Outback Steakhouse

Famous for the Bloomin' Onion (delicious calories) and for being my dad's favorite restaurant -- can't believe I hadn't reviewed it already! Outback has done a great thing lately and indicated dishes that may contain nuts with a special symbol on their menu. They don't have one for vegetarians, they don't have one for gluten free, they just have a nut symbol. Never in my life have I encountered such an amazing thing, especially by chance. I think it's fairly new, too. So great. Made my affections for a decent chain resto go way, way up!

Anyhoo, Outback always gives you a log of brown bread pre-meal (which is safe). Nice. I usually get ribs and a baked sweet potato, which is very tasty. Once I got a ribs + baked chicken combo, but the chicken was very boring so I don't recommend that. Other foods: Alice springs chicken is chicken with bacon and mushrooms and cheese on it....pretty darn unhealthy, but tasty of course! No-rules parmesan pasta = standard fettuccine dish, tasty and unhealthy too. Dad likes the coconut shrimp.

Watermelon vodka drinks are also good. ;9

Pricing is standard for a chain resto, maybe a little higher since it's steaks. Generally good quality food though, and always prompt service at ours.

Ribs and Sirloin Combo w/ side salad: This is too much meat! I should just get ribs, or a veg instead of a salad! I had heartburn and was sad afterwards, even though it tasted good.

New South Wales Sangria: Tastes like a sweet juice, but the only fruit is an orange and lime slice. Try again!

Outback sirloin (6oz): This is the cheapest and smallest steak, which is fine by me. It's not too many cals, not too filling, and tastes like a normal steak. No worries, mate! 6/10

Blackberry Bandit: This is drink made with gin and blackberry puree (and lemon?). It's decent, pretty strong but gin tastes like vodka to me and it had 3 full blackberries in it! 8/10

Coffee: Got this because I was sick, but their coffee is truly bad. Cold and smokey and watery and just one of the worst coffees of all time. Do not recommend. 4/10

Potato Soup: This was good! A nice choice of side to mix in with my sweet potato/salad/broc combinations. 8/10

Blackberry Martini: They really like blackberries at the Outback, and I like that. This was good but small and weirdly creamy. They also had a flight that I wanted to order but didn't see in time! I should do a flight next time! 7/10

Raspberry Cheesecake:  Sometimes they run a combo deal that includes a (half?) slice of cheesecake, which is fun and doesn't have the nut symbol, yet it still made me a bit nervous. The taste is standard, but the anxiety got to me a bit. 6/10

Seasonal Veggie: It's literally always been broccoli, for like, years. But I guess they left a loophole incase they're out someday. Anyway it's a big, tasty portion, with a wee bit of butter but not overdoing it. Great veg. 8/10

Boozy Cherry Limeade: This tastes exactly like non-boozy cherry limeade, aka it is delicious. But it's smaller and therefore fewer calories, which is great. Has flavored rum in it but didn't kill me. 8/10

Overall
Taste: 7/10
Cost: 5/10

Capriotti's Sandwich Shop

Classic sandwich shop! It tastes very good, and their sandwich "the bobbie" is one people talk about for being a very delaware-y sandwich. It consists of turkey, mayo, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, which is as delicious as it sounds! Also apt to give me stomach pains if I'm not careful :P. But it is a very tasty sandwich, and their cheesesteaks are good as well. A little pricy, but satisfying enough to be worth it once in a while.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 8/10

Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch

This is kind like a combination of Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz (which now has a peanut warning!?!? >:() and Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch flavors, but it is sadly not as good as either one. The heath pieces are still really good, but this coffee ice cream isn't that great -- not really that coffee-y, more like chocolate ice cream which I don't really like. So the vanilla ice cream is better, and the espresso-caramel bits of the Buzz Buzz were better. Nevertheless, this is still a tasty treat, it's just that there are superior flavors available to me.

