Round us, the vibe felt low-key celebratory, like a household reunion on the park; multigenerational teams sipped technicolor margaritas and handed round bloomin’ onions (sorry, “Cactus Blossoms”). I noticed two youngsters on what seemed like a primary date, feasting on steak and Coke. A bunch of mates on the bar shouted in exasperation at their underperforming St. Louis Cardinals.
Our waiter sensed immediately we had been first-timers. After I didn’t immediately snap the tabletop menu QR code with my cellphone, she took it as an indication and handed me an enormous laminated one as an alternative. “Generally I simply need to maintain a menu in my fingers, too,” she mentioned reassuringly. Overwhelmed by selection (seven classes for entrees alone!), I figured I’d go along with a steak—taking a cue from the numerous hulking items of meat I noticed across the room. After I briefly wobbled over whether or not to order my New York strip medium or medium-rare, she slid just a little photograph information in entrance of me, illustrating the degrees of steak doneness.
My strip, which arrived just a little darker than the one on the diagram, was properly charred and seasoned, if gristly; my husband’s bone-in ribeye was higher, and medium-rare as promised. The mashed potatoes tasted like they got here from a field, however a loaded baked potato was scoopable and lightweight, well-seasoned, and heaped with bacon, cheddar, and bitter cream. The rolls had been pretty much as good as everybody says—tender and candy with a slick of cinnamon-honey butter, plus extra for smearing. I get why the recipe blogosphere faithfully churns out copycat after copycat recipe. I would really like them to please unriddle these heavenly inexperienced beans, too, braised until mushy in bacon and onion broth… nevermind, they already did.
Not like LongHorn, which leans extra conventional in its interpretation of steakhouse meals, Texas Roadhouse has a decidedly nation cooking bent—just a little Southern, just a little Creole, just a little clichéd-cowboy Texan. And although each dish didn’t hit the mark, the flavors had been heat and acquainted, and the parts had been beneficiant. It’s the wealthy, throwback meals I affiliate with the very American obsession with highway journeys. Name Texas Roadhouse the nighttime companion to the diner, possibly. You’ve pushed all day within the white minivan, everybody’s ravenous and cranky. It’s time to cease for gravy-smothered beef ideas and a loaded baked potato.
As we ate, clapping and shouts of “Yee-haw!” broke out. Over the tops of the cubicles, we may see a person in his 70s clamoring onto a saddle that the employees had wheeled out. One handed him a material serviette, which he waved round his head with vigor whereas they half-chanted “Pleased Birthday.” His household laughed and clapped alongside. I bought the sense this was an annual custom.
After a night on the Roadhouse, I’ve my very own principle in regards to the chain’s enduring—and rising—reputation that goes past streamlined digital ordering. There’s a line from the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s when socialite Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) explains why merely being inside the posh jewellery retailer helps soothe her ongoing emotions of dread: “The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very dangerous may occur to you there,” she says. The Roadhouse will not be quiet or fancy, however I felt content material and comfortable for the hour and a half I spent consuming my baked potato and watching folks watch sports activities. I can already think about myself carving out one other night time at one other Texas Roadhouse on my subsequent nice American highway journey. It’s good to know I’m by no means too removed from a spot the place the bread is free, the sport is at all times on, and the nice instances are only a napkin-waving saddle trip away.
