“Table Talk” With Jeremy Wayne: Rough sailing at Red Lobster

My curiosity piqued by a colleague’s preview of Red Lobster’s Lobsterfest, https://westfaironline.com/food-restaurants/red-lobster-adds-five-new-dishes-for-its-latest-lobsterfest-event/  I decided it was time for a revisit. It’s been a good few years since I last set foot inside a franchise of this all-American restaurant chain, established nearly 60 years ago with the intention of democratizing that most elite of crustaceans, and whose empire now stretches not only across the United States but all the way from China to Ecuador – 719 outlets worldwide at the latest count. 

 As with any restaurant review, I had only three prime objectives:   How was the food, how was the service and – vitally, in my book – was the place fun? I mean, F–U–N. The rest, after all, is gloss.  

The outing, to the Central Avenue, Greenburgh, location, didn’t get off to a promising start. With blinds drawn and no lights or signs of life outside, I assumed the place had closed down. So much so, I was on the point of leaving when the door miraculously opened and a couple of diners stepped out, which was my cue to step in. Never assume, don’t they say? (At least, not without trying the door handle first.) 

In the entrance way, three bound and gagged Homari americani, to give these red beauties their proper name, inched around hopelessly in a wide tank, fascinating if at the same time oddly dispiriting as captive arthropods tend to be. A rather bored-looking young host looked up from his phone to greet me. “Table?” he said. “Yes,” I replied, in our brief exchange. 

In the main dining room, the booths of solid mahogany were vast, like private enclaves, the striped carpets – evoking waves, perhaps? – serviceable. Do try to avoid looking at those drab, gray popcorn ceiling tiles, though, about which the less said the better. 

The menu is a test of concentration, comprehension and endurance, as you juggle three separate cards, plastered with ebullient prose, garish pictures and impossible to understand promotions to get to the actual point where you are ready to order. Will it be “Shrimp Your Way,” a complete meal of “endless shrimp,” in which you choose three combinations to start and the server brings you more “when you’re ready”? Or a “Choose Two or Double Up,” which adds $7 to the check but does include “endless” chowder and a salad? 

Then there are the daily deals, the weekday lunch specials and the “Buy One, Take One Home” offers, and all of them before you get to the Lobsterfest menu itself, with its five new dishes – including lobster dip with spinach and artichoke and Maine lobster tails over macaroni and cheese with a bacon bourbon glaze. 

Never mind the poor lobsters, I was all at sea myself over the choices. 

By the time I was through, I felt Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” might have been a faster read. I wanted to say to the server, “Just bring me a simple plain grilled lobster, a lemon wedge and I’m good to go.” But being on a mission, I buckled down, ordering instead a bowl of chowder, a classic black tiger prawn cocktail and linguine lobster. While I waited, I sipped on a Sunset Passion Colada from a cocktail list as long as Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales.” It was quite delicious and gave me the sensation of having joined a hen party on a beach in Cancún, which is no bad sensation at all. 

The food was fine – the chowder chunky with potato; the shrimp, with its Thai chili-cilantro sauce, almost unnaturally plump and fresh. The linguine entrée was interlaced with a generous amount of lobster chunks and could easily have served four hungry fishermen. 

That Lobsterfest menu? While I had stuck to Red Lobster classics, the couple at the next table, with whom I made conversation and who mentioned that Red Lobster is a regular stop for them after church on Sunday, tucked into their Lobster and Shrimp Lover’s Dream. Still in celestial mode, they said this dish of roasted Caribbean rock and Maine lobster tails paired with shrimp linguine Alfredo was “out of this world.” 

 In terms of ambience, I wouldn’t say Red Lobster was jumping, but what it did have, with its unskilled but well-intentioned service and rock-era soundtrack was a friendly, unthreatening family vibe. Multigenerational groups with kids of all ages entered at a steady pace, additional high chairs were produced seemingly out of thin air and servers struggled under oversize circular trays held aloft. 

 All of which had me considering the following:   On the one hand, Red Lobster could certainly use some rebranding, not to mention a facelift. On the other, if it ain’t broke, they say, don’t fix it. Food for thought, indeed. The lobsters, of course, might say something different entirely, given half a chance. 

For more, visit redlobster.com.