The Popular Texas Roadhouse Side Dish We Don't Recommend Ordering

While Texas Roadhouse is best known for its steaks, a steak is best when complemented by a delicious side dish, which is why the chain's steaks come with two sides included in the price. The online menu offers 17 different side dishes to choose from with each steak purchase, ranging from salad to steamed vegetables to loaded mashed potatoes. While the latter might sound like the perfect accompaniment to a juicy steak, it's far from it. In fact, when ranking popular Texas Roadhouse dishes, a Daily Meal reviewer found it to be the worst of the chain's side dishes.

Our reviewer complained that the potatoes were rather tasteless, turning what should have been a delicious side into a plain and lackluster addition. The loaded potatoes come topped with butter, sour cream, cheddar cheese, and bacon, but none of these were enough to save the side from mediocrity. It wasn't inedible by any means, but considering the sheer amount of side dishes Texas Roadhouse offers, there's no reason to waste time on a side that's simply a flavorless imitation of what loaded mashed potatoes should be. Unfortunately, the loaded baked potato follows suit, as it earned last place in a Daily Meal ranking of steakhouse loaded baked potatoes.

Though the loaded mashed potatoes are a disappointment, most Texas Roadhouse sides are quite good, and the chain itself landed second place in a Daily Meal ranking of casual steakhouse chains. While our ranking of the restaurant's dishes didn't include all the Texas Roadhouse sides, our reviewer did give a more favorable review of one potato-based side: the cheese fries. Ironically, while the regular steak fries were too heavy on the seasoning, adding the cheese and bacon bits by upgrading to the cheese fries perfectly cut through the salt and resulted in a perfectly balanced flavor profile. While the fries are, of course, fried and therefore not the same flavor and texture as mashed potatoes, the cheese fries are a great alternative if you want a cheesy potato dish to go with your steak. While the loaded mashed potatoes are flavorless, our reviewer's only complaint about the cheese fries was that she couldn't eat that many at once.

While it isn't a traditional side, our reviewer was also a huge fan of the chain's buttered rolls, which are notoriously soft and perfectly buttery. They earned first place in her ranking, citing their soft and fluffy texture and iconic honey cinnamon butter glaze. All of this goes to say that you shouldn't avoid Texas Roadhouse simply because of the disappointing potatoes; pair the rolls (which are free with every meal) and cheese fries with the top-ranked Texas Roadhouse steak and a second side of your choosing, and you'll be getting, as the chain says, legendary food and legendary service.