Underdog is very supportive of my little food blog and is always panning for gold nuggets and potential "hidden gems" for us to try online. Being in a crustacean kinda mood this afternoon, he sniffed out The Lazy Lobster and suggested we hit I-75 South and check it out. The restaurant is actually quite charming visually, in spite of its strip mall location. We were greeted cordially and quickly seated on the outdoor patio, per our request. Even though it faces the highway, every effort has been made to turn it into somewhat of a garden setting with plants and lattice work, and it was very nice. Hot, crispy rolls were delivered in short order...obviously not made on the premises and I'm also not a fan of little foil-wrapped butter pats unless I'm at Denny's...but I did appreciate the pseudo "oven-baked" factor and we really liked the hot pepper jelly that came with (it was delightful...sweet, with a bit of heat on end). We were told that the jelly was made in-house...verynice.
Our server, Alison, was lovely, enthusiastic and very responsive...she even went the extra mile to see if the kitchen could prepare Lobster Mac n' Cheese, which we had seen on their website but wasn't listed on our menu. As it turned out, the chef was willing to put the dish together for us even though he/she had to use a different pasta, and I totally applaud the effort on everyone's part. Unfortunately, I found the offering to be pretty lackluster. The cheese sauce couldn't have been more insipid and the watery lobster claw meat did little to enhance this appetizer.
We had a better experience with the Lobster Bisque. No lobster chunks to be found, but the lobster flavor was certainly there and the bisque was rich and creamy. I'm also relatively certain I tasted sherry (bonus points!). It was delicious.
On to the entrees. I thought Scallops Breanne sounded amazing (large pan-seared sea scallops, summer squash ravioli, citrus cream sauce) and the scallops themselves were excellent. The prefab ravioli didn't do much for me, however, and the sauce was virtually tasteless in spite of the extensive CPR I performed by way of liberal use of the salt and pepper shakers.
UD didn't fare much better with his selection of a crab-stuffed lobster tail, blackened scallops and coconut shrimp combo. Other than the scallops, nothing was really that great (blandness seems to be the theme of many of the offerings here) and the sides of frozen green beans and a not-very-exciting scalloped potatoes didn't do anything to elevate this entree.
We did find a very enjoyable end to our meal in the form of The Lazy Lobster's surprisingly well done Creme Brulee...it was creamy and delightful!
Thoughout the course of the meal, I kept hearing a subliminal whisper...and it was "Old People Food". Granted, I am no spring chicken, but I am also not ready to relegate myself to being satisfied by assisted living facility dining room flavors. This place is channeling the old local Leverock's chain of the 80's and 90's (weakly, I might add). Dinner cost $117 with a couple of glasses of wine apiece. I have no doubt that we could've found a higher level of gastronomic excitement and bang for our buck elsewhere. I will, however, stop short of labeling it a bad meal because nothing was "horrible" and there were a couple of things we thought were above average. Still, it was definitely a one-hit wonder. Sorry, Lazy Lobster...I'm just not that into you.
Ummm...if you didn't like it, where's Gastropup's doggy bag? Some of us aren't so finicky.
No comments:
Post a Comment