A few weeks ago I agreed to take on my most perilous assignment yet: review Outback Steakhouse’s Loaded Bloomin’ Onion for the Washington Free Beacon. With little help from my family, I hardly made a dent. I did receive loads of feedback, though I never really got around to reviewing the appetizer itself.

So how was it? If you peel away the hype (okay, I’ll stop now), the addition of fries draws attention away from the star of the show, those legendary deep-fried onion straws. It’s a novel idea, combining the Outback’s two most popular starters (the Bloomin’ Onion and cheesy Aussie fries), but in retrospect, I’m not so sure these two were meant to be with each other. This is probably why it’s offered only for a limited time. So consider it a short-term relationship, like Elisabeth Shue and Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas—decadence and destruction on one plate.