Red Lobster, International Drive, Orlando

Red Lobster has carried an unbelievable fascination for me as a young child. Shrimp buffets and all you can eat offers for a delicacy that was relatively seldom to Swiss’ dining tables had a magic pull. Seeing one just round the corner made me forget all the culinary growing I’d done and I landed at a cozy booth for lunch. There was no way that I was going to pass on a Jumbo shrimp cocktail and was anxious to see what it was going to be like. Firstly a bread roll arrives, which made me slightly weary what was going to come next. Weirdly displayed shrimp (not even sure wether they were arranged on site or flew in like this), a drizzle of herbs and a regular cocktail sauce appears next. Trembling with uncertainty I raise the shrimp to my mouth and take a tender bite. Instead of the cucumber like crunchy snap, the feeling is like biting into a limpy french fry. My heart races, my head is spinning and all those memories in my head suddenly appeared in a new light. It’s a sudden drop from the dreamy heights of semi-clear rememberances to the cold-hard reality of what Red Lobster is. The side cesaer salad is simply a joke and the main course appalling. Mahi-Mahi killed on the grill and smothered by a chemical sauce, accompanied by weird mash potatoes and average broccoli. Now it would be easy to blame Red Lobster for this misery, but there’s someone more vital in this story – the consumer eating here. In hindsight I find it very strange that I had these good memories of a place serving such food. It just goes to show how a good experience or a good time can trump the gustorial and olfactorial impression one has of a restaurant.