Yum
Hiromi and I went to see a movie last night (“Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle”). Thinking that “Terminator 3” would draw most of the business, we came half an hour before showtime, but enough people had come so that we could not get good tickets for the late afternoon show. No problem, we just switched our plans, bought tickets for the later show, and had dinner before the movie instead of after.
The place we went to for dinner was an “Aussie” joint called the “Outback Steakhouse,” though I’m fairly certain it’s American faux-Aussie style. Wherever they’re from, they have good food. To the right is Hiromi enjoying the onion bloom, a very nice fried onion dish with a dressing dip in the middle. The main other dish we enjoyed were the ribs, very good at this place–the sauce is good , and the meat is tender and practically falls off the bones. Very delicious, if rather unhealthy!
The Outback Steakhouse is located literally next door to the Virgin Cinema complex in Minami Osawa, very close to the Keio Sagamihara Line station of the same name. (The same shopping area has a Cinnabon, a big albeit fattening plus in my opinion.) So right after dinner, we just walked next door and went to the theater, walked in and sat in our reserved seats and enjoyed the film.
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is enjoyable so long as you take it for what it is: a live-action cartoon. Best to suspend disbelief, set your intellect on neutral and just go along with it. Enjoy the Matrix-style stunts and whatever good gags you can find, including some see-if-you-can-catch-them insider jokes. A cute moment was Lucy Liu’s ferret imitation for her father (John Cleese, surprisingly). The IMDb web page linked to above, as always, provides interesting background information, some of it rumored–for example, the reason Bill Murray decided not to return for this film because he could not stand to work with Lucy Liu, according to the trivia section of the IMDb page.
After the film, we had drinks at Starbucks until they closed down and ushered us out, then went to wait for the bus. We must have waited twenty minutes before we realized that we had just missed the last bus, and so headed back for the train station–a circuitous trip for Hiromi back home, but at the time, the only ride available for a reasonable price. Still, it was a great night out.
Yeah, I also think that Outback Steakhouse is American. When I was back in the States about 5 years ago, I heard this radio commercial that hit every Aussie stereotype in about 20 seconds. It was supposed to sound like some kind of aboriginal guy with broken English, and the jingle was so awful, I can’t forget the last line: “Just like the boomerang come back, so will you.”
We had one of those onion things at Universal Studios Japan a few weeks ago. I heard that every restaurant in America is doing it, now, but it appears to have originated at Outback.
Nils: I agree on the stereotype, the Outback in Minami Osawa is thick with ’em. True Aussies might do that for sales, but it smeels like a Yank.
Good to know more restaurants are doing the onion thing, they’re tasty. Still waiting for some place in Japan to do curly onion fries like I’ve had a rib joints in the U.S.–talk about greasy and tasty….
The Outback Steakhouse is definitely an American interpretation of an Aussie themed steak place. A passable meal but not overly pricey make this a good choice. In the US we get a lot of the Aussie stereotypes in their commercials even if the food is not especially Australian. The bloomin’ onion is an onion ring but cut into strips and without being completely separated. Still a good place.