the best $20 steak you’ll ever eat. Ignore the favorite snobby punch-line. Outback Steakhouse is without question the best $20 steak you’ll ever eat and the best overall value of any chain you’ll ever admit to frequenting. In times since passed, during the author’s youth, nothing pleased him and workout buddy more than a suicidal lifting session followed by Outback’s caloric overdose. Regrettably, age has withered lifting prowess and the weekly trip became an annual. A higher frequency would morbidly enlarge everything except the muscles. Back then, Outback’s Victoria Filet was the best $14 steak you’d ever eat and even now, with inflation, it’s still the best for $20. The key is to go and eat that alone, without the blooming onions, without the cheddar cheese fries and without the dozen or so James Boag lagers. But that never happens. It’s like ordering a hot fudge sundae and holding the fudge. By the time you’re done with Outback dinner, you will have consumed several days’ and several people’s allowance of sodium, calories, fat and every other damn thing that the doctors tell you not to eat. You will have also paid for it and wondered how things could really be so cheap and why downtown is fleecing you. You’ll return with family but fear that telling others would earn you a spot along the punchline. Screw it. Proclaim with me loudly: I am an Outback fan and shall be ashamed no more!

This fine Monday evening, we made the drive to Skokie where the nearest Outback lies. It was better than ever. On the menu were a half-order of cheddar cheese fries, a French onion soup, a shrimp salad, a Victoria Filet, with blue-cheese crust of course, but luckily no bloomin’ onion. Free bread and salads, 3 drinks and a generous tip rang in at $80. Immobility followed. The steak was as good as anything at Gibson’s and they did not fear the color rare. It was big and red and soft enough to cut with the soup spoon. The quality of the meat has always been consistent but the size and temperature were not. Rare will sometimes get you medium and returning it might get you burnt. By the time you get your meat the other party will be finished. But that’s a case for training. And the English language. This day, the lottery was won. Everything was perfect. See for yourself on mealschpeal com.

The pants fit a little tighter so a quick return may not be the best idea but man, there’s still that craving for the bloomin’ onion. Should have had that while we had the chance.

Love,

Mealschpeal com…

Australian tchotchkes and brews give this quintessentially American restaurant a distinctive Down Under flavor.. In Short
Boomerangs, Aussie flags, kangaroo portraits and faux aboriginal art honor the homeland's wilderness, but Outback delivers a polished version of rusticity with varnished blond-wood booths with matching wainscoting and casually uniformed waitstaff. Besides more than a half-dozen cuts of steak, diners can pick from large-portioned entrees like ribs, chops and shrimp or chicken "on the barbie." The Bloomin' Onion, a large onion dipped in batter and deep-fried, is an appetizer with a following.…