I don’t wonder at all. I don’t go to upscale places expecting food bang for buck. I don’t wonder when an upscale place is charging $50 for a bottle of wine I could get at the store for $15. You’re paying for the atmosphere, the service, the reputation, the consistency, etc… If you don’t think it’s worth it, that’s perfectly fine. But I would not expect the exact same dish to cost exactly the same at two restaurants aimed at two completely different demographics and with two completely different overheads.
The thing you’re missing is that in an upscale restaurant, salads are created with the same care as any other course. In the same way that your steak may be prepared with a red wine/mustard reduction, or the lamb comes glazed with rosemary and cracked pepper, each salad is created to go with the dressing that comes with it. Typically the salad is tossed with the dressing right before it comes out to your table, not on the side.
I’m sure if you asked, you could get any dressing you want with the salad, or you could get it on the side. To me, though, why go to a good restaurant if you’re going to second guess the chef? If I want the salad my way, I’ll make one at home. I’m going to a restaurant and paying the added expense because I believe the chef knows how to make a salad better than I do.
For what it’s worth, the Ruth’s Chris menu on the web doesn’t include a choice of dressing on the majority of their salads. So be prepared! 
That’s totally true, and not in a snooty way.
If you want french, or blue cheese dressing with croutons, then get a bunch of iceberg lettuce, and make it yourself.
But,at a decent restaurant. . .you don’t order the salad of walnut, feta and strawberry on tarragon leaves (I made that all up, but it might be good?), and then ask them to put Thousand Islands on it.
A decent restaurant has worked out what goes on it.
Do you, dnooman, have cook books with nice salads in them? Typically, they are salad/dressing combinations, and yes, the dressings are typically some sort of vinaigrette.
I waited tables at an Outback not too long ago… I served (and ate) a lot of food there, and I have never had or seen a meal like you described.
To answer your question, it really depends on what you mean by “precook”. They actually pride themselves on the freshness of their food. They make all of their sauces and dressings in-house every day-- it’s at the beginning of the day, but they are kept cold (they have thermometers stuck in them all day long) so that no spoilage occurs. Steaks (except prime rib, which has to be slow-roasted for hours) are cooked to order only-- they would lose a lot of money on unnecessary steaks if they didn’t do it that way. Baked potatoes are baked en masse (probably 50 at a time) throughout the day and kept warm, but not reheated. Lettuce comes in big bags which are dumped as needed into a cooler-thingy that is kept closed except when grabbing more lettuce to prepare a salad. Croutons are made at the beginning of the day and only become overly crunchy/stale if improperly stored.
Now, don’t misinterpret this as an endorsement of the chain… I don’t eat there anymore because, fresh or not, their steaks are bland and usually tough. However, what you described sounds like a fluke of a crappy night or a crappily-managed location. I won’t recommend that you give them another chance, because all I’m really crazy about there are their salads and baked sweet potatoes, but without having tried to return any part of your meal for a recook, I don’t see why you would extrapolate your one experience to be the norm.
Likewise, I was startled on moving to the US to have to choose my own bread for sandwiches in decent cafes- in Australia I was used to the chef picking what bread went best with each particular sandwich. My favourite in one cafe was a beautiful roast chicken with pesto and fresh mozzarella served on black bread.
American dining seems way more diner’s choice oriented.
Hmm. I think I get the salad thing now.
It looks like the important thing to remember is that, at a fancy/high scale restaurant, there IS no such thing as a “normal” or “regular” salad.
So is that the deal? Everyone throws down $60 for a single steak once in a blue moon and now the whole selection of public eateries are now an affront to their finely tuned pallet?
I’m sensing some placebo effect here. (Well the meal cost me $100, it MUST have been a great steak!)
I don’t know ANY PLACE around here that’d cook you that meal for anything less than $80-$90. This is providing we even HAD a place that cooked that sort of food.
I realize that Outback probably isn’t the pinnacle of fine cuisine but it’s ridiculous that everyone bags on it because they had a superior steak ONCE and for THREE TIMES THE PRICE.
