It’s been 4 years. People always send me photos or links to articles that have terribly bastardized lobster rolls and I’ve been on hiatus for several years, but the article by Laurie Wilson brought me out retirement from the stupid lobster roll review shaming game.
It’s THAT bad.
First a refresher course before we get to the silliness in Laurie Wilson’s Top Lobster Roll article hack job.
Posted on June 3, 2013 by Joey C
I’m putting out this Lobster Roll PSA at the beginning of this lobster season to save chefs from making the horrible dastardly crimes against lobsterdom that so many make each year when they try to go all fancy with their lobster rolls.
One of our lobstermen, Dave Jewell’s boat was originally christened as the KISS. Chuck Kersey built it and explained the meaning behind the name-
KISS– Keep. It. Simple. Stupid.
What I will suggest to you is to take the name of the lobster boat which Chuck Kersey christened and apply it to your lobster rolls.
You don’t want to end up in the list of lobster roll debacles like the ones we’ve chronicled through the years here on GMG-
Posted on June 26, 2012 by Joey C

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Joey C
Posted on August 16, 2011 by Joey C
Posted on December 21, 2010 by patrickr
Posted on July 19, 2011 by Joey C
Posted on June 25, 2009 by Joey C
HERE’S THE LATEST LUNACY FROM LAURIE WILSON-
LAURIE WILSON JUNE 15, 2017
Avenue Restaurant, Long Branch, New Jersey
(Click here for photo)
Order the lobster roll and you’ll get fresh lobster with tomato, spicy mayo, oranges, and arugula, all crowning a brioche bun.
In all my years I’ve never seen such an unmitigated disaster of what some people call a lobster roll as this one that Laurie Wilson puts in her Top Lobster Rolls In The Country article. Tomato? Really??? Oranges???? Arugula???? OMG. Laurie Wilson you have insulted your readership with this nonsense.
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Baptiste & Bottle, Chicago, Illinois
(Click here for photo)
Chef James Lintelmann’s chunky lobster roll keeps things interesting with a little fruit. The roll is created with housemade crème fraîche, fine herbs, shallots, chopped celery, and honey crisp apple.
I’m not even sure where to start here. Normally it’s easy to decide where to hammer the outrageousness but there’s so much going wrong here it’s hard to decide which to list first. I guess I’ll start by saying that when looking straight down at a lobster roll if you can’t optically distinguish anything at all resembling lobster then you automatically start out with a failing grade and can only go down from there. But we can’t let the whole “Fruit” thing slide. You’ve all heard the phrase “Don’t fruit your beer”. I really didn’t think we had to spell it out for the Foodies (and lets be honest, is there anyone that refers to themselves as a foodie that you can talk to for more than three minutes before you want to kill yourself from pretentiousness overload), but let me spell it out anyway-
DON’T FRUIT YOUR LOBSTER ROLL
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Kingbird at the Watergate Hotel, Washington, D.C.
It’s a New England Lobster roll — with a twist. This ocean treat is created with yuzu mayonnaise, and scallions on a brioche bun along with classic pommes frites
(Click here for photo)
Uhmmm Kingbird at The Watergate Hotel, how bout you rename this yuzu mayonnaise roll with a hint of lobster?
You have to go 8 deep on her list before you get to a restaurant location that is a place where lobster catching is a staple of a community.
Baptiste & Bottle, Chicago, Illinois
Avenue Restaurant, Long Branch, New Jersey
Blue Island Oyster Bar & Seafood, Denver, Colorado
Cull & Pistol Oyster Bar, New York, New York
Vince Young Steakhouse, Austin, Texas
Rick Moonen’s RM Seafood Restaurant, Las Vegas, Nevada
Ways & Means Oyster House, Huntington Beach, California
Paddlefish, Lake Buena Vista, Florida
The Hourly Oyster House, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Siena Tavern, Chicago, Illinois
View, Oakdale, New York
Kingbird at the Watergate Hotel, Washington, D.C.
Striper’s, Kennebunkport, Maine
This lady has to be a Yankees fan, no?
To list Chicago, New Jersey, Denver, New York, Austin Texas, Las Vegas, Huntington Beach and Lake Buena Vista before you even get to a Maine or Massachusetts based joint, you gotta be out of your foodie mind. Don’t they revoke your foodie card if you’re not pushing farm to table in every article you write? This is food critic blasphemy in this, the Golden Age of Pretentious Food Writing.
Ed Collard put it best after listening to me rant about this article while creating this blog post. Ed says- “The poor lobster already died once, why are you killing it again?”
May god have mercy on your soul Laurie Wilson. I don’t know how you sleep at night.
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