Why do I do this to myself? It is a Wednesday night and there is no good reason to be sitting bitch in a cab with two clowns looking for Chinese. Spadina has all but been abandoned by the least-diligent students and young professionals and it seems like our quest is merely a lost cause, when from the sky a shining star guides us like three wise men to the baby jesus. Our cabbie, cracking a new air freshener and reluctantly accepting our pocket change, bids us farewell with a look of satisfaction knowing we are about to get our just desserts. Like flies attracted to flame, we enter King Lobster.
We are greeted with a loud “hello”, arms raised in an almost welcoming hug-like fashion. I imagine this is what it was like to be an orphan pre-teen meeting Coach Sandusky for the first time. There is clearly a deceptive nature to this place but the thought of leaving and continuing the search for food only amplifies the cold feeling in my stomach. I need food now. We are given two menus – although we can only order off the late night menu. We are clearly being messed with. Someone shouts “cold tea”. We all know it is a terrible idea, but the novelty of after-hours service leads the entire table to cavalierly agree. Soon we are pouring Tsing Tao out of a tea pot into tea cups, jovially chuckling, not expecting the Tsing Tao to taste like it has been filtered through sea monkeys. We toast to the life of law students.
It’s time to order, our waiter informs us. We throw in some of the standards: lemon chicken, beef and broccoli, shrimp fried rice, crispy ginger beef. Our waiter recommends something, but we can’t understand what he is saying. Trying to phonetically piece together his gibber-jabber we think the first word is Szechuan, but we are missing a syllable. We give him our approval and tack on a fried noodle for good measure. There are five of us, we order six dishes.
The beef and broccoli comes first. The King (pronounced “Kang”) Lobster beef and broccoli is as mediocre as the palate that orders it – steamed broccoli topped with the garlicky slices of beast that is forgotten as quickly as it is devoured. Next comes the lemon chicken. The bird’s eye view of this dish looks like two heavily battered chicken breast tossed in a lemon sauce. However the cross-section makes you reconsider whether you are actually eating chicken. I don’t mean to come off as saying that it may have been some other animal, I’m not sure there is anything inside that breading. The taste confirms my suspicions – a truly remarkable prank. The shrimp fried rice is decent, but the crispy ginger beef is great – bursting with flavor. I don’t touch the fried noodles.
The recommendation of the waiter debuts to some initial confusion. I think our expectations included something saucy, but this dish looks more suitable for an appetizer. The entree consists of deep-fried jumbo shrimp with a dry salt n pepper coating that was spicy with a sriracha-type heat. It wins the day for me. If this was a Spanish or Mexican restaurant this dish would’ve been called camarones de la pija del diablo. These prawns are too hot for the charlatans surrounding me; for the late night glutton, an ideal dish to share. It had enough spice to sober me up. Unfortunately another round of tea takes me right back to where I was.
The K(a)ng Lobster is a bad idea. Maybe the regular menu is worth trying but the late night menu leaves much to be desired. Cold tea is totally unnecessary and I regret it in the morning. I know I’ll be back but with great reluctance and the stiff upper-lip of a seasoned veteran. Luckily my wallet isn’t too much lighter, but that could change with another lost round of credit card roulette. Two out of four Jim Beam shots, for no other reason than serving us Tsing Tao in a tea pot.
