Some menu items at Red Lobster have serious cult followings, like the signature bread basket
offering and the Cheddar Bay Biscuit. Others, like the Ultimate Feast, are the brainchild of a
marketing team. Here are some of the most popular items at Red Lobster, ranked from worst to first.
Red Lobster's Crab Linguini Alfredo is exactly what it sounds like — crab meat
and some creamy cheese sauce served on a bed of linguini.
The menu description promises "sweet crabmeat in a creamy garlic alfredo sauce,"
but what you get tastes more like ambiguous canned seafood with tasteless jarred alfredo sauce.
The garlic and Parmesan that should add depth to the sauce taste mysteriously absent.
What you're left with is cream and, somehow, not enough salt to add
flavor but enough to make you feel gross after downing this 1,910-calorie dish.
It’s an experience that tasted 90% pasta and cream, 10% seafood.
Red Lobster's New England Clam Chowder has many of the same problems as the
slightly worse Crab Linguini. The primary difference here is
that the chowder doesn’t feature an overwhelmingly large pile of pasta,
and it won't set you back nearly a day's worth of calories. The New England Clam chowder actually
has more seafood flavor too, presumably from the presence of some form of seafood stock.
However, salt is the primary ingredient you'll taste in this dish,
and the chowder can be either thin and watery or thick and gloopy depending on the day you visit.
The sprinkling of parsley on top adds nothing, and the clams are decidedly chewy in a not-good
way. This soup is probably best as a dipping sauce for the accompanying cheddar bay biscuits.
That said, this is probably the worst choice you could make when it comes to
appetizers at Red Lobster. All of the other options are significantly better.
“awhhhhhh, Yum!”
Considering the fact that Red Lobster literally invented popcorn shrimp,
you would think that its Crunchy Popcorn Shrimp Dinner would be higher up on this list.
However, just because it was the first to take tiny shrimp, bread them,
and throw them in the deep fryer, does not mean that they're still the best at it.
For starters, unless you're extremely lucky, the shrimp are unlikely to be crunchy. They're also
heavy on the breading and light on the shrimp, which means that you're basically ordering a plate
of slightly soggy fried bread crumbs. This will satisfy the consumer who is merely interested in
eating handfuls of something, anything that's deep fried, but all others will be disappointed here.
The popcorn shrimp at fast-food seafood spot Long John Silvers is actually significantly
better than Red Lobster's offering. If you can get better popcorn shrimp at a drive-thru,
it's best to skip this one and leave more room for Cheddar Bay Biscuits.
Red Lobster's Maine Lobster and Sirloin is America's most entry-level surf and turf. A
lobster tail paired with a seven-ounce peppercorn-seasoned sirloin steak,
it should be hard to go wrong with this combination at Red Lobster's price point.
“You’re fond of me lobster, ain’t ye?”
However, this is actually one of the worst ways to get bang for your buck at Red Lobster. The
portions of both steak and lobster are relatively small, and neither is particularly good.
No matter what you tell your waiter, you're probably going to get a medium-well or well-done
piece of sirloin, and the supposed peppercorn seasoning is perhaps only a suggestion to the
kitchen. The lobster tail will taste primarily of the butter it's doused with, and no,
it will not look anything like the surf-and-turf combos you've seen in Red Lobster commercials.
Red Lobster is well-known for its seafood combination meals, which offer quantity and
variety at a relatively low price point. The Seaside Shrimp Trio is our least favorite of
this bunch, primarily because it's anchored by a sizable bowl of shrimp linguini alfredo
that just isn't very good. The creamy shrimp linguini alfredo tastes exactly the same as
the Crab Linguini Alfredo, but with a handful of tiny shrimp on top rather than crab meat.
The garlic shrimp scampi feels unfinished, like it should be served on a bed of linguini given
the fact that the shrimp are literally swimming in a pool of garlic butter.
The fried tail-on shrimp that round out the trio feel like an afterthought,
and they're hit or miss depending on how adept the staff happens to be at working the deep fryer.
It does offer a lot of food — a lot of shrimp, specifically — and if you're just trying to
eat a bunch of shrimp served in different ways, this is certainly the order for you.
Fans are devoted to Red Lobster's Ultimate Feast to the point that when the price was raised by
just $4 in 2018, the internet was very upset. The Ultimate Feast comes with a lobster tail,
snow crab legs, garlic shrimp scampi, fried tail-on shrimp,
rice, and one other side. That’s a lot of food, folks.
Despite the lobster tail and snow crab legs, the shrimp scampi is often presented as the
star of the plate, though again, there's really nothing to do with all of that garlic butter.
The lobster tail and crab legs seem like high-ticket items, but they're mostly for show.
Both are served steamed, neither have a lot of meat,
and they won't taste like much of anything until you dip them into melted butter
at which point they'll just taste like butter. The fried shrimp are, as always, hit-or-miss.
The main appeal of the Ultimate Feast is that you get to try a little of everything,
but none of it stands out.
“Oh my God, this is a lot of food.”
The Admiral's Feast isn't trying to be everything for everyone — it's a
feast fit for the kind of person who spends their days at sea. Clearly,
Red Lobster thinks that what seafaring folk really want when they get back on dry land is not fresh,
unspoiled seafood, but a giant pile of deep-fried whatever came out of the ocean that day.
The Admiral's Feast comes with tail-on shrimp, bay scallops, clam strips, and whitefish, all battered
and deep-fried, and served with two sides, one of which could conceivably be french fries.
