Lobster is one of those now luxury items, like oysters, that come from surprisingly humble origins.  It was, in the past, referred to by many as the cockroach of the ocean. Allegedly when it was served to prisoners back in days gone by they were wont to complain at the poor fare being given to them and having lobster shells in your house was deemed a sure sign of a poverty stricken household . These day it will be more a case of Sebastian and Tabitha sacking the cleaner if those lobster shells aren’t disposed of (on a fully recyclable basis – perhaps they could be bagged up for Jacinta so she can use them to decorate her fitness studio for those classes she does for homeless over 80s Albanian ex fishermen – is quite niche –  I think she calls them “Creel the burn”) pronto.

Times have a changed, of course, and now it is regarded very much as a luxury item commanding premium prices (at Bentley’s you are talking  £35 for a half and £70 for a whole cooked lobster and a whole one from a retail fishmonger is £30 plus).

Some may say “oh, for the good old days“, but on balance I think I will take more expensive lobsters and oysters over rampant TB, typhoid, cholera, diphtheria and smallpox.

Bearing all this (waffle) in mind, I must admit when J suggested a bunch of us go to an event that offered cooked lobsters for £10 a pop I was somewhat sceptical.

I mean, for that price, expectations have to be low! Would it be merely an enlarged prawn, would it lack that signature lobster sweet brininess and instead be tasteless and (the downfall of many a lobster) cotton woolly, had it fallen off the back of a lobster boat etc.?

Size wise your average lobster ranges from 1lbs to 2lbs, with the largest one ever recorded at a whopping 44lbs (imagine the claw meat on that), so the ones here (at around 375g I believe) are perhaps a little on the small size but not ridiculously so (presumably illegal to take real tiddlers) and remember we are talking a tenner.

Looking at the menu only one item is actually a tenner, but the other prices  hardly stick in the claw (sorry couldn’t resist😬) with the most expensive item a mere £15.

Not sure I understand why a lobster roll (which effectively entails a fair bit of cheap filler although, somewhat oddly, it does have crawfish in it which is actually generally more pricey than lobster if it is actually crawfish – £66 per kg for crawfish versus £52 for lobster –  as oppose to, the oft confused with crawfish, American crayfish which is £15 per kg) is 50% more expensive than the just lobster option, but little on the menu price wise makes much commercial sense to my untutored eyes!?

I also found it rather odd that the vegan shrimpless po’boy (which I would only consider eating if the alternative was thumb screws followed by a stint in an  iron maiden and even then….) was more expensive than the plain lobster. Have to cater for all I suppose, but still don’t get why a vegan/veggie would want come to a lobsterfest and more to the point why would someone who isn’t a vegan/veggie come to a lobsterfest and pass on the lobster for something highly processed (personally I think one of the greatest bait and switch exercises of recent times has been Big Food “slapping a plant based, give yourself a pat in the back, morality label” on highly processed food), probably made using about 55 bazillion ingredients of which many have to be shipped from half way across the world. The latter should lead to a straight jacket fitting, I would posit.

Regardless of the menu’s somewhat off the (sea)wall options, we were there for lobster and it was a question of shall we keep it simple and cheap (£10 basic lobster option) or go for one of the more expensive (still cheap) lobster related options (thermador, lobster mac n cheese or the lobster rolls). I tentatively suggested to J that we order two differing options and share the plain and thermador dishes. This was rejected with extreme prejudice, her not being a fan of thermador, but luckily A was more amenable to this suggestion but only if it was a garlic butter one and lobster roll (oddly neither A or J are fans of a thermador – personally I love a bit of 70s “gourmet night”  kitsch). I thought a compare and contrast of the cheapest and most expensive item would be an interesting exercise, so share we did.

On the sides front I am a big fan of corn anything and as such the corn ribs (stupid name, but nice all the same) were a must and it’s just not (water) cricket not to have fries (skin on laziness aside) with a lobster in my view.

