Jesse Helms & Condoleeza Rice's Lovechild, Conceived in a Madison Ave Bathroom
Written: Aug 14 '01 (Updated Aug 14 '01)
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Pros: "Rock Lobster" set the career of B-52s frontman Fred Schneider in motion.
Cons: B-52s success spawned Schneider's delusion that a remake of "Lime in the Coconut" was needed
The Bottom Line: If you dance with the devil, you gonna get burned.
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| Mr.Eyore's Full Review: Red Lobster |
I've eaten at three different Red Lobster's in my life, and been fairly appalled by all three experiences. While I typically don't countenance reviews based on such limited experience, I feel I've tried enough different dishes in enough different cities (L.A., South San Francisco and Wilmington, Delaware) to say a few things about the place. I have also had several friends who have waited tables at various Red Lobster "restaurants."
So as I say, the food is awful, and I'll get to that. But really this review, like so many, is just an excuse to rail against something that ticks me off. In the case of Red Lobster, there's more than one thing.
Yeah, I Work at Black Lobster
I've known more than a few people who worked at Red Lobster, and when I'd ask what they were doing, they'd say, without fail, "I work at Black Lobster."
It's a pretty weird thing to say. It was clear that they were saying Red Lobster caters to a primarily African American clientele. At the time, I didn't know if that was true or not, but it struck me as an odd thing to comment upon regardless. I've yet to hear anyone tell me they work at McP-ckerwoods.
But I've been to a few Red Lobster's since then, and the truth is, each time, it's been primarily occupied by African Americans. Why? Lobster isn't particularly identified with any ethnic cuisine, of course, other than Bostonians (who may or may not be a distinct ethnic group) but I don't really see any reason why a restaurant that specializes in lobster should appeal inordinately to a single ethnic group. I mean, it's essentially fact that whether or not we like collard greens or gefilte fish or menudo or boiled chicken feet breaks down along cultural lines. And there are reasons for that. For those of us descended from relatively poor immigrants to this country, we grew up with distinct preparations invented to render palatable the "trash" parts of various animals. Our grandparents (or great-great-great-grandparents) learned to make due with, and stretch, those foods that richer people didn't want to eat. But I can't think of any distinct American culture that was forced to make due with lobster. Lobster's a treat. Lobster don't have trash parts. Lobster is rich folk food. But you never see rich folk in a Red Lobster.
Marketing the American Dream on the Cheap
Red Lobster is to restaurants what The Gap is to fashion, White Zinfandel to wine, Club Med to travel and the University of Phoenix to education. It is the marketing of ostensibly high-class generica to people who want the trappings of high class but don't have the means to achieve it. It is, for relatively poor folks what Pottery Barn and Starbucks are to the middle class.
Think about it.
How does it sound when I say: "I celebrated earning my MBA by taking my wife out for Lobster and a nice bottle of wine."
Now try it this way: "I celebrated earning my MBA on line by taking my wife out for some thawed out flash-frozen seafood and a nice bottle of fruit flavored white zinfandel."
I understand I run the risk of sounding like an elitist here, and of building a political philosophy around my own tastes. But I can't help resenting the marketing of nominally "good" food as special fare. I mean, If you've got 50, 60 bucks to spend on food, why wouldn't you just get a meal at any of the truly fine Italian restaurants that almost every city has unless you just don't know any better. For the same reason you don't buy $4.00 fish bait that's labeled "caviar" you don't buy $25.00 shoe leather just because it comes from the same genus as edible lobster. Please email me if it's me that's missing the point here.
I also understand that my little theory here appears to rely on some essentially offensive premisses: Like that African-Americans are poor, and that they don't know any better than to buy cr*ppy food. But those aren't the premisses I intend. Rather, the single premise I'm relying on is this: We are all rubes, and advertisers know it. They are just selective in which rubes they market which cr*p to.
The Food: Leather and Lard on the Half Shell
In many ways, Red Lobster is your standard franchise family restaurant. Depending on the neighborhood, the local Red Lobster will either cater to families or dates.
People ‘round these parts rave about the cheese biscuits that Red Lobster pawns off by the basketful. I frankly can't understand why. They're fairly dry, with a slight hint of poor grade cheddar, and they really don't have much to recommend them. Okay, it's a misshapen dollop of bisquick with stuff on top, and you get all you want for free! Neat.
The shrimp scampi is nearly inedible. They use shrimp that are only slightly larger than your standard bay shrimp and broil them in butter, with no discernible garlic or other flavorings (although the recipes on their website feature liberal use of garlic powder, an utterly unacceptable alternative). The effect is one of chewing on a lump of Crisco. The shrimp leave an unpleasant coating on the tongue that is impossible to get rid of with even the strongest white zinfandel.