There is no denying that you're getting a lot of breading when you order this,
especially when it comes to the bay scallops and the clam strips,
which are more breadcrumb than mollusk. As with all fried food at Red Lobster, you're at the mercy
of the kitchen staff on any given night. However, when the Admiral's Feast is good, it's good.
The Lobster and Langostino Pizza at Red Lobster is a classic case of so wrong,
it's right. A culinary travesty of lobster meat, langostino, chopped tomatoes, mozzarella,
and basil piled on a base that seems somewhere between an ultra thin-crust pizza and a tostada,
this culinary cacophony should not be as good as it is, and yet, it's delicious.
The combination of lobster and langostino allows this appetizer to feel a little more luxurious
than many of the chain's other lobster-forward offerings, which can have a tendency to feel
skimpy. It hovers somewhere between pizza and nachos, which is an unexpectedly delightful place
for an appetizer to land. While this is not the best appetizer at Red Lobster, it's a good one.
Some of the biggest sleeper hits on the menu at Red Lobster are the desserts,
and the chain's take on one of Florida's best – the key lime pie – is a hit. They
don't try to get fancy with this one: It's just a lightly tart custard on a graham cracker crust,
served with a dollop of whipped cream and, often, a few wedges of actual lime.
While it's most likely just a regular lime custard tart,
it's a pretty good one. It's also the lightest dessert option on the menu, so it tends to pair
well with the massive combination platters that many people order at Red Lobster.
Red Lobster's take on the classic Lobster Bisque is considerably better and more
consistent than its version of New England Clam Chowder. In fact, the lobster bisque is
kind of good. Like the chain's other chowder, this is actually best as a vehicle for bread,
but there's a major difference here: The Lobster Bisque is great for dipping Cheddar Bay Biscuits,
which are a breadbasket item truly in a class of their own.
By itself, the Lobster Bisque is creamy with a bit of tang, that suggests some generic cooking
wine and one of the strongest punches of lobster flavor that you're going to find on the menu.
It has an almost velvety consistency, and while there isn't a ton of lobster meat in this soup,
that's not really what a bisque is about in the first place. This is a soup that
can stand on its own, but when paired with a warm Cheddar Bay Biscuit becomes almost
like a lobster fondue on steroids. It's worth trying, at least once.
“Lobster is an excellent choice.”
This is not the most flavorful or exciting option on the menu at Red Lobster,
but it's straightforward, simple, and does what it's supposed to do.
It's the Wild-Caught Snow Crab Legs, which are exactly that:
a plate of steamed crab legs served with butter. As is the case with snow crab legs in general,
these are thin and fairly easy to crack open, but they're more of a snacktivity than a true
meal since you're going to be putting in a lot of effort for not very much meat.
“Crack the claw, take out a little meat, dunk it in some butter, and then you eat it.”
Snow crab legs are an especially welcome accompaniment to a meal that's heavy on
cheesy seafood appetizers and/or deep-fried seafood, as they're lighter and more subtle.
The Langostino Lobster Artichoke and Seafood Dip is a take on a classic of American casual dining.
It's warm, gooey, and savory. Plus, it has a hint of earthiness from the canned artichokes,
which makes it a slightly more sophisticated choice than just ordering nachos or chips
and cheese dip. Here, the combination of both seafoods gives this appetizer bulk and flavor,
so you don't feel like you're digging for a few chunks of meat in a quagmire of cheese.
The three-cheese blend is surprisingly satisfying.
The menu says that this dish includes lobster, langostino, and some additional unidentified
"seafood," which helps explain why this has more seafood flavor than any other item on the menu.
There's depth of flavor, umami, and a good amount of lobster and langostino,
which make this hands-down the best appetizer at Red Lobster. Go crazy and dip your second or
third basket of biscuits in it once you've polished off all of the tortilla chips.
The undisputed best of the deep-fried options at Red Lobster, the Parrot Isle Jumbo Coconut Shrimp
are the perfect sweet and savory seafood item. The shrimp are, in fact, jumbo,
and since this breading is made with shredded coconut, it feels lighter than the batter
on any of the other fried items. When coupled with the creamy, tangy, and also fairly sweet
piña colada sauce, it's an addictive menu item that feels like a miniature vacation.
Perhaps because of the lighter batter, this dish also has less of a tendency to get soggy
than some of the other fried shrimp dishes in particular, so it's always the safest bet if
fried shrimp is what you're after. You can get an order of ten with two sides, but they also
come in a smaller appetizer portion if you want more of a snack-sized coconut shrimp experience.
We've said that the desserts at Red Lobster are lowkey some of the best options on
offer, and the Brownie Overboard sundae is the best of the bunch.
It starts with a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream, which gets snuggled up with
several warm wedge-shaped chocolate chip brownies before the whole thing
is drizzled with caramel and hot fudge sauce and topped with whipped cream. It's decadent!
Cheddar Bay Biscuits are the stuff of legend for a reason. Cheddar Bay Biscuits are so popular,
Red Lobster serves over one million biscuits every day. A quick search on Pinterest will
show hundreds of DIY copycat recipes and hacks to make your own biscuits at home.
Originally introduced as a replacement for hushpuppies, Cheddar Bay Biscuits have only
been around since the early '90s. But since then, they've developed a rabid cult following.
The biscuits owe their ultra-savory flavor to an infusion of garlic and cheddar cheese in the
biscuit dough, and when a basket of hot biscuits arrives on your table at Red Lobster, you know
you're about to have a good time, no matter what else follows during the rest of your meal.
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