I Miss the Ocean

It's a fact that Kansas is about as far from an ocean that you can get and still be in the U.S. Therefore, if you love seafood and live here, you're just S.O.L. Oh...there are places you can go to eat something that may have been dragged out of an ocean at one time or another in the past few years; but nothing approaching what would be considered good eating.

Take Red Lobster for instance. Saying that Red Lobster serves seafood is akin to claiming that Taco Bell is a Mexican restaurant. The names for the food is all there. There is a decor trying to get you to believe you're getting the real thing. The commercials and the menus are packed with visual clues to make you think you're at the place to get what you crave.

But-the-food-is-crap!

I received a $10 off coupon from my credit card for Red Lobster the other day. I've usually been sorely disappointed with the place but...hey....ten bucks would just about pay for one meal....may as well load up the wife and head on over for a lunch. The fish and chips were always barely acceptable, so I figured I could have that rather than just making a baloney sandwich at home.

Red Lobster no longer sells the fish and chips. Instead they have shrimp and chips. So I shrug and get that instead. The shrimp (all five of them) was greasy and tasteless. The chips were not fries but potato chips, which were actually the best part of the meal. The soda was flat and, for nearly three bucks, it would have been nice to have at least one refill. My wife had some shrimp meal that was likewise gross. We ended up fighting over my chips and leaving the restaurant hungry.

I wish I had the baloney.