Cycle 16 – Item 44

18 (Tue) February 2025

Post 5,523

Toowoomba Pasta

2.0

Chef M

at home

-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-

solo

As noted a couple days ago, the popularity of this dish has inspired knock-offs from instant food producers (see 16.042 Toowoomba Pasta).  Though really, it’s just fettucine in cream sauce with shrimp and mushrooms, so not much to imitate, beyond the name.

Speaking of names, I wonder why Outback Steakhouse didn’t register it as a trademark.  From law school, I recall vaguely that trademarks based on geographic places (e.g., “Seoul Food”) or generic concepts (e.g., “Spicy Food”) are difficult to claim, but “Toowoomba Pasta” seems distinctive enough, and it was indisputably invented by and continues to be associated with Outback.  Or maybe they did register but aren’t enforcing it.

Not bad.  The sauce and pasta were passable.  No shrimp, but I detected what seemed to be bacon bits, even though the ingredient list didn’t mention any pork products.  Other than the difference in components, it wasn’t much worse than the one at Outback.

(See all GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)