An Evening in the Twin Cities: Red Lobster, Roseville

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Red Lobster, Roseville - October 17, 2007

His perspective: B-

After having a difficult experience at the Maplewood Red Lobster (tough overcooked seafood is difficult to eat after all) we decided this night to try the Roseville location instead.

A night and day difference! We had a 12 or 15 minute wait (odd on a Wednesday, eh?) and were seated in the bar area.

I had the crab linguini alfredo, she had the coconut shrimp and scampi combo.

The alfredo was pretty good (I brought it home) but I wasn't at all impressed with it or antyhing. It was an alfredo with crab, what more could I expect. Her scampi were good (nice garlic) but the fried shrimp were little wrong.

Instead of finding the sweetness of the coconut, it was that and what seemed to me to be a cajun spice as well. I wasn't expecting that, neither was she. I've never had coconut anything that was spicy like that, and it threw me a curve.

She didn't finish them, and did ask our server if they were supposed to be like that. Our server said they were. Maryanne asked why that wasn't mentioned on the menu, and the server didn't really have an answer.

Other than the oddly flavored shrimp, it was a nice visit, and better than the other store we tried. Service was prompt and polite, and we even had a couple free beverages out of the deal (free before we asked about the odd food). Overall, I liked it and I'll be back.

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Background information on your reviewers:

Maryanne was in the restaurant industry for 14 years, including one year as a manager for Chili's Grill and Bar. She has experience in fast food, family chain restaurants (with and without alcohol) and fine dining. She has a Hospitality and Tourism Management degree which gives her an understanding of the service industry including travel, hotel, gaming, food and beverage, and entertainment. She is also an actress with some years experience doing short and feature films, online episodic shows, student films, film projects and contests which include both paid and voluntary roles.

William has none of that experience, but instead has experience eating with and entertaining groups of different sizes in a variety of venues in different areas of the Country. That and a knowledge of how things 'should' work in the entertainment and service worlds. He forms his own opinions from that mix of knowledge using a good dose of common sense and a perception of what he feels people expect from dining out at various venues, seeing movies and such.

Our rating system is just a guide, and no rating system is 100% perfect. We are just married couples, friends and relatives that enjoy movies, eating out and other entertainment in the Twin Cities area, and generally we find that people agree with our assessments of different venues, so we offer this bit of common-man insight to everyone. We feel that we're all pretty average people, and we expect what we think any average person would when we spend money to go places and do things, and we have the same reactions when things go right or wrong as most anyone else would. We offer this blog and our experiences to people so they can know or formulate a better opinion as to whether they might want to spend their money or not at these same places or for the same things.

We know that lots of people don't follow reviews and critics and such because they are paid to do what they do, and they generally spend a lot of time qualifying what they say so that you could make the review mean more than it really does. We are all straight-forward and upfront people, and we're not paid, reimbursed or in some other way compensated for these reviews. Maybe it's just us, but we think that lends us more credibility since we're just doing it because we can and we like to, not because we get paid for doing it.

That said, you have to keep in mind that we aren't pro's or anything, so you'll get a no-nonsense perspective from us. We may seem harsh at times, but you need to remember that in some cases we'd spend a lot of money just to come away with a poor review. It hurts having to spend money on something and have nothing good to show for it, and we feel that other people would have the same reaction we would in cases like that, and our reviews reflect that fact. Along that same line, we like spending a little money and getting more value from it. Our reviews and descriptions should also show that, and that's what we're trying to get across to other people as well.

Again, we aren't compensated for this in any fashion, we just do it because we can, we want to, and to maybe help some other people out in the process.

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Saturday, October 20, 2007

Red Lobster, Roseville - October 17, 2007

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