Lone Star
Lexington Park, MD
Price:$$$	Decor: Family style steak house
Summary: Yee-ha! Are we in Texas, or what?!! Well, maybe what...a nice try, but this example of the popular chain doesn't quite hold up to its normal standards.
(2 crabs out of 5)

Karen-Ever get a hankerin' for a slab o' steer flesh, slapped on the fire and served sizzlin' with a heapin' pile of potatoes? I sure do. And so when I felt that insatiable beef drive last week on a fine Tuesday afternoon, I saddled up and trotted on down to the new Outback Steakhouse, which was closed. So I mounted my horse once again and galloped down 235, and found Lone Star, where the antlers are on hanging on the walls and the country music is hanging in the air. My boisterous 'Yee-Haw!' was preempted, however, by a look at the shiny vinyl tablecloths and vinyl seats. 'Well, even the roughest cowboy must give way to a clean wipe-able environment,' I concede.

My posse and I were ravenous enough for a whole bear, but we settled for a teeming mountain of Grilled Mezquite Shrimp, Texas hot wings, a Tumbleweed fried onion and the promise of fresh grilled fat to arrive in two shakes of a whisker. Well our "teeming mountain" of shrimp was crooned of by one compadre as "heavenly," but our mountain was about a tenth of a hill and the little pipsqueaks were about two dollars apiece, as such, the shrimp were but a drop in the vast aching cave of my appetite. After faltering in our drive for a Texas sized midday meal, we found the Tumbleweed fried onion to be appropriately huge, fried and tasty. Even the bravest of our party found the Texas Hot Wings to be not only hot but hot as the fiery pits of blazes, and more than plentiful enough for two or three.

Drooling with anticipation and holding back the urge to bang the silverware on the table, we neared descent into a wild frenzy. For being empty, the service was slow as a paralyzed snail, although the friendly folk working there lightened the mood. Finally after minutes upon minutes, the waitress brought the pumpernickel bread to tide our crazed appetites, with huge cleaver butter knife of course. It was then we spotted the beef coming in on the horizon and my own $11.99 (+$1.99 w/ garden salad) beef kabob at the head. It's times like those that I like to imagine that I'm back out on the prairie, having just chopped up my own live animal and stuck the hunks of meat and nearby vegetables on a stick I whittled out of a tree branch , lovingly holding it over an open fire as the stars came out as I sing mournfully till the cows come home. The dishes were passed around and we all dug into our respective meats. After a moment's rumination, we proceeded to heap on piles of salt, ranch dressing, and A1 steak sauce respectively: maybe the prairie might not have worked after all.

It's a sad thing when a steak can't hold its own: the ranch dressing was apparently exotic and palatable, and the A1 appreciated by the resident A1lover, but we agreed that the lack of zip in the flavor and dry inside necessitated the use of such means. No self-respecting steak should need to be salted by its beholder. Not that it wasn't beefy and good, but for a Texas-sized price a Texas-sized satisfaction ought to follow, as has been my experiencewith other Lone Star's I've seen in my travels, where there's no vinyl to be seen and the kabobs are succulent and tender.. As my unfortunate companion who fell ill after the Hot Wings can tell you, however, the food ain't half bad, but it ain't half good either.