bloomin'

Sorry, not really, but whatever, but living here literally Right On the Northwest Florida Gulf Coast (I mean Right On: if I raise my eyes and, instead of looking down and out into St Andrews Bay, I look up, over and beyond, across Shell Island into the Gulf of Mexico where the next land direct South of me is maybe Honduras on the Caribbean Sea - check it out yourself if you want to, I'm not interested in arguing about it) where fresh seafood is readily available, I'm not much into chain restaurants.

For example, I really don't see how Red Lobster makes it in a place like this; Bonefish Grill, Outback Steakhouse, Olive Garden, and all the likes of them. Yes, I've eaten at all of them, and I pretty much like Carrabbas, where Linda, Kristen and I had late lunch/early dinner one day last week as we arrived back from Bonifay; but living here in fresh caught seafood paradise, I just don't get it. I mean, why go for make believe? Oh, if it weren't for close family living here and that I live in 7th Heaven, I'd move to Pensacola in an instant because the mullet seem about fished out here; but when I was growing up in Panama City, eating out meant Angelo's next to the bus station on 5th Street; or Daisy Lee's down near Harrison Oldsmobile at The Point; or the Chicken Box way out in the boondocks on 15th Street near Bud Davis Drive In Theater, where they set an enormous platter piled high with piping hot fried chicken down in the middle of the table in front of the family. There was nothing pretend about our world.

We didn't know what we were missing.

So, one of the funniest articles I've ever read was this morning, an essay that I can't find again in order to link it so you can read it too, on my news link, from The Washington Post, by their bureau chief in Brazil, about his incredulous adventure, driving over to São Paulo to eat at Brazil's largest and most chic restaurant, the Outback Steakhouse.

McCoy even mentions his own disbelief, living in the land of the world's absolute best beef churrasco, that Brazilians would go for this experience, in Brazil and throughout Brazil, crowds thronging the local outlet of an American chain of make believe Australian restaurants! Read this:

For a restaurant founded by four American business executives who intentionally avoided visiting Australia because they didn’t want to risk spoiling their vision with authenticity, the theme has been known to irk actual Australians. “Outback has nothing to do with Australia,” said Australian food critic Besha Rodell. “Zero. It is a wholly American invention.”

My reaction is jeepers & jiminy. I first ate at The Outback years ago, ours here on 23 Street in Panama City, and I love the bloomin' onion if they'll bring me a ranch dressing instead of their own dipping sauce; but I've been to Australia several Times, on business for weeks at a Time, and eaten at any number of local Australian restaurants, including as I've said here before, feasting on Sydney rock oysters in Sydney, and on the Carpet Bagger that they called their enormous filet mignon sliced open and stuffed with raw oysters, and drinking their excellent dry red wines of which besser findst du nit. And I remember that, though in The Outback the onion was fun and good and the steak was tasty, I remember thinking "I don't get it. Maybe I missed something. This is nothing like anything I ever experienced in Australia!"

So, McCoy clears it up: The Outback was never meant to mimic an Australian experience in the first place. Enjoy anyway. If you want Australian food, go to Australia. If you want Italian food, go to Ferrucci Ristorante, they keep it real. If you want fresh seafood, come to St Andrews.

RSF&PTL