Red Lobster – Waikiki, HI

Chain restaurants are always a hit or miss but I was craving seafood this past weekend and wanted to give Red Lobster a whirl. I haven’t been to Red Lobster in years but sometimes I get this little sliver of hope that a restaurant chain so popular and long-lasting must have good food and service. Yes, a positive attitude is the ticket!

Parking: I decided to park in the paid lot fronting the marina. I knew I would be going to dinner super early and paid for 3 hours of parking (only $1 an hour!). Well, I went to Red Lobster early enough that I needed less than 2 hours of parking. But the extra dollar was certainly worth not having to worry about rushing through dinner and looking at the clock throughout dinner. There is a parking lot right next to the restaurant but I wasn’t sure how validation worked so I went with a lot I knew was cheap.

No line on a Saturday night! Okay, as you can see it wasn’t even close to sunset, that’s how early I went. Good news, they are on Open Table but only for priority seating. It means they will add you to the wait list but not as a reservation, we had absolutely no wait!

Complimentary Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits

We smashed two servings of this. Seriously. Our server was super nice and offered us a second round. Terribly bad for you which means it’s terribly delicious. Probably more butter than flour…lol.

Mozzarella Cheesesticks | $9.79
Served with marinara.

Dining with kids leads to cheesestick orders. I didn’t feel like this so I didn’t partake in any, they were gobbled up so I assume they were good! And if you’re looking for some long stretch cheese action, this will provide it!!

Langostino Lobster-Artichoke-and-Seafood Dip (get enough hyphens or wot?) | $12.49
Langostino and Norway lobster, seafood, artichokes and spinach in a three-cheese blend. Served with tortilla chips and pico de gallo.

Pretty nice morsels of lobster in this dip! And this kind of dip sans the lobster costs about the same so why not come here and get it WITH the lobster? The taste was pretty good! Gobbled up too…lol.

RL Signature Creamy Alfredo | $28.49
Tender Maine lobster meat tossed with fresh tomatoes in a rich and creamy garlic Alfredo sauce, served on a bed of linguini.

I’m going to keep speaking in awe of the lobster servings in this restaurant. I guess I shouldn’t have to since lobster is in their name but I thought they gave a lot of lobster in this dish. Judge for yourself! By the way, this dish was delicious but a bit rich.

Ultimate Feast | $34.49*
*Chesapeake Corn | +$2.49 (Premium Side)
Tender Maine lobster tail, wild-caught North American snow crab legs, our signature hand-crafted garlic shrimp scampi and Walt’s Favorite Shrimp. Served with rice and choice of side.

The Ultimate Feast actually comes with two sides if you don’t choose to have salad with your meal. Was the corn worth $2.49? Ehh..I don’t think so. Was the meal worth $35? I think so! Look at all this food, it’s like a seafood buffet. And look, unless you have an endless stomach, this is pretty much how much seafood you could stuff in anyway right? It’s a hefty serving…so $35 is a good deal to me (considering seafood buffets are upwards of $60 and up!).

Food was great and the service was great too! Our waiter was very nice and attentive to us, kept refilling our waters. One of the boys had trouble eating his crab and our waiter even showed him the tricks on how to eat snow crab. Wonderful! Red Lobster even has an app that tracks dining points. I spent enough this trip to earn a free reward for the next visit, yahoo! I guess I gotta return sooner rather than later.

Mixed Plate

MEAT LOAF. I know this is considered whatever kine food for people but I really enjoy it and find it comforting. I also like the making of the meat loaf. I love putting all the ingredients together in the bowl in a pretty way and then mixing it. Looks good ah? Well not delicious good, just good good.

Meat Loaf, Rice and…can you guess what the yellow and red thing is? It’s a bit shameful actually…

I found a recipe online for a quick elote corn. Um, don’t do that. First off, I didn’t have lime, only lemon so that was a big mistake on my part. And crushed up flaming hot cheetos on top? What was I thinking? Don’t follow any kine recipe okay? Next time I will leave out the cheetos, find some limes…and make it GOOD.

Okay let’s move to something I am proud of. Look at this refreshing and absolutely delicious watermelon dessert I made! I drew inspiration from this video, he made it look so good. I had to improvise. I found mini seedless watermelons from Costco. Bought some strawberry popping boba from Don Q and the scene was set! Balled up some melon, crushed up the leftover flesh to create watermelon juice. Poured the juice back into the melon shell, added the balled melon on top…topped it with condensed milk and then the popping boba. Sugar bomb? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely yes!

Aloha Steak House – Waikiki, HI

Here’s a fair warning. We did not have a good experience at Aloha Steak House. I didn’t even get all the pictures of the food because they seated us at this small little square table and we have to order everything ala carte (like a real steakhouse) but it couldn’t even fit on our table (huh??). I’ll try to break things down in digestable chunks.

Parking: They offer free validated parking at Hyatt Centric. The parking lot is located about two blocks away. Validation is for 2 hours – stay within the two hours! It is $4.00 for every half hour after that. Our service was so slow that we made it out with less than a handful of minutes to spare.

Service: Oh boy, where do I start? Our waitress was both the host and waitress for the entire restaurant. Why? I don’t know. There were about 4 other workers who only ran food out? HUH? Why? It led to huge backlogs in seating and ordering. She had a young man following her all night but he was not allowed to do anything. She forgot our waters and totally forgot one of our desserts.

She certainly turned on her charm for certain tables. And the restaurant was so small that we could hear it all. She was giving out free watermelon ice cream to the other tables. Dumb ole me actually went to this restaurant wanting to try the ice cream so obviously we didn’t get the free sample. In the end, as we were trying to pay out our check, she was too busy cutting up tomahawk steaks at the other tables. Once again, I saw other food runners doing it too so why did she as the only host/waitress do it?

Here’s the best part, we finally flagged down another person to swipe our credit card. A food runner came by to do it and she storms up and tells him not to and that he should not listen to whoever told him to do it and muttered to herself that no one should be running her checks (well, maybe don’t take 30 mins to run a credit card but okay). The only good part of service was that she gave us (and all kamaaina) 10% off our total check.

1/2 LB US Rib Eye Steak | $23.40

The menu is a bit confusing, it says there are two ways to have your steak on a bed of rice or salad. But the steak doesn’t come with that! You have to order those things ala carte, a bit misleading if you ask me. So yes, when you order steak – this is what you get. The meat you order and some corn.

US Rib Eye Steak & Garlic Shrimps | $29.70

This was my dish. I enjoyed it! Good steak, great shrimp and good corn too. Ha.

SIDES:

Garlic Fries ($6.00): Meh. Cold fries served with some golden fried minced garlic. Not great, would not order it again.

Creamed Spinach ($6.00): Are you serious? I have never had such bad creamed spinach in my life. It tasted like they boiled up some frozen spinach, added a teaspoon of cream and no seasoning. Awful.

Mashed Potato ($6.00): Finally a side done right. Was it instant? I don’t think so? I guess the consistency and texture could be mistaken for instant but the taste was good! If you are looking for a mash with some good lumps, this ain’t it.

Watermelon Ice Cream | $7.50

The infamous ice cream! Okay, I was super excited to try this and was a bit disappointed. It wasn’t the ice cream’s fault, I guess I was wanting more of a sorbet but it was definitely a vanilla ice cream with a light hint of watermelon. If you know me, I don’t like plain vanilla ice cream so it was a bit of a downer for me. Cute idea though!