RED LOBSTER

Red Lobster, S Maison, 17 November 2018

I eat more than crispy pata. What better time to start writing about it than during The Holiday Pig Out Season?

So, this is the place people have been texting about. Apparently, billboard advertising does work.

We were given two complimentary cheese biscuits to start. Their way of introducing themselves to Manila, I suppose. The biscuits were soft and moist with just enough cheese flavor to justify their name. Very nice. But do you go to a restaurant for their bread? “Not I,” said the p.

Our hapless waitress switched our soups; thus, what she announced to be potato and bacon soup I discovered, after several hearty spoonfuls, to be clam chowder. No wonder it “tasted like the ocean”. This on the premise that the ocean tastes good. After my wife and I exchanged bowls, the potato and bacon soup turned out to be a watery concoction that belies my long-held belief that bacon makes everything better.

For our main dish we ordered the seafood platter. I was intimidated by the idea of dealing with and paying for whole live lobsters. On the other hand, the platter in the photograph on the menu (and the billboard) came with a lobster tail, crab legs and shrimps, de-shelled or nearly so, lying on a bed of wild rice with French fries on the side—all for less than P3,000.

When the platter arrived, however, everything looked just a little less than sumptuous. Is there truth in advertising? It’s a sad day when food stylists do better jobs than chefs. Fortunately, the ultimate test is not in the looking but in the eating. The crab and lobster had slightly different sweetnesses, making me grateful for the variety. The shrimp tasted like the ocean. Just be careful not to dip too much in the lemon butter sauce, lest the lobster begin to taste like popcorn.

Do I recommend that people check out the place? There’s not much on the menu, but what they do have is worth trying.

I miss my father and our regular visits to The Red Crab for Raymund, Fidel and Maritess.

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Red Lobster, S Maison, Pasay City. Tel. No. 829-9400. No reservations accepted on weekends.