Red Lobster

Date: October 9, 2011

Location: 3252 Sheppard Ave. E. (W. of Victoria Park Ave.), Scarborough

Website: http://www.redlobster.com/

Meal: dinner

My thoughts:
I'm not a big fan of Red Lobster simply because I don't think the food is that great. But I was here to celebrate someone's birthday and they chose to eat here.

Anyway, we were given some garlic tea biscuits before our meal and they were delicious. I honestly thought that this was the best part of the meal. The food went downhill from this point. (Note: these do not reheat well. I took a few home and had some the next day, and they were very dense and not fresh.)

We ordered shrimp nachos ($11.50), which were not very good. The cheese tasted like Cheese Whiz - gooey and not melty. The shrimp were very small, and the dish itself was also on the small side (compared to other major restaurant chains, such as Kelsey's or Boston Pizza). On a slightly different note, I have tried their lobster nachos before (no longer offered and I wonder why). I remember that I didn't like them and for the same reason.

I had the Cajun chicken linguine Alfredo ($17.50). The chicken was delicious, grilled and cut into large chunks; also, there was a generous amount of it - excellent. I didn't really like the Alfredo sauce though. It tasted like something you'd get out of a can - bland, way too much cream, and in need of some herbs and seasonings. This came with a choice of salad, but I chose to upgrade to a clam chowder soup for an extra $2.99. It also tasted like it came straight out of a can.

We also ordered the Crab linguini alfredo ($17.25), and what really struck us was that the sauce was a carbon copy of the chicken Alfredo sauce. I mean, yes, it is stated in the name that they're Alfredo pastas, but you would think that they would do something to customize the sauces to their own respective dishes, especially at that price! This also came with a salad (choice of Caesar or garden).

 

The birthday girl opted to order the All-you-can-eat shrimp special ($19.95). For this special, you can order as many items and as many times as you'd like, but you can only order two things at once (probably in an effort to reduce food going to waste). She ordered mashed potatoes, garlic shrimp, shrimp linguini Alfredo, breaded shrimp and grilled shrimp skewers. Of these, I only tried the breaded shrimp and shrimp linguini Alfredo. The former was not bad - the shrimp to bread ratio was slightly off (not much shrimp) but I happen to like that :o) It came with a tangy sweet chili sauce that suited the shrimp well. However, the latter had the exact same sauce as the other two pastas - surprise, surprise, eh? - with a small serving of (small) shrimp. Again, the shrimp did nothing for the sauce.

All in all, this was an enjoyable meal simply because of the company. Service was good, too. But consistent with previous visits I've made to this restaurant, the food is not very good. I've had much better seafood at non-seafood restaurants, which is really saying something!