The Texas Roadhouse Appetizer That Looks Awfully Familiar

One of America's most iconic ways to eat onions is the famous appetizer known as a Bloomin' Onion. A whole onion is carefully cut into a flower-like shape with the base still attached — that's the bloomin' — and then battered and deep fried as one piece. The name is a registered trademark of Outback Steakhouse, the best-known home of this dish, but it's not the only version.

Another popular chain restaurant, Texas Roadhouse, features a Cactus Blossom on its appetizer menu. Despite the name, this too is a fried onion, continuing the floral theme in both name and appearance, as the fried bits of onion visually resemble a blossoming flower. But you won't see the word "bloomin'" anywhere near it, for fear of legal action from Outback Steakhouse.

The Texas Roadhouse Cactus Blossom pulls apart easily, while the crisp, if somewhat bland, breading sticks to the onion petals. A cup of what the restaurant calls "Cajun horseradish sauce" sits in the middle of the fried onion as a dip. Cacti are not very Cajun and neither is the sauce, which has strong notes of horseradish. Cajun remoulades are similar and often include horseradish as an ingredient. However, their recipes typically also call for some form of spicy mustard, which the Texas Roadhouse sauce appears to lack. 

Texas Roadhouse's Cactus Blossom is a fan favorite appetizer thanks to the delectability of the fried onion petals. And when Daily Meal ranked every Texas Roadhouse appetizer, it was the clear winner on taste and shareability. But how does it compare to Outback's Bloomin' Onion?

Outback's fried onion is somewhat larger, with a post-cooking weight of about one pound, and is correspondingly more expensive, approximately $11.99 versus $7.99. But in addition to more food, you get tastier breading and a different sauce with a gentler horseradish taste.

Outback Steakhouse might be the best-known home of this flower-shaped fried onion appetizer, which is cut with a special kitchen tool, but it's not the original home of the dish. The Bloomin' Onion's origins stretch not to Outback's namesake of Australia, but to the American South and the unique food culture of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Tim Gannon, a co-founder of Outback Steakhouse, is credited with inventing the massive fried appetizer that his restaurant sells as the Bloomin' Onion. But the dish began as a creation of chef Jeff Glowski in 1985, years before the first Outback opened, at a New Orleans restaurant called Russell's Marina Grill.

Russell's dish was the first known instance of a restaurant deep-frying a whole onion to look like a flower. Glowski took the idea with him when he moved to Jo-Jo Ivory's New Orleans Restaurant, which was actually located in Potts Point, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. There, he established the floral naming convention by dubbing his creation the "Onion Mum," with "mum" being short for chrysanthemum. 

Gannon, who helped develop the dish with Glowski, brought a version of it to Copeland's, another New Orleans restaurant started by Popeyes founder Al Copeland. Its considerable popularity down under at Glowski's restaurant may have inspired Gannon to add it to the menu of the Australia-themed restaurant he was developing, which opened in 1988 as Outback Steakhouse.