VanFoodies.com

America, the land of the plentiful and home of the obese. A country where the only thing bigger than their stomachs are the size of their portions.

This is a manly man’s playground.

Enter the Red Lobster.

Overview

The four of us went down to the States to spend a day with my guy crush, Chris, to celebrate his birthday. He has always expressed an undying love for shrimp. So we thought Red Lobster would be a fun place to go eat.

I have fond memories of Red Lobster from 2 summers ago, when they had the unlimited shrimp promotion going. I had plates after plates of shrimp, deep fried, grilled and boiled. This time around, the Lobster Fest was on.

What went in

The two of us shared a Lobster “Pizza”, Coconut Shrimp, and the Bar Harbour Lobster and Shrimp Trio.

Lobster Pizza

The lobster pizza isn’t really a pizza at all. It’s pizza toppings placed on a crepe, which actually tastes much better than it sounds. It’s topped with fresh tomatoes, basil, a light layer of mozzarella cheese, and chunks of lobster. Being that it’s a crepe, it takes thin-crust to a whole new level. What makes it work well is the fact that it has no sauce. It reminds me of an open-faced quesadilla.

Coconut Shrimp

I have mixed feelings about the coconut shrimp. While it is crisp on the outside, and tender/moist on the inside, the sweetness of it gets a little sickening after too many of them. It’s really a dish that should be shared between a few friends. To add fuel to the fire, the dipping sauce is a sweet coconut sauce. There is just too much sweetness and not enough of anything else to even it out.

Bar Harbour Lobster and Shrimp Trio

The main dish, the lobster and shrimp trio, is in one word, big. The plate is the size of a baby, with a Maine lobster tail, a skewer of garlic shrimp, and a small baked dish of lobster and shrimp mixed in a cheesy sauce, and topped with parmesan. Oh, and there are some sad looking pieces of broccoli sitting off to the side.

• Flame grilled lobster: juicy, tender, well seasoned, with a slightly smokey/charred taste; it’s a tail worth chasing after.
• Garlic shrimp scampi: see above, but with shrimp and garlic; another nice thing about these two items is that they aren’t over-salted, a big problem with a lot of American restaurants
• Lobster and shrimp bake: meh. Compared to the other two, this was a bit of a disappointment. The sauce was too strong and too salty, the dish isn’t visually pleasing, and I couldn’t really identify the lobster and shrimp flavours out of this mess.

It was difficult to stand up after finishing my half (admittedly I probably had the bigger half).

What came out

Altogether the three dishes came to just over 40. Not at all bad considering how much lobster/seafood they contained. Decent bang for the buck.

Service

The waitress was nice and understanding despite me spilling a whole glass of coke over everyone. I’ll have to give them a +1 here for my screw up. Not to mention everything came to the table quite quickly even though it was busy.

Conclusion

Being a chain, Red Lobster can’t help but try to appeal to a wide audience of eaters. For me the dishes are hit-or-miss. However, I will probably be back again in another year or so. It’s the type of food that you’d crave after a while, but not the type you’d want to have everyday.

Rating

(Max Score: 10; Base Score: 5)

What went in (+/-2, 0) = 0
What came out (+/-1, 0) = 0
Service (+/-1, 0) = 1
Mr.’s Bonus (+/-1) = 0

Total Score – 6/10

4231 196^th SW
Lynnwood, WA