Outback Steakhouse is confused

Wednesday night we met with the second landscape guy (whom T likes; I like the first one) to go over his quote and such.  Boy, redoing your entire backyard is not cheap.  But, if we can get it done, it will look so nice.  Clean, polished, comfortable, and a place where we can relax outside and I will most likely complain out loud about the neighbor’s smoking.  I’m not fond of our neighbors. 

Anyway, after that meeting we had to decide on dinner.  Because T had been gone over the weekend on his 4-day trip, I spent all those meals cooking for myself.  I don’t think I ate out once while he was gone.  As such, I was kind of tired of eating at home and I wanted to go out.  Of course, due to his absence, T had a list of things to do before we headed on vacation.  I was trying to make a case for Souplantation, he was trying to push the envelope of tortilla soup (that would make 8 cups) we had in the pantry.  I had almost argued (internally) that we could eat at home since we’d be spending the next week, essentially, eating out and spending money.  But, I must have been pouty and T is too nice to me, so we ended up in the car headed to Souplantation.  On the way there, we passed Outback Steakhouse, for which I had a $25 giftcard (thanks, Melanie!)  It was closer, it would be cheaper, and that’s how we ended up there instead of Souplantation.

We ended up with a variety of dishes: seared tuna, french onion soup, a blue cheese side salad, and I ordered the Slow-Roasted Sirloin Medley.  Now, there is also a dish on the specials menu called Herb-Rubbed Slow Roasted Sirloin.  This dish comes on a crouton, with steamed vegetables, garlic mashed potatoes, and au jus dipping sauce.  However, I wanted the dish I had last time – the Sirloin Medley.  The Medley has sirloin on a crouton, but it has grape tomatoes, asparagus, spinach, and is topped with a garlicky-herb dressing.  It’s really good.  Now, why would a restaurant name two different dishes with such a similar name?  You might argue that they aren’t all that different, but if you want spinach and garlic sauce and not potatoes and au jus, it’s a huge difference.  So, we made sure the server wrote down the right one (Sirloin Medley) and he even checked with 3 people to make sure he was putting in the order for the correct dish.  What comes out?  Yup, the one with mashed potatoes.  He approached our table and before he even set it down I said, “That’s the wrong one.”  He took it back and came back with the same plate with tomatoes, asparagus, and the garlic dressing on top.  So, I had a combination of the two dishes, but without the spinach and with a lump of potatoes that neither of us ate.  To make up for this odd snafu, we got free ice cream with hot fudge sauce, which made us very full but it was good.  I think someone in the kitchen was confused because our receipt even said “Sirloin Medley” instead of “Herb Rubbed Sirloin”.

If you go to Outback and you want the good sirloin dish, make sure you order the one that says Medley (and it’s on the regular menu) and make sure your dish comes with grape tomatoes and a garlicky-herb dressing.  If it shows up with garlic mashed potatoes, it’s the wrong dish.

To Outback: Just because you add “Medley” to the end of one and “Herb-Rubbed” to the beginning of another dish title doesn’t mean your people will get it right.  I have no clear solution for you, as I’m not sure how I’d rename either dish, but perhaps you should have tested the dish names in-house for a while before releasing them to the public.  You know, like a quiz. 

“Bob, what’s on the Slow-Roasted Sirloin Medley?” 

“Uh, sirloin slices on a large crouton with, um, wait.  Is that the one with the mashed potatoes or the tomatoes and asparagus?  What’s the other one called?  Herb-Rubbed Slow-Roasted Sirloin?”

“Hmm… I see where you’re getting confused.  Perhaps we should work on this a little more.”