Lone Star Steakhouse
24231 Avenida de Carlotta
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
I had recently read that Lone Star Steakhouse had closed 19 restaurants, (the two Orange county locations are still open, but they closed the one in nearby Long Beach). I have been sitting on a buy one get one free coupon for about a year now, and not wanting to let it go to waste, I twisted Katie's arm and suggested we use it.
There are 112 Lone Star restaurants in 30 states. On this Wednesday night we had to wait for about ten minutes. This Texas themed restaurant was crammed full of a big cross section of the population of America. Our proximity to Laguna Woods was evident by the plethora of gray hairs eating here. I thought old people were in bed by seven o'clock. Oh well, let's hope the food does not put us to sleep.
To start off the meal, they gave us their bread basket. These rolls came out piping hot, and were drizzled with a simple sugar syrup? Not exactly sure what the sweet stuff was on top of the rolls, but they tasted good, and with the honey butter that came with this, we woofed these down.
For an appetizer we went with the Texas Rose. This is Lone Star's answer to the Awesome Blossom at Chili's, or the Bloomin' Onion at Outback. The Texas Rose was not as greasy as I would have thought. It was definitely more than enough for the two of us. The sauce was a kind of half mixture of ranch dressing with some spices in it, which went good with the onion. I liked this, but would order it again only if we went with a larger group, it was too much for two people to finish, even if one of those people were me.
Both of the dinners that Katie and I ordered came with two sides. We both chose salads for one of our sides. She chose the Dinner Salad above. This was your basic salad. Nothing to write home about. I got the Signature Lettuce Wedge. Whenever I order a wedge salad, I am always concerned that I will not have enough dressing for it, but that was not the case here. The dressing was good and the iceberg, was iceberg. The wedge was missing something though, and that something was bacon. It is funny that a steak restaurant would not think of putting bacon on their wedge salad. Anyways, bacon would have made this salad better.
Katie went with the Garlic Lover's Medallions & Shrimp. This was 9 ounces of steak and five grilled shrimp. I tried the shrimp and did not really taste any garlic, but for me there can never be enough garlic. She also always gets her beef well done, so I did not even give that a try. For her second side item she selected the Jumbo Baked Sweet Potato. As you may know from my past posts, I am not too big of a fan of sweet potatoes. This one was decent, only because they added sugar, cinnamon, and butter to it. Anything tastes better with that combo.
My sparse plate was the Five-Star Filet Mignon with Garlic Mashed Potatoes for a side item. I wanted my bacon wrapped filet medium rare, and that is how it turned out. Perfectly cooked, and with a good flavor. The garlic mashed potatoes were okay. Again, they were lacking in the garlic department, with only a faint garlic taste present. The presentation of my plate was a little odd . It seemed like they should have used a smaller plate, or tried to spruce it up with some color, instead of using kale.
Lone Star is a decent steakhouse. If you take Lone Star for what it is, a chain steak restaurant, you will not be disappointed. Lone Star and the other steak chains, (Black Angus, Outback, etc.), are there to satisfy your steak cravings, when you do not want to spend an arm and a leg at one of the higher end steak restaurants. I think that the portions could be a little bit bigger for what you pay, ( Katie's plate was $16.99, and my plate was $19.99), or they should give you a choice of salad, and let you choose two side items. The service was good, and if you hit it at just the right time, you even get to see your server dance to some country music.
Out of five soccer balls, (because the nickname of the National soccer team of Liberia is the Lone Stars), five being best to zero being worst, Lone Star Steakhouse gets 2.5 soccer balls.
For more information on Lone Star Steakhouse, click here: http://www.lonestarsteakhouse.com/files/home.aspx
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