Last Chinese Restaurant on Eat.Drink.Lagos

RED Restaurant

12724 Adetokunbo Ademola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos

01 277 2700

FOLLY: Look yeah, it dun do. After this review, I promise you that you might not find a Chinese restaurant review on EDL for a while. Before I get into this, just some quick housekeeping. The Chinese spots we've hit up are  Lihao, Zenith Water Margin, Zen Garden, Ying Yang , and Zhou Jie.

NOSA: Maybe Marco Polo. I really want to try Marco Polo.

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FOLLY: ICYMI, Red Restaurant is one of the two new restaurants in Eko Hotel (Crossroads is the other). Just like Sky Lounge, it has a beautiful view of the Eko Atlantic Project. Three for three, the more beautiful the restaurant views is, the more likely it's a ploy to distract you from the overly meh food. Hey, Uptown Restaurant does it too.

NOSA: Maybe it's a altitude thing. It's hard to un-meh to food at such heights. But seriously, I really think the view makes these people believe they can get away with anything. 

The water we got was N1100. I just looked at the bill again. They should have just charged us for the prawn crackers too, y'know. 

FOLLY: Not ones to jump right into the main course, we ordered vegetable spring rolls as our starter.  We needed something completely safe cause I found my sense of adventure and ordered a main with tofu in it. 

NOSA: The tofu-main was Folly's idea. Just keep that in mind as you continue reading this.

FOLLY: So many fast food places in the U.S are accused of serving mystery meat, which is meat that has an unidentifiable source. If I didn't know any better, I'd have accussed RED of giving us mystery fish because this fish was so soft and didn't taste like any fish I had ever known.

NOSA: I asked her like 3 times if she was sure. She said she wanted the Braised Fish with Tofu in Chili & Black Bean Sauce. Man like me will never order that on a normal day. Because I wanted to eat too, I ordered the noodles and some pork ribs that never came. 

The fish thing was clearly not for me. I hate all these Chinese dishes and their strange broths. The noodles were proper mad though. I really liked them. 

only the tofu survive

only the tofu survive

FOLLY: I've read that tofu tasted like whatever you flavour it to taste like. I didn't like whatever they flavoured this to taste like, in fact Nosa said it tasted like foam and I agree.

NOSA: That yellow foam you see when you cut open a mattress? Yeah, that's tofu. Vegetarians be lying about tofu, dawg. 

FOLLY: I also felt it tasted pretty charred. Seriously guys, I put medium sized pieces in my mouth and thought through exactly what I could taste, it really was that deep. Also, the sauce this came in was pleasant, I didn't love it or hate it but it was okay. 

NOSA: A little fun short story on Nigerian restaurants Nigerian-ing you. I ordered pork ribs because I wanted some non-brothy protein i could fuck with. After our first two plates come out, the manager guy comes out with a plate of sweet & sour pork. 

Immediately, I'm like, "Hol' up! Hol' up! That's not what I ordered". The manager looks at his waiter to explain what's going on. Waiter says they didn't have any pork ribs so he told to kitchen to make sweet & sour pork. After all, pork meat na pork meat, eh? I'll never understand why homeboy thought it was better idea to order something for me instead of asking me. Like, I really don't get it. 

Anyway, I ordered the Shredded Beef with Ginger and Spring Onions as a replacement plate and that turned out to be a massive piece of shit. 

FOLLY: It really wasn't that bad, the consolation prize won me over because it had mushrooms and Folly loves 'shrooms. It probably should have said that it had mushrooms on the menu though, as it could have been a dealbreaker for someone else. 

 

POSTSCRIPT

FOLLY: RED has only been in existence for a couple of months and it's already quite popular. It's definitely somewhere you would take your girlfriend to, if you want to propose to her, but otherwise I'm not sure it's worth it. 

NOSA: Yeah, for the money you're going to pay, it's not worth it. We spent like 12k here and I can bet you we'd have gotten better food for half the price if we just carried ourselves to the neighborhood Ying Yang. The noodles were great, but everything was as meh as possible. Maybe it's what we ordered. Next time, Folly isn't ordering anything. Rights revoked. 

VERDICT

DAMAGE

Vegetable Spring Rolls - N1500

Braised Fish with Tofu in Chili & Black Bean Sauce (S) - N3200

Shredded Beef with Ginger and Spring Onions (S) - N3100

Noodles with Sliced Beef (L) - N3400 

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