Why You Should Avoid Ordering The Crispy Dragon Shrimp At Red Lobster

In the world of famous chain restaurants, Red Lobster can be quite divisive. Some people swear by it — so much so that they almost bankrupted the chain into oblivion with its endless shrimp promotion. Others think the chain is garbage. And, then, still others fall somewhere in between.

While we'll give credit where credit is due — for example, those Cheddar Bay biscuits slap hard, as the kids say — we can also acknowledge that some menu items at Red Lobster should have never left R&D and stayed far away from an actual kitchen. That brings us to the restaurant chain's crispy dragon shrimp — which made our list of 10 meals to avoid at Red Lobster according to reviews.

In theory, this appetizer sounds pretty delicious. Crispy fried shrimp in a sweet, mildly spicy chili sauce. Maybe at some locations, the cooks are able to find the right balance of crispy shrimp with the sauce. But over and over again, reviews of Red Lobster crispy dragon shrimp point back to one thing — over-sauced, soggy shrimp. And we have to agree.

If you've ever had a dish that looks great in pictures, sounds great when described, and should be quite tasty, then that's the type of experience you'll have with the crispy dragon shrimp. At some point in the cooking process, these shrimp were in fact crispy. But then they were thrown into a vat of the chili sauce and every ounce of crispiness left the Red Lobster kitchen. These shrimp deserve better.

But don't just believe us. One reviewer who visited an Ohio location said they received food poisoning after eating the shrimp and needed two IVs. While that's the extreme, others complain about the quality and size of the shrimp. When we tried the dish, we also felt like the shrimp weren't high quality and might have been frozen for a while as well. In all, the sauce is just too heavy handed and turns what could be a potentially great appetizer into a sweet and soggy mess. And paying $15.99 for maybe a dozen over-sauced shrimp doesn't help this appetizer's case.

Results at a Red Lobster location near you may vary. In fact, YouTube food influencer Guga loved the appetizer when he visited Red Lobster in a video (his shrimp order did look like it came out with much less sauce). So maybe you should go and try the crispy dragon shrimp for yourself, but — based on our experience — you've got much better options to choose from at this seafood chain.