The Lobster Restaurant, Playa Flamenca

The Lobster Restaurant Den Engel, Playa Flamenca, Orihuela Costa, Spain

Well, this restaurant was rated as one of the best by Tripadvisor, and it got the qualification THE BEST PLACE FOR LOBSTER. We do love lobster, and have eaten some excellent ones all over the world. And now, in Spain, there would be again such a wonderful place? We decided it was worth the long trip. Lobsters were calling us! We visited the restaurant in june 2014.

But if it's too good to be true, it is usually too good to be true. Unfortunately.

And besides our negative experience, the fact that our opinion was not published, is unprofessional and makes Tripadvisor unreliable. It is not the first time, we have to conclude, that the overall positive ratings do not reflect the reality of the quality of a bar, restaurant or hotel.

We think, that (future) customers deserve our opinion and to decide then, if they want to try this restaurant out.

First of all, it is expensive. However, if the food is excellent, we happily pay a higher price. But here, the balance was way off.
You can only choose lobster menu's, and each one of them has the same starter. Lobster soup. Flavourless, poorly executed.
Then we had the lobster with curry and parmesan, If well done, this could be a wonderful combination of the sweetness of the lobster, a hint of curry and a touch of salty cheese. A challenge for a real chef and worth a try, we thought.
The lobster was smothered with an overpowering, far too strong curry sauce. Unable to taste parmesan and worse, the lobster. The french fries tasted of old frying oil. The side salad had a poor dressing. What a shame, to waste such a good product in such a way.

When asked if everything was ok - plates hardly touched - we said no. We complained especially about the far too strong curry sauce, which ruined the lobster completely.
Well, they had a lot of British clients, who loved it, was her comment. Sorry, but we are neither British, nor do we like such an unbalanced dish. She advised, the next time we should make individually a different choice so that we had two menus. Pardon?

Since we have experience on cooking too, we tried to give a constructive opinion and some tips. Such as offering various levels of this curry-sauce, or serve it separately. And offer more than just a bland tasteless soup as 1st course - or make it a real wow-experience. Creativity and fresh food is all it takes.

Unfortunately, the restaurant has missed a change; not listening to the client, not deciding if it finds some of the remarks worthwile to follow up or to say thanks at least for our effort to comment.

The location, so close to the sea, is great. A pity it didn't work out for us, we won't return.