Place: Red Lobster
Item: Dozens of Shrimp
Price: $ 9.99 for two dozen
Red Lobster has never been on our short list of lunch stops. Yet when we were looking to break out of our noon-time rut lately, visions of shrimp danced through our heads.
But does Red Lobster work for lunch? Well, the lunch menu has surprising variety, from lobster pizza to Aztec chicken to a half-pound Angus burger. Like two sharks in a feeding frenzy, we tore into the Dozens of Shrimp special, feasting on 24 shrimp each in four varieties: Grilled Baby Rack of Shrimp, Citrus Shrimp in a Bag, Our Famous Shrimp Scampi and Freshly Hand-Breaded Fried Shrimp. Who survived the crustacean mayhem to tell the tale? The Lunch Guys, but just barely.
Tom: Everything Red Lobster placed on the table was very good -- except for the seafood. While the prospect of
getting 24 shrimp for $9.99 sounds intriguing, 24 is a lot of anything to eat for lunch, especially each one is mediocre. These look like shrimp, they have shells like shrimp, they just don't taste much like anything other than the sauce they're bathed in. This is the white bread of seafood.
famous. The others kind of miss the boat, especially the unholy marriage of barbecue sauce and shrimp. It's like putting ketchup on chicken. The bagged shrimp gets five sporks for presentation, but the result is shrimp that tastes too peppery and damp. And the fried is just fried, no extra flavoring added. I should have had 24 cheese biscuits.
Tom: Yes, the shrimp bag was pretty and the cheese biscuits haunt me still. But I love shrimp, and the Lobster let me down this time. Don't worry, that variety on the menu, and the lack of suburbanite crowds out for birthday dinners, makes it worth going back for a second-try lunch. Next time I'm getting the burger, Maine be damned!
Chris: Yeah, maybe the trick is to go easy on the seafood at Red Lobster. I should have made a lunch out of the biscuits, salad and maybe a baker's dozen of the shrimp scampi. The Lobster is definitely a legit lunch place if you fish the menu wisely.
Rating: 2 sporks (out of five)
Food facts: The Lobster isn't letting its nutritional info fall into the wrong hands -- namely the public's.
E-mail The Lunch Guys:
tomandchris@thelunchguys.com
That's why the scamp is the best option of the four flavors. At least it has a discernable hint of garlic and butter. The fried shrimp is certainly edible, but you could place a fried fork on my plate and I'd eat it. The other two “flavors” are as lost as a shrimp without a head. The upside is that the shrimp are only slightly bigger than Sea Monkeys, so the pain doesn't last too long.
Chris: Maybe it was me, maybe it was the seafood, but after lunch, my stomach was floundering as if I was aboard a small ship on the big ocean. My problem is I eat whatever is put in front of me, even if it's three cheese biscuits, a salad, mashed potatoes and 24 shrimp. Yes, each individual Red Lobster shrimp is only about the size of a cocktail wiener, but schooled together in pools of butter, oil, garlic and barbecue sauce, they're a powerful force.
I'm with you on the scampi shrimp, Tom; they deserve to be
Throw back Red Lobster's 24 shrimp
