Salt on the Barbie

Now that Carrabba's, our Sunday go-to place when we visited my parents in Staten Island, is closed, we are trying out some other places in the area. Tonight's dinner was in the same shopping plaza at Outback Steakhouse. We were in a great mood after the awesome Giants win over the Packers and were hoping for a good meal. We had been there before and had been satisfied with our experiences in the past.


Service was a bit slow from the start. Our server was very nice and kept the drinks full, but the kitchen seemed really slow. We got through two loaves of honey wheat bread before our appetizer arrived. The bread is a little sweet so it's not my favorite type. Also, for me, today it seemed a little dry.


For appetizer, we got the Alice Springs chicken quesadilla, which usually comes stuffed with grilled chicken breast, sauteed mushrooms, bacon, melted jack and cheddar cheeses and served with a side of honey mustard sauce.


The quesadilla was ordinary and seemed like something we could make ourselves. It was just pieces of grilled chicken, a few sliced mushrooms (there weren't even mushrooms in every piece) and cheese. Since we got it without bacon, there wasn't much depth of flavor to it. We were expecting something more than the simple quesadilla we got. The honey mustard sauce wasn't bad and I used a lot of it.

After another long wait, our entrees arrived:


Looking at the plates on the table, it looked like we had a really healthy meal. Clockwise starting from the top left corner, my mom got the grilled chicken on the barbie (seasoned grilled chicken served with BBQ sauce) with seasonal mixed vegetables (cooked in oil instead of butter), my dad got the grilled Norwegian salmon with the same mixed vegetables, A got the ribs (drenched in BBQ sauce) and chicken on the barbie (same chicken but just a smaller piece) which was served with Aussie fries (seasoned fries), and I got the grilled chicken on the barbie with green beans. We thought we were making really good choices!

There was one problem with the entrees and it affected all the entrees. They were all so salty, almost to the point of being inedible. With the chicken, we tried pulling off the top layer, which made it more bearable. Unfortunately for my dad, in addition to the salmon being fairly well done, there is no top layer to salmon to pull off and it wasn't possible to get rid of the salty part. A noted that his ribs were also really salty - not from the BBQ sauce but from the ribs themselves. The vegetables luckily were not that salty and somehow A's Aussie fries were less salty than our grilled chicken. It was like they just dumped an entire container of salt on the grill or mistook teaspoons in the recipe for tablespoons. No idea what happened in the kitchen, but everything off the grill felt like it went through a salt bath before getting to the table.

To management's credit, they did offer to make the dishes again, but considering the time and how much we had already eaten, we really didn't want another set of entrees. They also said that next time we could order it with no seasoning or light seasoning. But who would find this level of sodium to be edible? I cannot believe that a recipe would call for that level of salt, so much that it made my lips burn. If we got this again, I think we would have to ask for light seasoning, but I really don't know how anyone can stomach this if it's the "regular" seasoning level. I think we're still feeling the effects of it hours later.

There aren't a ton of dining options right near the grocery store, which is usually our last stop during the weekend (and we try to eat close to save time), so we'll probably return to Outback at some point. Hopefully next time the kitchen doesn't have such a heavy hand with the salt!