When looking for a night out at a good restaurant, a locale that uses an armadillo as its mascot isn't usually the first thing that comes to mind. Yet when I visited the Texas Roadhouse location in East Meadow, NY, I was amazed at the quality of the food, the prices, and the service.
Good Times at the Texas Roadhouse
When you arrive at the Roadhouse, you'll find yourself confronted with a gigantic barrel of peanuts. More than just something to munch on while waiting to be seated, each table comes equipped with a large pail for peanut eating – and, as one waitress lamented, for the under-utilized purpose of peanut shell disposal. Furthermore, there's a large display case in the front area that shows off the different cuts of meat.
The service, as mentioned, is friendly and helpful; a huge relief as one tries to decide what one wants to eat. Then comes perhaps the best part of the meal – bread with cinnamon-sugar butter blended perfectly. If there's one reason to go to the Roadhouse, its this delicacy; its never-ending bread with never-ending butter. A friend once suggested that I take as much of it as I could and stuff it into my pockets for later use; this advice did not go to waste.
What Else does Texas Roadhouse Offer?
It can safely be said that the Texas Roadhouse has excellent prices; a dinner for two came up to under $30, and we didn't exactly cheap it by sticking to tap water. Rather we enjoyed ourselves with the intent of keeping it from breaking our bank, and we were well rewarded with a meal that would have cost well over $45 elsewhere!
If I had to choose a downside, however, it would be the steak sauce. Its a small nitpick, but it very nearly earned my rarely-used “unfortunate review” label because it so nearly ruined the experience. It's a house-brand thing, so this might double as a product review. Here goes: Maybe I got a bad batch, but I would have been about as well off liquefying the plastic bottle it came in and pouring that on my otherwise-scrumptious steak. It certainly tasted like plastic.
The bottom line: The Texas Roadhouse is an inexpensive yet excellent casual dining restaurant with good chicken and steak options, good but cheap drinks, and outstanding cinnamon-sugar butter. Just be sure to bring your own steak sauce. Bon Appetite!
Jesse Pohlman - Jesse Pohlman is an avid writer and a researcher of pretty much anything. His latest novel, Physics Incarnate, is available for Kindle.
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