early days when we stood in line for hours for steaks and Bloomin' Onions.

That was then. Now, the numbers - in sales of steak and of stock - are less than stellar.

What happened?

All still seems well at Ye Olde Outback No. 1 in South Tampa, where cars overflow onto the median during dinner and lunch. But those locals are a bad test market for anything new.

To see where the Outback brand is now, it's better to look to a newer Outback, the one on St. Petersburg's Fourth Street N.

It is clean with better art, but still plain and no longer special, one more collection of wooden booths and TVs around a horseshoe bar. On the day we were there, there was no line.

Once Outback was the pioneer of steakhouses between Ponderosa and Bern's. The thrill is gone.

Now the middle-range steak category is crowded with peanut shell saloons and sports bars. Some Outbacks are a notch above a neighboring Ale House or LongHorn. Some not.

The past two decades of style have passed Outback by. While rivals have hung hundreds of Italian glass lamps and stirred fashionable presentation into coffee, Outback has stuck to its original decor in the restaurants and on the plates.

Even the historic Outback is dark and dull; its koala carvings seem left over from a roadside zoo. The Southern Cross over the bar is frayed.

Plates are drearier. Steaks are plain, without parsley or rosemary and are too big for the aging industrial china (cowboy tan), yet they look cheap instead of generous. The sinewy gristle edge on my ribeye suggested the same.

Prime rib fared better, sliced from a whole roast. Outback styling adds spice and puts the slab on the steel again, but not enough to sear crisply.

Fries were so-so, not the chips of Oz. Salads were distinguished only by gobs of blue cheese and cinnamon pecans.

The beer list was stuck in the '80s, a handful of standards and Foster's (although new Aussie brands are promised). The shiraz was our supermarket mate, Black Opal.

Outback service was and can be smart and well-trained. Yet one meal got delivered to the wrong table; the steaks were overcooked and sent back.

The best new taste was bronzed chicken with corn cakes. I brake for cornbread, but wish for a crisper edge. Seared tuna, new to Outback, was perfect, with just enough char and smoke. There's also peppery creamed corn in the veggies.

But it's not enough, lads, to command several bucks more than the rivals (where $15 can buy 20 ounces of T-bone) or to stay atop a new century.

I'm not calling for goat cheese, cobalt lamps and copper sinks. But even our hunger for meat and potatoes is more sophisticated these days. LongHorn tops steaks with sun-dried tomatoes as well as cheese and bacon (and spikes cinnamon apples with a spot of brandy).

Since sirloin can be as boring as chicken breast, consider pork; Miller's Ale Houses turns a slow-cooked shank into pork osso bucco. For carbophobes, Ruby Tuesday's has mashed up cauliflower; dozens of restaurants yam it up.

It's hard to turn a herd this big, but Outback has talent and energy in other branches, so whistle up the dogs. Start with general cleanup, more windows, better plantings and fresh dinnerware systemwide. Look to younger siblings Carrabba's and Bonefish for help.

Then go on a long walkabout for some ideas on Aussie innovation. Judging by the outpouring for the late Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Dundee of our time, Australia still charms us.

Outback could add hanger steaks, tri-tip cuts and a world of sauces (bearnaise, berbere, chimicurri, pesto, whiskey, coffee . . .), but why not waltz with the bloke who brought you?

Grab some tucker from Mum's kitchen, the barbie, the outback and Australia's own melting pot: skewers, meat pies, pub curry, fruit salad, bangers, chicken on a spit. Finish with Pavlova meringue, lamington sponge cake or sweet Anzac oat biscuits.

Or add tastes of New Australian cooking. One of the country's premier chefs, Tetsuya Wakuda, mixes Aussie ingredients with the style of his native Japan. Food stylist Donna Hay is the Australian equivalent of Martha Stewart with books, TV shows, a magazine - and no convictions.

The billycan is now a stir fry of flavors from around the Pacific Rim, as well as the Empire, from South Asia to the Mediterranean. If Oz can modernize, Outback can too.

Chris Sherman dines anonymously and unannounced. The St. Petersburg Times pays for all expenses. A restaurant's advertising has nothing to do with selection for a review or the assessment of its quality. Sherman can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com

Outback Steak House

947 locations worldwide including:

* 1900 Fourth St. N, St. Petersburg

727 898-2016

* 3403 Henderson Blvd., Tampa

(813) 875-4329

Hours: Vary by location; the Tampa location is open for lunch, some open at noon on Sundays.

Reservations: Call-ahead seating.

Details: Credit cards, full bar, takeout.

Prices: $12 to $26.

[Last modified September 13, 2006, 13:07:23]