Bogan Restaurant Review: Outback Jacks.

So let me iggsplain meself. I was looking for a restaurant for my birthday. Not for the meal of my dreams. I simply wanted to be able to go out somewhere with hubbabaloo and the two oompah loompahs, and sit and eat the entirety of my meal without having to get up to top up a cup of juice, or to scrape toddly's spag bol off the wall and floor when he got bored. In short, I wanted a family restaurant. Which catered for kids. Which distracted them. And Zagames was right out of the question (you have Zagames interstate? Pub with pokies and somewhere to put the kids meanwhile? Shudder). We have some gorgeous cafes up here in the hills with boxes of toys and tolerant staff, but they're lunch, not dinner places.

So it was with trepidation that we made our way to Outback Jacks, 6pm Friday night.......

On the menu there is a promise: eat your meal in half an hour and you get the food half price...plus a t shirt!!! It's nice to feel that you have walked into an episode of the Simpsons. Doesnt happen to me often enough. Giant Croc suspended from the roof. Ostriches with bulging eyes gazing frantically from every wall. And Lots of Meat on the menu. You could order a 600 gram serve if you wanted. You could. The menu was decorated with piccys of grinning children covered in gravy, chewing on ribs. Some photographers get the best gigs...
Okey Dokey.
Pros:
1. There was a kids room. Of sorts. It distracted mine for about five minutes. The kids room had lots of cons, so I'll get to them shortly. But eventually the best thing about the kids room (right next to our table) was that two little boys turned up  with another family, and allowed Kid A to seat them on chairs in the kids room and boss them around. 'They're my students at my school' she announced.
2. You could choose your cut of meat from their refridged glass display case, it was all grain fed or free range, and was genuinely excellent. It would have been criminal to have stuffed it down in half an hour. I ordered fillet mignon. 180 grams, not 600g.  Hubbabaloo ordered crocodile. Not the one suspended from the roof.
3. Kids menu had all you could ask for. Fish and chips, chicken nuggets and spag bol for the staff to clean off the walls and floor
Cons:
1. The kids room contained a bucket of chalk, a chalkboard wall, some chairs and three playstation games involving scantily clad skateboarders. Toddly upended the chalk and then tried to eat it. Kid A wondered why the skateboard girl had no clothes on and why Mummy doesnt know how to make a playstation work. Thats not a kids room, in my book. They should have just advertised ' playstations available' and we would have gone elsewhere. But those two boys were an unexpected boon.
2. Cooking was about as complicated as a barbecue. A barbecue where the meat was possible the best I've ever eaten, and was extraordinarily well cooked, but a bbq nonetheless. All coleslaw and jacket potatoes. Coleslaw was no good. Nice, but nothing that couldnt be cooked at home, if you could source the quality meat.

In Conclusion:
Apparently Outback Jacks is a franchise and there may well be One Near You. If you want to have a bogan night out and eat a pound of flesh you might enjoy it; likewise if your kids are playstation addicts it may be for you. But ooooh, i dont think so.... At the same time, we had fun. As I said, it aint often I feel as if I'm living in an episode of the Simpsons...