Dec 13th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Outback Bar and Grill
One Helsinki restaurant I didn’t sample:
The concept of an “outback bar and grill” in this context suggests to be that somebody went to an Outback Steakhouse in the USA and didn’t quite understand the concept. I’m no Texan, but I’m pretty sure there’s no outback there.
46 Responses to “Outback Bar and Grill”
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December 13th, 2008 at 5:50 am
hilarious.
i guess this is the kind of stuff considered “ethnic” food in Finland.
December 13th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Well, there are a lot of Outbacks in Dallas, for some reason. The one time I went I didn’t think it was so great; there are better steak houses.
Anyways, there may be no outback, but there’s Odessa-Permian, which is dusty!
max
['Perhaps they should've called it the Pecos Outback.']
December 13th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Texas may not have an Outback, but lots of the bars have biergartens, which is nice in a warm-weather state.
December 13th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Seems poetically right. I grew up in Texas and I’ve known my share of Aussies and let me tell you: though they’re not the same Texas and Australia mightily rhyme.
December 13th, 2008 at 7:02 am
he’ll, there’s not even a there there.
but I think mr shreffler has the right diagnosis; aussies imitate texans, texans imitate aussies, both imitate the hollywood imaginary of arid cowboy cattledrives.
there’s enough overlap in each one’s fastidious image-making that from any distance they blur. sure, if you actually are a valley-girl, you’re shocked that anyone could confuse east valley with west valley. if you’re outside that bubble, then the difference looks like–whatevs.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Re ” I’m no Texan, but I’m pretty sure there’s no outback there.”
———-
Sure there is. Visit George Bush’s ranch, ask “where’s the bathroom?”, and they say “It’s out back”.
PS The Sears catalog ain’t there for reading, if you catch mah drift.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:17 am
I feel like I went some place with a very similar name and outlook when I was in Berlin, but that was years ago so I could be wrong. I remember I needed a steak after seven weeks in Europe with no red meat, and though the place claimed to be Texan, they served Argentinian beef and it was surprisingly good for the price (not to mention location). Of course, that was in the pre-Euro days when Germany was a steal (by current standards).
December 13th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Please keep in mind that “don’t mess with texas” was started by texas’s highway department to reduce litter.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:38 am
I could see one George W. Bush opening a Texas restaurant with such a wrong-headed theme.
http://www.sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/
December 13th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Please do not use the phrase “one George W. Bush.” I can’t stomach the thought there might be more than one. Thanks!
December 13th, 2008 at 9:44 am
This way they can use the apostrophe-rich slogan, “G’day y’all!”
December 13th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Many years ago my father went to a restaurant in Spain that was mysteriously called “the Nebraska.”
We can find through Google that the place still exists (or did as of last year) and has even expanded into a chain!
http://hlime.wordpress.com/2007/06/04/haute-couture-in-madrid-spain-restaurante-nebraska/
I can’t remember if the place was supposed to have an American theme, but according to him, the food was awful. If it’s still in business almost four decades later, though, people must disagree.
December 13th, 2008 at 10:26 am
I drove across the widest (east/west) part of Texas years ago, not on any interstates. Let me say that my mental image of most of that road trip (2 days, continuous) was there’s a hell of lot of nothing in central/west Texas. I guess that’s how the Aussies feel about their central/west land, and ‘outback’ is the friendliest possible name they could bestow. Hellhole works for that part of Texas.
I didn’t notice any kangaroos in Texas, but there were some really strange folks in the few inhabited places. Hats and boots: that’s all you need to be a real Tejan. And a wild, drugged out look in the eyes.
December 13th, 2008 at 10:35 am
There is Outbacks in Brazil, land of churrasco. By the way, there is a barbecue restaurant and beef distributor called “Montana Grill” here.
And it´s locally owned.
December 13th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Finland has large wild forest areas where you can chase elk, if not longhorns. Does that count? Elk is delicious, by the way.
December 13th, 2008 at 11:22 am
James Kabala: The ‘Nebraska’ is a chain of restaurant / cafeterias in downtown Madrid. It would not be considered high cuisine in any sense. But they’ve been open since the 1950s, and there wasn’t a lot of tourism in Madrid under Franco.
http://www.gruponebraska.com/?url=grupo+nebraska&corp=gruponebraska&lang=es&mode=view
Many are closed for remodeling, I guess, but they seem to feel most famed for their bakery goods and ice creams.
Here’s a TV story on it (in Spanish):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoPDWFAQX0k
December 13th, 2008 at 11:25 am
West Texas and the Panhandle are plenty barren and unpopulated enough to match some quarters of the Australian Outback.
I’ll third the Texas-Aussie connection; they tend to like this state. Except that the beaches are worthless unless you go nearly down to the Mex. border.
December 13th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
The outback is a lot like west Texas. They just as well call west Texas the outback. I mean if your in Finland one hot stinking desert is pretty much like every other.
December 13th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
There is some strange Australia/Texas connection, but I think it has more to do with ranching than landscape. The language and attitudes are similar, in places. West Texas is pretty barren, and I’m not quite clear how you effectively run a ranch there. Texas is so big that one stereotype doesn’t really work for the whole state. I’m from Dallas, and it never fails that when I travel outside the state or talk to someone from outside the state, they assume I’m not from Texas because I don’t have an accent. I’m always curious as to which accent people think I should have. An East Texas accent is different from a West Texas one, and I have no idea what accent George W. Bush is using.
December 13th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
They have lots of Out Backs in Texas.
That’s where they take you to beat the shit out of you.
Out back.
December 13th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
El Cid: Thanks for the info. So I guess it was a chain even then. But what is the origin of the name?
December 13th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Rapier (18) nailed it. 40 years ago, I spent my tour of duty in El Paso. At the risk of alienating the good people there, west Texas is a definitive objective correlative to the Australian outback!
December 13th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I don’t think there’s any part of Texas that’s as barren as The Outback. I have driven through every part of Texas, and I’ve driven through The Outback. They aren’t the same. However, the people who live in The Outback have a mentality that is very similar to those who live in West Texas. Another similarity is that those places are the only places in the world with wild camels. I’m not kidding on that, look it up.
December 13th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
James K: I didn’t really see any good explanation. Until I come across a real story, I’ll just assume that it sounded American and that’s what the brothers wanted given the American-style of serving quick meals & fast food. A traditional Spanish lunch lasted a couple of hours or more, and often workers went home for lunch, and then worked late. But people in the city may not have the opportunity, and Americans sure do eat fast.
December 13th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Texas is all Outback.
December 14th, 2008 at 7:51 am
People often have a mixed understanding of places they have never visited, or only visited once or twice. This includes terminology.
“Outback” has the meaning of a remote, rural country, with an added popular impression of someplace hot and dry. A fair amount of Texas fits this description, even if we don’t refer to the countryside there as “outback.” But why would non-natives bother to make the distinction?
December 14th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Whether or not you think there is any Outback in Texas, I’m sure there are Texans in the Australian Outback.
December 14th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
When I lived In the US I always thought the outback steakhouse was rather strange. As an Australian I can attest that there are very few family friendly, modern looking, chain restaurants in the Australia outback.
December 15th, 2008 at 3:12 am
As a Texan living in Australia, I don’t see a deep resemblance between West Texas and the Outback (at least the Northern Territory area around Uluru up to Darwin). West Texas is spare, windy and desolate, but the Outback is completely godforsaken.
Maybe it’s more like the Panhandle. That place is awful.
December 15th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Looks to me like the Finnish restaurant just merged the two main US steak chains–Outback and Lone Star.
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