Why beef-loving Brazil is so obsessed with Outback Steakhouse | Hacker News Reader

Why beef-loving Brazil is so obsessed with Outback Steakhouse

washingtonpost.com

31 pointsbookofjoe34 comments

It isn't the most popular restaurant chain in Brazil by any measure, in fact it's unknown by most brazilians not living in a vey large city.

Original article title: Why beef-loving Brazil is so obsessed with an American steakhouse chain

It's not even close of being popular. It's expensive, for example, with the same money you can go to any good "churrascaria" and eat much more, much better.

Absolutely. I went to an Outback a few months ago with friends and didn't like it. No idea why they did. I'd rather eat at a good churrascaria.

Worth comparing to the popularity of Brazilians moving to Australia where the population doubled in 5 years 2014-19 (24k to 51k) and close to doubled in the two five year periods before that. Though has reduced slightly after through the COVID period

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/australi...

The countries do not have much shared history and are exotic to each other, but at the same time have much similarity in size, weather, colonial history, etc.

Over the same time Brazillian barbecue 'Churrasco' restaurants have gained popularity in Australia (maybe a little more authentic than 'outback stakehouse').

I live in Toronto and Brazilians here drive to Niagara Falls to eat at Outback since there's none in the city. Enough said.

Brazilian here. Now and then we read these foreign articles with impressions about Brazil and feel a bit puzzled as to where and how they derive such conclusions from.

> But in recent decades, the traditional Brazilian diet has begun to change and fracture across class

What? The increase in fast-food consumption may have resulted from the increase of fast-food availability, but, in terms of habits and culture, it's quite the opposite: people are getting more and more aware of the importance of good nutrition for a healthy life. Legislation is going towards the same direction, restricting the offering of unhealthy foods at schools and mandating food industry to print standardized warnings on ultra-processed foods' packages, making it clear what sorts of potentially dangerous ingredients they contain.

Even crap-food chains like McDonalds have painted some of their stores in green and started to advertise some healthier options more ostensibly, just to make sure they don't miss any developing trend.

Other than that, regarding Outback's success, there's no big deal here. The pork ribs and the onion are good. Service is usually very good too, with polite employees and short waiting times. Some stores have longer queues, but that depends a lot on what time you go -- and some people even like to wait in lines, it's an opportunity to build up the hunger and chat with friends and family. It's expensive, but similar dishes are getting increasingly available in other, smaller restaurants, especially after some of the Outback recipes were leaked online 10 years ago.

And I'm not even sure what does it mean to be "the most popular chain" considering that there's a huge number of smaller restaurants which are extremely popular in their respective regions.

In summary, no big deal, the article even feels a like bit like advertising.

https://archive.ph/HYRaO

Bloomin onion is really the only reason to go to outback. Steaks are OK but I cook a better one at home.

I've often wondered what an Australian thinks when they go into one. I don't think there's a single menu item that is even distantly related to Australia.

We laugh. It's almost a tradition when visiting to America to go to one and see what they make of Australia.

Imagine if there was a 'texas bbq' chain in Australia that had deep fried hotdogs, cowboy hat fries or whatever other plausibly American thing you could think of. You'd go there to have a laugh at the sillyness of it all. That's what we do :)

Or better yet, the abominations that appear to be all "Mexican" food in Australia.

> Imagine if there was a 'texas bbq' chain in Australia that had deep fried hotdogs, cowboy hat fries or whatever other plausibly American thing you could think of.

Imagine? Given what I saw in Australia, finding such a place is probably relatively easy and would make a fun vacation exercise.

In just about every major city there is a place called "New York Pizza" or something similar. There is an inverse relationship in these places between distance to actual New York and closeness of the pizza to real New York pizza. The New York Pizza in Boston is pretty close. The New York Pizza in Brisbane? I'm not sure but I think they used salami for pepperoni...

> deep fried hotdogs

You mean a corndog? Nothing inauthentic about that!

It's true, Americans will fry anything. We'll fry your shoe.

I had a deep fried stick of butter once. Was great, would have it again after checking if my heart can physiologicaly handle it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-fried_butter

Eat half a pound of cheese and everyone claps.

Eat half a pound of butter and everyone freaks out.

Found the King of Town.

They never claim to serve Australian food. Nobody says they are going out for some Australian food they way they might say they are going out to get Chinese food. It's an Australian themed restaurant. And much of the theme does actually consist of things related to Australia. Lots of restaurants have themes. Rainforest cafe, Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood.

>They never claim to serve Australian food.

They did, though. Pitching "walkabout soup" as a "unique presentation of an Australian favorite". And, a pretty regrettable suggestion at one time that a Blooming Onion was "Ab-original". Something on a barbie they should have called prawns, "Brisbane Shrimp Saute", and more.

I found the whole experience rather amusing. I’ve spent a lot of time overseas so for me it’s just another iteration on country x’s interpretation on country y’s food and it’s always a fun game to try and reverse engineer in your mind how they arrived at that idea of it.

Some of the most popular restaurants I found in Australia were ordinary steakhouses. I don't think you can get much more Australian than a juicy sirloin steak, without exploring delicacies like bush tucker and roo meat -- "as Australian as it gets without breaking any laws," as a member of $WORK at the time's Australian office told me.

That said, Outback is definitely trying too hard.

Though kangaroo meat is available at the supermarket in Australia; it's decent but overpriced.

You could go to a Spur in south africa for the same experience

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spur_Steak_Ranches

I visited Brazil last winter. I had a great time and it is a beautiful country, but I must say the food was a bit disappointing. The popularity of American chain restaurants was surprising to me as well. McDonald and Burger king ice-cream is hugely popular, to the point these restaurants have a dedicated ordering counter just for desserts, and there was often a line of people waiting to order!

I’ve visited Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and I found the food to be amazing. I loved the feijoada from Academia da Cachaça and the açaí bowls found in corner shop lots every where. The fish stews (moqueca de peixe) were like a wonderful curry, and of course amazing churrascarias like Mocellin were really memorable as well. There was also carne seca (from Minas) and the little pastries like coxinha (croquettes) and pao de queijo (cheese breads) that were ubiquitous. Kilo restaurants generally serve good meals like bife acebolado but quality depends (Aipim e Aipu in Ipanema was really good). Prato feitos are basic and inexpensive meals but there’s a huge range.

There is also DOM in São Paulo ranked among the top 50 in the world.

Brazilian food is rustic, unique with a lot of European and native influences. I really enjoyed the food there.

Honestly, I feel the same way about brazilian food. It's somewhat basic and high on cheap calories. I'm not fond of it. The only exception is meats. You can eat extremely well here in restaurants that focus on those dishes.

When outside the US, I love McDonald’s for a quick meal. It’s usually much better than in the US and will have local items.

> I must say the food was a bit disappointing

Food varies a lot between states and regions. Could you be more specific? I can understand food from São Paulo state being less interesting than, say, Minas Gerais, Bahia, etc.

I don't know what's the surprise. The food is great and the service is impeccable. They even have vegan options for us who don't eat meat. It's a great experience every time I go.

Weird, I'd have guessed Fogo de Chão, though I did eat at an Outback there, too.

Fogo de Chão is, I'd bet, for the top 1%.

Not really any moreso than Outback is, though. I've been to both, in Brazil, and the prices aren't significantly different. You have to be decently well off to eat at a place like that, though.

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