Lobster Gram
1-800-LIVE LOB
Cuisine: Seafood + all the fixins to have your own feast at home
Price: I’ve actually never bought live lobster before in my life, but I say it’s well worth it cuz it’s delivered right to your doorstep.
Ever since I first saw a catalog for Lobster Gram about 6 years ago, I’ve wanted to try them. The concept is too cute, on top of which someone else picks the lobsters for you and guarantees that they’re good. What’s not to love? On top of which, they have all these nifty packages that combine all your favorites into one handy package. So I ordered the Maine Shore Clambake Deluxe (1.25 lb. lobsters) and waited eagerly for Tuesday to arrive.
**Note: When you order live lobsters, they require you to pay for expedited overnight FedEx shipping, which makes total sense, although it would be nice to have that included/automatic when you order instead of making you pay $29.95 for shipping when it’s not like you have a choice.
I picked up the box, which was a bit heavy, and lugged it to the kitchen. On top of everything was my pot, which came with the order, and underneath was the cooler. I wonder if they use the same size cooler for every order? Because it’s a pretty big, and reusable though not the greatest, cooler…
Inside the cooler were all the fixins that came with my order: 2 lbs. of fresh little neck clams; two servings of corn & potatoes (which, I admit, at first I was like, wtf, two potatoes each and a cob of corn??? That’s NOTHING- the potatoes, I mean- but I wound up not having room for the potatoes anyway); 20 oz. of New England clam chowder; lemon; butter & a butter warmer; and more, which you’ll soon see, and of course…
The LOBSTERS!!! These were 1.25 lbs. each, I remembered I liked them not quite as big as 2 lbs. but I remembered wrong in that I thought I’d picked 1.25 as the perfect size… nope 1.5 is the perfect size for me, so these looked a little on the small side, but it’s okay! You live and learn… they were definitely a bit sluggish from their journey, but I learned from working at the crab bar that seafood “hibernates”/goes to sleep if in a cold environment, and soon enough, they were awake and lively, attempting to nip at whatever was near them.
I didn’t take pictures of the soup, but it was very yummy and fresh. It looked a little unappealing, arriving as it did in a pouch contained inside a brown box (one of which you can see in the top right corner of the picture of the fixins), but once I heated it and stirred it, it un-separated and was delicious.
We did add some stuff to make the meal complete, since my boyfriend isn’t into eating lobsters, but does love crabcakes. They got a little smushed together in transit and came out looking totally unappealing, but were very tasty, with loads of lump crab meat and not much filler. Unfortunately, the directions say you can bake or fry them, and I chose to bake them since the stove was crammed full of pots already (I cook, he cleans, so I was trying to be nice also), plus I figure with baking I wouldn’t have to watch it as closely. While they came out tasty, I think it would definitely be better if the directions noted that the crabcakes do taste better fried, as that gives the outside a nice crunchy texture that takes it to the next level.
As I mentioned before, they really do think of everything: they included two bibs, two sets of lobster meat forks (steel), two (steel) crackers, two handiwipes, a lemon, a butter warmer, butter for the butter warmer, a tea light candle for the butter warmer… Even a candleholder and a taper candle to complete a romantic night in with your sweety. I was pretty impressed with this attention to detail because it really is the little things that are important and set the right mood and standards.
I set the table nicely in preparation of our feast… isn’t the bib cute, too? With a giant, albeit gimp-y lobster, on the front. Perfect for protecting your duds from splatters, although within the first minute of opening my lobster I dropped his guts onto my unprotected lap. Oops.
I decided, despite never having actually cooked lobster in any form before, Craig having cooked only frozen/thawed lobster tails before, to put a few inches of water in the bottom of the pot, put the potatoes on the bottom along with the corn, and turned on the fire. After it heated up and started boiling, I plopped the lobsters on top of that, though part of the lobster went into the water, and then plopped the two bags of clams on top of the lobsters, where they stayed out of the water. Also, I learned something: I think you should definitely put the lobster into a trance before putting them in the pot, because my lobsters curled up their tails and made it very hard to lay the tails flat once they were cooked. It’s just a matter of aesthetic I s’pose since it doesn’t affect cooking or taste but when I put him on my plate, I couldn’t, for the life of me, open him up for the pictures.
The clams were super fresh, every single one opened up and was delicious. The butter did start to get a bit salty, for some reason, but the clams were perfect and yummy.
The butter warmer didn’t burn the butter nor make it hot, interestingly, but only kept it melted and a little warm. An ingenious idea, my boyfriend asked me why more restaurants don’t use this device. My only guess was that they had a perfectly good reason, whatever it may be- burns on the flame? Expensive to keep up? No clue…
Finally, time to eat!!! Here is lobster & corn on my plate, sans potatoes. You can see Craig’s porterhouse in the background if you look carefully. The clams, the lemon, the butter, all so yummy, can’t wait to do it all over again tonight! Maybe this time with a bottle of wine instead of soda and sparkling water.
Delicious!
The remains… so full afterwards… I can’t believe I ate all of my lobster PLUS two whole pounds of clams… I couldn’t move from my seat for a few minutes. Thank goodness I was wearing stretchy clothes!!! Yes, I’m a fat pig!
But of course…. there’s always room for dessert as my best friend would say!!! My boyfriend has a strong penchant for molten lava cakes, and so I added these to the order. They’re microwavable which adds to the ease of a nice dinner… check out the picture vs. the picture they have though, they do look a lot different. As a cake, they were moist and yummy (I had part of the outside) but there was very little molten part which disappointed my chocolate snuffer boyfriend a lot. Admittedly, the directions say to microwave them for 20-30 seconds and I microwaved them for 30, so maybe the center cooked a bit more? But somehow, I don’t think it was that kind of cake (some are just undercooked, and what’s not cooked acts as the ‘lava’, while others have a center designed specifically for melting, a different thing from the cake itself entirely).
Yvo says: DEFINITELY order from here if this is your kind of thing. It was well worth it, and those of you who have Discover cards, your cash-back bonuses double when you use it for Lobster Gram!!! We had $60 ready to redeem, so $120 of our order was “free”!!! Beautiful! They really do think of everything, all you do is open the box and follow the instructions. The “cooking manual” was light hearted and peppered with jokes and cute suggestions, and I will definitely be ordering from here again. I love how the first time, I get the deluxe so I can have the pot (which isn’t the bestest quality but is still good enough, it’s huge!), the butter warmer, the tools, etc., but next time I can order just the lobsters or just the food. It’s great! I also feel like I had someone holding my hand through the process so I’m no longer afraid of cooking a live lobster. It isn’t cheap but it’s a great service, with someone making sure YOU don’t forget anything! I plan on definitely giving gift certificates to people as presents, too!! (Well… not to any of my friends, since you lazy butts don’t cook… or will say you don’t have your own place to do these things… whatever )
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