Message: | We've searched high and low for restaurants that might be Australian. When my Aussie husband first moved to America, we went to Outback Salt House just for a goof and I can defintely tell you that other than the Fosters, there really isn't anything typically Australian on the menu. Ask 10 Australians if they have ever had a Bloomin' Onion and I am sure they would look at you like you were from another planet.
Most traditional Australian foods have their roots in British tradition (Australia was a country that GB developped to ship all of their prisoners to). Meat Pies are very Australian. Roast dinners (lamb, potatos and peas) are too. After being there twice and living with an Aussie for 3 years, I don't believe there is such thing as Australian cuisine. Just like America, the country is made up of tons of immigrants from all parts of the world including Europeans, Asians and Middle-Easterns. The only true Australian cuisine is probably what the Aboriginal people eat and that doesn't seem to have caught on as a regional fare. When I was there I noticed cuisine from all parts of the world. There are a few types of fish that are regional to that area that I noticed on a lot of menus. No where did I see "shrimp on the barby" but they do eat a lot of prawns. Yes and I did see Kangaroo on a few menus. But seafood and fish are king thing. And it's a lamb lover's paradise. Aussie lamb is so much better than American lamb that a few years ago there was an embargo on importing Aussie and NZ lamb to the US because the American Lamb market was doing so badly.
We did find the one place in Redondo Beach called "The Great Australian Bite" that was nothing more than a sports bar/restaurtant with a few Aussie items, like meat pies and vegemite.
There was another place in Pasadena that Calendar Live wrote up a few years ago that was australian-looking/themed called Boomerock Hot Rocks Grill
which they write:
"There's this place in Pasadena where you cook on rocks. That's the short version.
Here's a longer one: There's this place in Pasadena where you cook meat on slabs of rock heated to 700 degrees and the motif is aboriginal Australia, complete with the booming, rattling drone of didgeridoo music and lots of colorfully painted boomerangs (hence the name, Boomerock Hot Rocks Grill)."
But I asked my husband of this way of eating is typically Australian and he said no. I think it's just the way they decorated it (early-Survivor).
I do hear Australian wine is really catching on and becoming quite popular. We did visit the wine region of the Barossa Valley when we were there. It was quite a treat, even for people who don't drink (like us).
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