Of course, lobster is the featured player in much of what Red Lobster has to offer. Only it's not the lobster most people know. The lobster that's a treat, that is the symbol of the expensive date, is live Maine lobster, the sweet, luscious large-clawed beasts that you eat with butter and lemon, and nothing else. The lobster that used to be the symbol of the delicious bargain lunch in Mexico is the Baja or California Lobster, which is darker, usually only served as two pounders with no discernable claw and typically broiled with lime.
Red Lobster primarily serves Rock Lobster, which, yes, is more than just a B-52's song. Rock Lobster is the bastard child of the crustacean world. Its tails are always frozen before being shipped to the U.S. Those tails are as tough as leather, and about as flavorful and sweet as a workboot. Your cat wouldn't eat one of these; why would you? And you should be able to tell what you're in for before you even take the first bite. Rock Lobster tails are a pinkish-gray with foreboding looking spikes around the edges. Normally, spikes might be fun, except that, unlike a Maine Lobster tail that lifts easily out of its shell, separating the meat from the not-meat in one of Red Lobster's specials requires beacher biceps and the jaws of life. You'll swear the meat is still alive as it reaches into the far corners of those spikes and grasps in desperation to stay put. It has the tensile strength of your standard nickel-chromium alloy and the inexplicable sticktoitiveness of Lee Liberace.
More appalling still are the basic grilled fish entrees that Red Lobster pawns off on the unwary. The hallmark of bad fish-flesh is that it smells like ... fish. Red Lobster's fish makes the hallmark hall of fame. I have tasted perfectly bland whitefishes there that were neither bordering on rancid nor memorable in any way. But I have also come across specimens wreaking of sea-death and sporting the kind of opalescent sheen you normally only come across on canned hams and pre-packaged corned beef. Avoid this like the plague, because it may very well be the plague.
Finally, the Red Lobster signature dishes are reminiscent of the viscous residue of a Jeff Foxworthy, Emerill LeGasse jerkathon. One dish, in particular, epitomizes the sort of overblown lowbrow culinary appeal for which LeGasse has become famous: Their seafood fettuccini crustacean delight thing. I frankly can't remember what it's called, but everything about it screams retarded corporate brainstorming session. You can almost picture a group of suits sitting around saying, "Yeah, and Americans love pasta and they love cheese, why not throw some crawdad into a creamy parmesan-flavored sauce and toss the whole thing onto a frozen rock-lobster tail?"
"Yeah, but then also, Americans love butter-flavored stuff too, right? So lets give ‘em a dipping sauce ... one made out of melted margarine."
"Hey, yeah, ‘cause Americans love to dip sh!t."
"Huh-huh, dip sh!t. That's funny."
Advice on How to Enjoy Your Red Lobster Experience if Someone Holds a Gun to Your Head and Makes you Eat There
Should you awake in the morning, after a night of unpleasant dreams, and find yourself transformed into the sort of person who might consider eating at Red Lobster, fret not, for there are ways to reduce the pain.
First, have yourself a Lobsterita. Yeah, that's right, a Lobsterita. It's a big margarita made with respectable tequila. And it's big. It costs in the neighborhood of $23.00 or something, but hey, it comes with a string of Mardi Gras beads that have a giant Lobster charm on the end. And when you think Margarita or Lobster, you think Mardi Gras, don't you?
Second, in all seriousness, do not stray from ordering a single live Maine Lobster. Red Lobster's saving grace is that they actually do serve live Maine Lobster. You can see the little 2 pounders kickin' it in the cloudy tank up front. They're more expensive that pretty much anything else on the menu, but are perhaps a little less expensive than the same dish in a real restaurant. And they're fine.
Even if Your Meal Doesn't Kill You There's a Good Chance It's Already Killed Somebody Else
I'm not normally the type of person who will point out that a restaurant serves up heart attacks on a plate. I like my rich, fatty foods, and so do you. If we feel like kicking skewers of cholesterol extract up a notch by dipping them into fondue, that's our Velveeta-given right.
Furthermore, if we don't mind being pandered to by a marginally racist, exceedingly sexist, uncompromisingly xenophobic Madison Avenue ... hell, I can't even finish that sentence, because I know we expect and demand to be so pandered to.
But I got a bug up my b-tt about Red Lobster's supply chain, even though I could give a damn about things like the effect of MacDonalds on Amazon rain forests and the American Potato farming industry. So here's the thing: Red Lobster purchases its Rock Lobster from dive boats on the Mosquito Coast of Central America, an area of the world where the average monthly wage is $80.00. Lobster divers can earn as much as $800.00 per month, but doctors say that ALL of the divers suffer from the bends, a malaise caused by nitrogen bubbles in the system resulting from too many dives and rising to the surface too frequently. A huge percentage of these divers suffer from paralysis and death. For almost all of these divers, the alternative is malnourishment and destitute poverty. Y'all have your own opinions about this sort of thing, so I'll leave it at that.
In conclusion, Red Lobster is the devil.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Mr.Eyore
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Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 299 members
About Me:
I come for the pervasive sense of elitist self-importance and semi-witty expressions of faux camaraderie
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