The Ridiculous Blooming Onion
The egg wash and deep frying preparation process of the dish means it is high in food energy; a single blooming onion with dressing contains approximately 6,900 kilojoules (1,660 kilocalories) and 87 grams of fat. This appetizer is the perfect example of style over substance – basically a whole onion cut into a flower shape and deep-fried until golden. The portion size is completely ridiculous for an appetizer. By the time you’ve worked your way through even a quarter of this monstrosity, you’re too full to enjoy anything else. While it might look impressive for Instagram photos, eating this thing is like consuming an entire day’s worth of calories before your actual meal arrives.
Outback Bloomin’ Onion priced at $10.49 and contains approximately 1,950 calories per serving. That price point for what’s essentially just a battered onion seems pretty steep when you consider you’re paying restaurant markup for something that requires minimal skill to prepare. Most people share it, but honestly, even splitting it between four people still means you’re each getting roughly the equivalent of a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder just as an appetizer.
Frozen Mozzarella Sticks
Let’s start with the elephant in the room – those sad, rubbery mozzarella sticks that taste like they’ve been sitting in a freezer since the Clinton administration. Chef Brandon Naquin at Spahr’s in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana says “I never order mozzarella sticks at chain restaurants. They’re the same everywhere – overly processed, bland and usually just a vehicle for a tired marinara. As a chef, I am looking for flavor and texture, and mozz sticks fall flat every time. These things are basically cheese-flavored cardboard wrapped in breadcrumbs.
Most chains don’t even try anymore. They gave a distinctly fried-from-frozen vibe, which, apparently, they are, along with all the other fried appetizers on the Applebee’s menu. The cheese pull was lacking, and the cheese itself was rubbery. The flavor was okay initially, but after a couple of bites, the saltiness became overwhelming, followed by a weird, almost bitter aftertaste. When your appetizer tastes like it came straight from a freezer truck, maybe it’s time to reconsider your menu choices.
Loaded Potato Skins
Remember when loaded potato skins were the height of sophistication? Yeah, those days are long gone. According to Dennis Littley, Chef and Recipe expert at Ask Chef Dennis this is another favorite to ditch at chain restaurants because they’re “pre-made” and “reheated” instead of freshly baked. “While they sound like a classic, they’re often overloaded with cheese and bacon but lack balance, making them more of a greasy, heavy bite before a meal,” he says. These hollow potato shells have become the culinary equivalent of wearing a tracksuit to a wedding.
These things used to be a celebration of excess, but now they’re just sad hollow potato shells filled with processed cheese and bacon bits that taste like they came from a shaker. These skins were overcooked, hollowed out potatoes with a piece of yellow cheese and some bacon bits. The worst part is watching servers microwave these things in the back, turning what should be a crispy, satisfying starter into something that resembles cafeteria food.
Spinach Artichoke Dip
Instead, chain restaurant spinach dips (and spinach and artichoke dips) are heavy, clunky affairs which mix the vegetable with cheese, and a lot of it. The result is an appetizer that can be more filling than anything else on the menu. This combo might have been appealing once upon a time, but in today’s food world it just feels like too much. This dip has become the restaurant industry’s laziest attempt at including vegetables on the appetizer menu.
The Spinach-Artichoke Dip itself doesn’t come out looking like the thick masterpiece you find pictured on the company’s website. Instead, it’s watery and bland, with a taste that made the Daily Meal writer who created an ultimate ranking of Olive Garden appetizers believe canned artichoke was used… and from my personal experience, I can say that isn’t a farfetched idea. Don’t waste your $11.29 on this dip because it’s just not worth it. Food trends these days tend to emphasize bright, fresh, vegetal flavors that aren’t drowned out by other, richer ingredients. We’d much prefer an appetizer of crisp veggies or roasted root vegetables which are caramelized to bring out their natural sugars, instead of what is essentially a green-colored cheese dip.
Shrimp Cocktail
However, there’s no denying that it’s an outdated affair. Shrimp cocktail was already popular in the early 1900s and became especially fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s, though it gained particular prominence in Las Vegas in the 1950s, with Las Vegas commonly being recognized as its birthplace. This appetizer is like ordering a rotary phone in the smartphone era – sure, it technically still works, but why would you want to? By the mid-1960s it was available at virtually every hotel in the city, and it soon spread beyond the confines of the desert to dominate buffet counters and wedding brunches nationwide. However, by the 1980s it was already starting to feel old-school, and nowadays it just feels like a relic.
Plus, there’s no denying that the sauce used in shrimp cocktail can just be way too dominant for an appetizer and overwhelm the delicate flavor of the shrimp. Most chain restaurants serve these with those sad, frozen shrimp that have all the flavor and texture of rubber bands, drowning in cocktail sauce that tastes like ketchup mixed with horseradish. It’s the kind of appetizer your grandparents ordered at fancy restaurants in 1962, and frankly, it should have stayed there.
