Love them or hate them, onions are an impressively adaptable vegetable.
They make for a fine dip or they can be sliced into a fresh salad.
The whole thing is then dunked into a seasoned batter and fried until crispy and brown.
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Served with a dipping sauce, the crunchy segmented vegetable makes for a tasty and easily sharable appetizer.
Texas Roadhouse vs. Outback Steakhouse: Which Has the Best Bone-In Ribeye?
The fried onion from down under is the ultimate shareable.
Megan Hageman for Eat This, Not That!
For these reasons and more, the original Bloomin' Onion has become something of an Outback legend.
It will also set you back about $9.99, depending on where you live.
However, inconsistency was a glaring problem here.
Megan Hageman for Texas Roadhouse
And underneath its top layer, I discovered a complete catastrophe.
Drips of grease garnished the edge of the plate.
The Taste:Again, I resort to the word inconsistent.
A few of my first bites from the center of the bloom were crisp and well seasoned.
But, this salty spices weren’t well dispersed and the breading also fell off the onions quite easily.
Imitation is the best form of flattery, right?
The southwestern-themed steakhouse dubbed its fried onion theCactus Blossomand it shares many similarities to Outback’s.
This fried onion really did come out looking just as aesthetically pleasing as it appears on the menu.
It seemed slightly smaller than Outback’s, but still plenty big to share.
The petals themselves, however, were wider in comparison.
All were very evenly breaded and fried to a splendid shade of golden brown.
The Taste:All-around satisfyingnot too greasy and not overly salty or seasoned.
Each petal pulled apart easily without bringing its neighbors with it.
And, that doesn’t even include the Cajun sauce, which tacks on another 260 calories.
