5 Of The Worst Texas Roadhouse Appetizers, Based On Customer Reviews

One of the reasons there are so many restaurants in the world is that we all have different tastes. Your favorite dish might be someone else's least favorite, so businesses can prosper by offering variety. Likewise, if you head to Texas Roadhouse, you might discover that your favorite appetizer is loathed by plenty of other customers who complained about it online.

As it stands, Texas Roadhouse offers about nine starters on its global menu. The menu is subject to change by location and over time, though. For instance, when Tasting Table ranked all of Texas Roadhouse's appetizers, we reviewed 10 different items. Two of them, the Grilled Shrimp Appetizer and standalone Twisted Mozzarella, are not listed as separate items on the global menu. However, Twisted Mozzarella is available as one of the choices in a combo platter.

No doubt every item on the Texas Roadhouse starter menu is someone's favorite. That said, a few have received pervasive negative feedback across social media from unimpressed diners. We looked at reviews on Yelp, Tripadvisor, Facebook, and Reddit to find five appetizers that repeatedly drew complaints, often for the same reasons at locations across the country. Is it possible one of these is your favorite? Almost definitely. While these may receive praise, the number of negative reviews describing various problems just can't be overlooked.

Outback Steakhouse popularized the Bloomin' Onion, a giant, deep-fried onion that's cut to unfold like a flower. Texas Roadhouse offers the Cactus Blossom, which is essentially the same thing. Plenty of online reviews praise the Cactus Blossom as delicious, with some calling it the restaurant's best appetizer. So how does it end up on our list of the worst? 

When Tasting Table ranked 12 popular Texas Roadhouse menu items, we acknowledged the popularity of the Cactus Blossom but also found it to be the worst of the dozen. Our biggest complaint? It was an absolute grease bomb, and we were not alone in thinking so. One Yelp reviewer called it "nothing but grease." Another said, "My onion blossom was either soggy or stuck together in huge clumps." Plenty of other Yelpers shared similar complaints about onions that were too greasy or not fully cooked.

Tripadvisor reviews offer more of the same. One reviewer called the Cactus Blossom "pretty greasy" and mentioned it upset their stomach as a result. Another reviewer at the same location called the appetizer too oily. 

A reviewer from a different Texas Roadhouse location said, "We ordered the Cactus Blossom Onion meal and only partially through it we discovered the bottom was still a runny batter and not fully cooked." While it's clear many diners are getting crispy, tasty Cactus Blossoms, the inconsistency is a common issue and isn't limited to a single location.

Texas Roadhouse's pickle chips are battered and fried, then served with ranch or Cajun dipping sauce. Our reviewer liked the tanginess of the pickles and the crispiness of the coating. However, their extreme saltiness kept the appetizer low in our ranking. That same salty criticism can be found all over social media and in reviews. 

"DO NOT....I REPEAT DO NOT get fried pickles from Texas Roadhouse or you'll die of sodium toxicity," said one Redditor, who added they couldn't eat fried pickles for months afterward. Another Redditor who admitted to loving the pickles even agreed that the salt was too intense. A Facebook poster who liked both fried pickles and salty food said, "Tried Texas Roadhouse fried pickles recently and they were SO salty."

Reviewers across Facebook, Tripadvisor, Reddit, and Yelp have all criticized the saltiness of Texas Roadhouse's pickle appetizer. Food bloggers who have reviewed their entire experience at the restaurant have also mentioned the pickles' saltiness.

According to Texas Roadhouse's nutrition information, a 3-ounce serving of fried pickles in the appetizer combo has 1,190 milligrams of sodium, or 50% of your daily recommended amount. If you order a full appetizer, it contains 2,580 milligrams of sodium, or 108% of your daily recommended amount. It's easy to see why some people find the saltiness too intense.

Other reviews hearken back to the Cactus Blossom complaints, with one Tripadvisor reviewer saying the pickles were too greasy. "You could almost see the grease dripping off of them," another wrote. A third called them "limp and oily."

Our reviewer didn't hate Texas Roadhouse's Rattlesnake Bites, but they found the crispy, cheese-filled jalapeño balls underwhelming. That was a kinder assessment than the one from a Tripadvisor reviewer who called them a "waste of peppers and cheese." A different reviewer referred to them as "greasy cheese balls." A reviewer who liked traditional jalapeño poppers described the Rattlesnake Bites as "kinda greasy with only an occasional taste of jalapeno." This is the third appetizer in a row that's falling victim to the same critiques that plagued the previous two entries: Texas Roadhouse's appetizers are just too greasy for some diners.

Greasiness wasn't the only complaint about the Rattlesnake Bites. In an otherwise overwhelmingly positive Tripadvisor review, one diner recommended the steakhouse but said, "My only issue is the rattlesnake bites tasted terrible, no one in our party of 5 liked those." That may sound like a vague criticism, but other diners have expressed similar frustrations without being able to pinpoint the problem. One poster on Reddit said that the steaks are good but questioned what Texas Roadhouse was doing with the Rattlesnake Bites. A Yelp reviewer who got closer to defining what they felt the problem was said, "seemed like they could have fried a little longer and kept falling apart." Another Yelper said their appetizer was soggy. And on Facebook, a reviewer tried the Bites and said they tasted "more like a mashed potato ball with cheese," and both they and their companion agreed they were too salty.

"How can you mess up cheese fries?" asked one Tripadvisor reviewer, and it's a valid question. Fries and cheese should be an easy combination for a restaurant to get right, but Texas Roadhouse's version has drawn plenty of criticism. The review went on to say, "Fries were thick and flaccid and only half covered with oddly stiff globs of cheese."

Tasting Table's reviewer ranked the cheese fries dead last out of 10. The cheese getting cold and firming up too quickly was a big problem with the dish. "The cheese on our cheddar fries was [plasticky] and not melty like cheese fries should be!" said one Yelp reviewer. Another person at the same location said, "The bacon cheese fries were a big disappointment" and described the cheese as bland. Soggy fries and unmelted cheese come up in other Yelp reviews, too.

In another Tripadvisor review, a fan of Texas Roadhouse's regular fries cautioned against the cheese fries because of how quickly the cheese solidifies. "You end up eating regular fries, and have a big glump of cheddar cheese in your hands," they said. One disappointed diner on Facebook posted a picture of their takeout fries, with all the cheese stuck to the lid of the container. They noted that the fries were cold and "The 'cheese' wasn't even melted onto the fries. I can literally pick up the cheese by hand."

One of the common complaints you'll find in multiple reviews of Texas Roadhouse's Boneless Buffalo Wings is that they're less like wings and more like random chicken bits. That's a potential pitfall with any boneless wings since they technically aren't wings, but they should at least resemble the real thing. Tasting Table's reviewer placed them second-to-last in their ranking of appetizers for that very reason. "The wings are not wings but little clumps of highly breaded chicken pieces," one reviewer on Tripadvisor said. "Looks like scraps from [the] bottom of [the] package," said another Tripadvisor reviewer who was disappointed by the size of the chicken they received.

In addition to the small size of the pieces, the other major complaint about the Boneless Buffalo Wings is that they are often too dry or don't have enough sauce. Another reviewer compared the boneless wings to popcorn chicken and said they were so dry they couldn't be cut. A reviewer on Yelp called them "dry chicken strips posing as boneless buffalo wings." Other Yelp reviews also complained about dryness. "The buffalo chicken tenders were so salty and dry that you couldn't eat them," said one reviewer. A different review called them "tough and dried out." We already reviewed chicken dinners from Texas Roadhouse, so we know the restaurant can cook chicken well. It just seems to drop the ball with the Boneless Buffalo Wings sometimes.