Overall
Cost: 7/10 (on sale!)
Taste: 6/10

Home Grown Café

This place perturbs me because it's one of those "gluten-free, vegan + vegetarian friendly" places that have no allergy menu or policy or awareness above the norm. However, it's very popular with my social group, and it is a "chill" bar. They have good brunch food; in fact, their food is good overall, it's just scary because there are definitely lots of peanuts + nuts on the menu. Still, I have mentioned my allergy every time and so far so good.

Burrito Verde (with pork): pricy but good, a tasty pork burrito. Chips were fine (but would have been better with some dip or something, c'mon now).

Philly Steak sandwich: This is garlicy and cheesey and the bun is toasted and it comes with tasty greens, so it was pretty great. 

Side of Mac and Cheese: Not as good as Stone Balloon's, but passable. Comes with penne which is weird. Nothing else in there, I think, just noodles and cheese. It's OK. 5/10

Brunch BLT: This wasn't as good as I remembered - the bread was just white sandwich bread and it looked really flat and sad. I also got home fries instead of greens which was a mistake. They were totally fine, not much flavor but good, and the sandwich was good although not super decadent - could use more tomato and bacon. The egg was fresh tasting. 6/10

Coffee: A tiny cup, but they forgot to charge for it, so I had a good time! 6/10

Grilled Chicken Sandwich: This is solid, it's a BBQ grilled chicken, but the sauce is pretty subtle and it didn't make me feel gross, even with cheese and bacon. I like the greens that it comes with. Our server (Randy) was palling around with my mom, but he did a good job & was good about allergies, which made this taste better. Would get again if hungry. (Baked spinach spread is if not!) 7/10

Strawberry Lemonade: This was a 9$ drink, heh heh, but my parents were paying. Tito's vodka, strawberry puree, lemonade. It was delish! 8/10

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

On The Border

This is apparently a big chain, which explains why they have (a) a (confusing) allergen menu online and (b) a huge regular menu. We went to one in Elkridge MD with a big party, so service was really slow. However, they do ply you with infinite chips + salsa, which is nice. Salsa is a bit spicy, which is good. Chips are big wedges, which is funny. Anyway, that part was good. I also got a sangria, which was in a weird test-tubey glass, and was good (but not great). For food I ordered chicken fajita quesadilla, because it's so good at Fiesta Mexico, but here it was really not great. Just a generic quesadilla with a few cold peppers in it. Boo. I also tried their mexican rice, and although it did have corn in it and no peas (:D) I still didn't like it. Shrug!! For dessert, though, there was a Kalua Ice Cream Pie with no nut allergens, so I did enjoy that a lot. It was like an Oreo pie from Burger King, but fresher and with hot fudge on top. :9

Price was decent, too.

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 6/10

Margherita's Pizza

Now that Main Street Sliders has shut down :(, I need a new place on Main Street that can be my "cozy easy comfort food joint", yanno what I mean? And Margherita's is definitely my favorite pizza on Main Street; great variety, great service, tastes really good, 3$ slices, great location, etc. The only downside for me is that these are really big, really cheesy, really fatty slices that can make me feel pretty queasy afterwards if I'm not careful!!! (I think pizza + I have a personal issue). And apparently they have beers on tap too; I never noticed because like I said, I always just come here alone for a comforting snack. But this seems like a great hangout and the pizza is really really good. Gotta give a shoutout to my friend Rachel who picked Margherita's as her favorite Newark pizza long before I did -- good call, Rach.

Enzo's White: Tomato, mozzarella, spinach?? a classic
Spinach, mushroom, + ricotta: excellent :9 especially the ricotta, sweet and good.

Overall
Cost: 8/10
Taste: 9/10

Cosmos Creations Sea Salt + Butter Popcorn

These are more bearable than the caramel ones, as predicted, but I still wasn't able to finish the entire bag. Really tasted like cheese curls covered in salt, which is tasty for the first few but after that it's just too much!! These are also not very good for you in terms of fat/salt/calories, so I think I'm just going to give up on Cosmos Creations. Alas.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 4/10