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Monday, June 23

Someone Pass the Cheese Biscuits

Kelsey Nixon's winning dish, White Chocolate Macadamia Crusted Tilapia with Buerre Blanc, won the challenge on last night's episode of The Next Food Network Star and will be featured in Red Lobster restaurants nationwide.

And who knew -- Red Lobster has a blog!

Red Lobster actually sits on the list of restaurants Jared and I casually refer to as the "N.A. List," which translates to: NEVER AGAIN.

Restaurants usually get added after horrible dining experiences. It's probably not fair to discount a giant chain such as Red Lobster after a bad experience of two, but I only see myself eating there again if/when I'm stuck in some middle-America town and all the Chili's are closed (which, not surprisingly, is also on the N.A. List).

Sigh. I'm tempted to do another taste test after the, umm... eventful one we did for Ultimate Recipe Showdown at Friday's back in March.

Who wants to make Kelsey's choco-fish for me?

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15 Comments:

At 6/23/2008 10:55 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hahahaha, NA - I love it! I'm going to start using that. Olive Garden is on my list. Sorry Kendra Wilkinson!

 
At 6/23/2008 10:59 PM , Blogger Erin said...

I am so with you on the NA list for Red Lobster. It's not just you. I almost felt embarassed for the contestants after last night's challenge because the food at Red Lobster is so horrible. If I was an aspiring chef, I would not want my name associated in any way with that place.

I would love to take you up on making Kelsey's dish. In fact I was already on the RL website looking at the recipe, but unfortunately it is so poorly written, it doesn't even resemble what is made by Chef LaDuke and Kelsey on the video. I may still try and approximate it based on the video, the "recipe", and my own common sense.

 
At 6/24/2008 1:16 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

if it is true RL sucks SO bad why the hell would FN associate with them for this I wonder?? I have never eaten there.....I would not know.

 
At 6/24/2008 7:24 AM , Blogger JordanBaker said...

I haven't eaten at Red Lobster in at least 20 years. And while Tilapia is one of the few fish I actually like, I don't know if I could take it with white chocolate.

 
At 6/24/2008 8:55 AM , Blogger Lady of the Mists--Live Person Advice Expert said...

Although this was a loooong time ago, when I was 15-16 (I'm 28 now) worked at a Red Lobster as a hostess and also did some prep/line work. You DO want to keep RL on your lis of "HELL NO NEVER" restaurants. Managers demanded seriously undercooked fish be delivered any way, slug infesed lettuce to be served, food that had sat under heat lamps for 30+ minutes..yep, run that on out too!

GROSS!!!

In the Triangle are of NC, RL restaurantS had the highest incidents of food poisoning of any restaurant/chain.

 
At 6/24/2008 10:48 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love Red Lobster's wonderful selection of Chinese farmed fish, especially the tilapia. And the shrimp that is laden with malachite green is so tasty as well. Mmmm.

Oh wait . Didn't the FDA ban many varieties of Chinese seafood products in 2006 ? I think they did. Oh well, you could always trans-ship them thru Malaysia or Indonesia to circumvent the ban. But a big chain like Darden would never serve up shore slop , would they ?

 
At 6/24/2008 11:29 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're so witty, alec, and such a man of the world. I have missed you.

How's life in your mother's basement? Did you ever get your Pacer up and running? Still working at Rite-Aid?

 
At 6/24/2008 1:33 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

What makes you think I live in Mom's basement Anon ? And Pacer. No it's a Pinto you silly. You are getting me mixed up with Wayne Campbell.

Actually, I gave up my gig at Rite-Aid cause I got tired of making minimum wage and they found me out. So I am moving on.

And you ?

 
At 6/24/2008 7:07 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe RL is trying to turn its image around. Right now they're only good for drinks and biscuits.

 
At 6/25/2008 1:40 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

i thought the other dish Kelsey created was for RL. I thought this dish was for the iron chef part of the challenge. They commented on Lisa's dish with the special ingredient. Her tuna wasn't going to make it to RL and the iron chef dish was tasty but couldn't be for RL b/c of the rules of the challenge. So I'm just wondering why they then went ahead and chose Kelsey's iron chef dish for RL. Anyone remember this?

 
At 6/25/2008 5:26 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't think it was that the RL dish couldn't be chosen from among the dishes using the Iron Chef ingredient, it was that the challenge was to make something accessible for RL, and to make something used the Iron Chef ingredient. Lisa's problem was that the Iron Chef ingredient dish wasn't good enough for RL, and that her "accessible" (non Iron Chef) dish was not appropriate for their menu.

Kelsey's dish using the Iron Chef ingredient was good AND accessible, so they went with that. Her other dish (the one targeted at being accessible) was not as good... They all commented on how much "finesse" Kelsey displayed in using the white chocolate. I guess it didn't seem like a weird ingredient challenge, it just seemed like an interesting idea for a recipe.

Froot Loop trout, anyone?

 
At 6/25/2008 6:39 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I believe that the guy from Red Lobster stated that he liked both of Kelsey's dishes and that either could be on the menu. It wasn't until they revealed the winner that it was announced her Iron Chef dish was chosen. I think it was just unexpected that the Iron Chef dish would win the Red Lobster challenge not that it was against the rules.

 
At 6/27/2008 5:04 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

RL has the best commercials but the food is horrible

 
At 6/27/2008 9:50 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

RL is one of the major advertisers on FN. That said, I haven't been to one in 20 years. The place is odd. In some undescribably bad way. Diners are better.

I used to like Olive Garden in Junior High. For the salad. A recent visit was so horrible that I'm glad I'm older and never need to go back. Ever.

Kelsey made an interesting dish which wasn't Iron Chef worthy, but interesting enough. Kudos to her for that. She's still bubbly and annoying, but for kitsch value I'll stick to Aunt Sandy.

 
At 7/03/2008 10:05 PM , Blogger Charles said...

RL floats their seafood in so much butter or margarine it is disgusting. They don't really prepare fresh seafood it's all cooked the same....fried, floating in butter...enough to give you a case of the trots. Somehow it stays packed as do those other food chains. I just don't get it. And Judith, the slugs in the lettuce, TMI! LOL...Ugh I'm gagging.

 

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