House of Lobster: The most expensive bowl of Porridge in my life!

First Post: Jul 23, 2007
Update: Jun 05, 2018
Leslie Tay

Lobster Porridge $50++ with two 350g baby lobsters

Lobsters are one of the most photogenic of food subjects. They are a real visual feast. In fact, for every $100 you spend on Lobsters, I think you are paying $50 just for the visual excitement, $30 for the taste that you extract from the shell and the flesh itself is only worth about $20 cos there is really not much of it. So photographers actually get maximum value from a Lobster since we derive enjoyment from taking the pics and spending hours admiring the vibrant colours and intricate design of this Culinary King of Crustaceans!

Lobsters have a very special place in my heart ever I ate my first one in Phuket with my then fiancee. At that time, I was still a medical student while my fiancee was already working. So when she suggested we have a Lobster for dinner, my first reaction was that it was way too expensive. When you are a student, paying $40 (1000 baht) for a meal was a big deal. Anyway, she convinced me that she had the money to “Yang Lao Kong” (Keep a Husband) so we ordered a Lobster Thermidor. From that day on, the Lobster Thermidor was top of my list of things to eat on special occasions like my birthday.

Anyway, the thing I enjoyed most about the lobster is not really the meat, but the extract from the shell which when combined with the cream sauce is just heavenly as a dip for freshly baked bread. Same goes with stuff like Lobster Bisque which has that wonderful crustacean taste. I recall the first time I had Stir Fried Lobster with Ginger and Shallots in Sydney. After all the meat was gone, I was left licking and sucking on the shell and using rice to wipe up all traces of the sauce. Don’t get me wrong, if we share a lobster, I am not going to give you the meat and lick the shell. What I am saying is that the shell of the Lobster is not only beautiful to look at, it has a heavenly taste that is unbeatable and I would even go so far to say that I would really consider trading a piece of Matsuzaka Beef for a Maine Lobster Thermidor.

So with that lengthy preamble, the stage is set for the first of several Lobster Blogs. What better place to start than with a restaurant that calls itself the House of Lobster?

This restaurant caught my attention because it specialises in Lobster, which very few restaurants do, and it is situated in the most unlikely of places, an ITE! So my first thought was, “Have I finally found an affordable place to eat Lobster?” That would be very exciting indeed!

The signature dish here is the Lobster Porridge which caught my imagination immediately when I read about it on AsiaOne Wine and Dine. Now bear in mind what I told you in the first paragraph about the visual excitement of the sight of a Lobster? Well, it’s a double edged sword with which I have been cut before. The sight and price of a Lobster often raises expectations so high that there have been many a time that the actual taste of the Lobster turned out to be the greates Anticlimax. This has happened to me on a few occasions especially with the local variety of lobsters (more correctly known as crayfish) whose flesh are less sweet than a true Lobster.

Unfortunately, the phenomenon of the Lobster Anticlimax happened to us that day. The porridge is like your Fish Porridge where the Lobster broth is poured over rice. It tasted very good, but the Lobster taste was not strong enough. It could well have been a very good Seafood Porridge and we would not have known the difference. Still it was quite enjoyable albeit expensive for a bowl of porridge. However, I did derive half the value of the Lobster by taking some really nice pictures! 4/5

Lobster Mee Sua $50++

The Lobster Mee Sua did not save the day either. The gravy was nice but again it did not adequately capture that Crustacean flavour that I so crave for. The Mee Sua also tasted a bit “floury” that day. 3.5/5

Conclusion

The restaurant’s Head Chef has won several Gold Medals at the Singapore Food Festival and the restaurant has garnered several rave reviews from the newspapers, so I still suspect that the Lobster porridge and Mee Sua could be much better. However, with the four of us paying $170 for the two Lobster dishes, two meat dishes and one Tofu dish, it is certainly not something that we would like to try again at a whim. Still the Restaurant made it to this blog because, well, it is about Lobsters and they have a very special place in my heart.

Perhaps our readers who have had good experiences there can share their positive experiences with us?