The lobster was predictably a bit of a tiddler (I mean for a tenner I am not sure what else you would/could expect)

Whilst I quite like getting down and dirty with my food and there were various cracking and digging utensils

I think it would have been better for it to have been presented cleaved in two. As it was, the garlic butter coating the shell was rather pointless. If it had been presented in halves, then the garlic butter could have been poured onto the lobster meat directly. Personally, I think either way the garlic butter would have been better served in a pot separately so you could dip the lobster meat into it. Here it was all rather wasted.

The lobster meat itself was nicely cooked such that it was tender and sweet, with that trademark brininess.

Not a huge amount of meat, with each of the lobster being rather big headed (proportionally to overall body size), but not bad at all considering the £10 price tag. We definitely, however, needed multiple sides to fill up.

The lobster rolls (£15) were certainly a lot less effort to eat.

Good flavour to these, with a decent ratio of lobster and crayfish (defo not the more pricey crawfish) to remoulade. Not sure what warranted the 50% price hike over the base lobster, unless you are paying for the lack of labour for you/more labour for the kitchen

On the sides, the fries (£4.5) were plentiful, crisp and well seasoned.

They didn’t seem to be skin on (no bad thing in my book) and were undoubtedly cooked from frozen. Still, nice enough.

Corn ribs (£6.5), were again plentiful

and came with a punchy BBQ sauce that worked well as against the sweetness of the kernels. I rather dislike the “rib” moniker these deep fried numbers have been given and thought I could do better, even off the cuff, naming wise.  As they are in effect corn off the cob and fried, I came up with initially coffries and then cornoffee fries. The latter I thought was rather good, but was roundly ridiculed by the table (they know nothing).

A rather indifferent mac n cheese.

was too loose, didn’t have enough cheese and I was not sold on the pasta used. Not worth the £7 price tag, in my opinion

Burnt leeks (£7.5 including a charity donation)

were quite nice with the char (could have had more) working well with the alium hit, but they lacked much (if any) of the advertised njuda (can’t say I minded as feel njuda is wildly overused, being the previous to the now de riguer hot honey).

Drinks wise, when we came for the crayfish boil the wine choices were somewhat disappointing to say the least. I therefore enquired in advance as to corkage and was told they have an extensive drinks menu including wines from Ultracomida so don’t offer corkage. My response was fair enough and a more extended wine list, including an albarino and/or a godello (of which Ultracomida do many), would be very welcome.

Alas the list was this

with the further option (not priced – doubt cheap though) of these (a pinot noir and a madeline angevine, the latter may well have worked with the lobster).

Hardly a bountiful selection and as such we all passed on wine, with beers or water ordered.

I would have been happy to have paid £15-£20 per bottle corkage and if that was the case I would have bought 2/3 bottles. For doing zip that would have netted them £30 – £60 pretty much pure profit. Instead, we spend about £15 in total on booze (with the cost of the stuff to be taken off that to get to their margin). Seems barmy to me to not consider corkage in such circumstances, but they are selling lobster for a tenner so…….

The verdict

For the price of a tenner, the lobster was pretty good value. It wasn’t too small, wasn’t overcooked and had a decent flavour to it. 

Was it the best lobster I have had? No, not by a long chalk. For a tenner, however, it was difficult to fault.

It would have been better presented in halves (easy to do and they would have had to have done it if we had ordered the thermador) and with the garlic butter on the side.

Sides were OK, with the cornoffee fries (trademark pending😂) the pick of the bunch. With the benefit of hindsight, I think we would have dispensed with the mac n cheese and leeks and ordered more fries (potato and cornoffee).

We spent £26 (inc. tip and going big on the sides, but light on the booze) each, all in, which for a lobster dinner is pretty good value.

Definitely worth a go for the money whilst it is still on.

Shame about the wine as I think this from the wine room (blend of godello and albarino) would have been great with the lobster,

but hey-ho what do I know.

Details

Address: 80 Tudor St, Cardiff CF11 6AL

Website: https://neighbourhoodkitchen.co.uk/

This £10 lobster offer runs until the 6th October.