…and don’t even get me started on wine… :mad:
From my post #10
Our point is, there are better choices out there for the same or just a few dollars more than the Outhouse. Sure a hundred dollar steak from Morton’s or Ruth’s Chris is going to be better than a $25 dollar steak from the Outhouse. The point here is that you can go other places and get a wonderful steak for the same $25- to maybe $30 dollars that is a damn sight better than what you get at that fake Aussie place. I can easily name 5 or 6 places that I can go within easy driving distance that serve a better steak than the Outhouse.
I have eaten at many restaurants in Silicon Valley. So far, the combo of tastyness, good service and moderate price I get from Outback has yet to be matched anywhere, inlcuding the local non-chains.
My steak from Mortons was only slightly better at more than twice the price and the service was far worse.
Now** Arcadia** here, has a steak of the type they only let Archangels eat, with service that could only have been bettered by an after dinner blowjob. 
But the meal for two, after tip (and no wine) was $120. I can list serveral others not quite as good but almost as expensive. Blakes for example.
There’s Henrys, the local non-chain. Price is about the same, service is not quite as good and the steak isn’t either.
Original Joes is better, with prices that range around Outbac’sk (the steaks are a tad more pricey). The service is excellent. But the wait is often a half hour, and that’s not even during dinner rush. So, other than the wait, OJ’s has Outback beat- but that’s one restaurant out of dozens and dozens.
Friend Cyberhwk,
There are four Italian families that have restaurants serving dinners almost identical to this here in Omaha. I got my first job working in one of them. The family I worked for has only one location (out of five) left. The rest of the places had only single locations and are now being run by a third (and in one case) fourth generation.
We have a couple of Outbacks here. They are crowded, noisy and have poor service. We just find no need to go there.
Drive up the road to the one in Dublin and see if you have the same opinion. This is where I got the driest piece of prime rib ever, and the chemically altered goo steak. This is when I swore off the Outback.
Also I could have changed the oil in my car with what dripped off the blooming onion.
What’s with the Foster’s shitting?
Thanks for providing some actual information, nevermore.
That reminds me of The Simpsons:
Lionel Hutz: Uh-oh… we’ve drawn Judge Snyder!
Marge Simpson: Is that bad?
Hutz: He’s had it in for me ever since I kinda ran over his dog.
Marge: You did?
Hutz: Well, replace the word “kinda” with the word “repeatedly”, and the word “dog” with “son”.
Long ago (about five years or so), I’d asked my friend Ernest, who lives in Brisbane, about Foster’s Lager.
I’ll second that “poisoning” comment. Vegemite is absolutely ghastly.
Ernest makes it sound like Foster’s is a thing of the past, but when was the last time any of us Yanks saw a Schlitz Malt Liquor commercial on TV anyway?
Shouldn’t be too long from now. Pabst Blue Ribbon’s sweet foamy head is leaking on bartops across the nation, as we speak.
Somebody just has to come up with a hip new add campaign and some cool swag.(Schlitzy the Clown says drink more beer!)
Ah, you make a point. I only eat at the Milpitas and Campbell Outbacks.
I don’t care for the Bloomin Onion myself. And the cheapest smallest steak isn’t very good. It’s the Ribeye I like.
Here’s some service at Outback I like: Two salads, no potato? No worries. Extra dressing on the salad? No worries. Extra lemon in the Iced tea. No worries. And last time I was there the patio wasn’t open, and I voiced my disapointment and my waitress chimed in that she’d happily serve me (all by my lonesome) out there. Lovely day, great steak, good book, good service. Ah heaven.
Food I like there: Burgers, Buffalo wings, giant cobb/chef’s salad, Ribeye.
I heard the building’s been sold-and the restaurant will close. Nice place, but pretty mediocre food.
No, no, no.
I ride the light rail by that place every day. It’s closed in June for a major renovation (Og knows it needed it). It’s supposed to reopen “early September.”
I haven’t had a good time or good food there ever, but my mother-in-law keeps dragging us there.
We love Outback! Always good food and good service.
We’re going to Wildfire this week. That’s in another league altogether.