I had lunch at Newport Seafood Restaurant today with a friend I hadn't seen in a very long time…read more She recently reached out to me after being out of touch for quite a while and asked if I wanted to meet up. Today was a day that worked for me, so we decided to have lunch together and then get a massage afterward.
Whenever I come to this area for a massage, I usually have lunch at Boston Lobster. I've heard that Boston Lobster was opened by a chef and some of the staff who used to work here at Newport Seafood Restaurant, so I wanted to come back here after a long time and compare the two restaurants for myself.
First, parking. Boston Lobster has regular self-parking, while Newport Seafood has valet parking, which was $2.
As for the food, I ordered one of my favorite dishes, shrimp with cashews. I've had it at Boston Lobster many times, and I definitely preferred Boston Lobster's version.
We also ordered beef with tomato sauce. Honestly, it didn't look particularly appetizing when it first came out, but once I tried it, it was actually pretty good.
We also ordered beef chow mein, and this was probably my favorite dish of the meal. It almost had a slightly Thai-food-like flavor, and it was really delicious.
As for the service, this is where I noticed the biggest difference between the two restaurants.
Every time I go to Boston Lobster, everyone there is always extremely friendly and welcoming. Here, some of the staff were friendly, but some were not friendly at all.
The hostess who greeted us when we first arrived was very nice. After we sat down, she brought a small cucumber dish to our table and asked if we wanted it as an appetizer. We politely declined.
Then a male server came to take our drink order and asked whether we wanted hot tea or water. I asked if they had any caffeine-free hot tea, but he didn't seem to understand me. My friend repeated the question very slowly, but he still didn't seem to understand. After we explained it one more time, he finally seemed to get what I was asking and asked if I wanted jasmine tea. I said yes, so we had jasmine tea. It was extremely hot at first, so I also asked for some cold water without ice.
Later, while we were eating, we needed to serve ourselves some of the chow mein. The spoon that came with the chow mein wasn't really useful for picking up the noodles, so I asked for an extra pair of chopsticks.
The server brought the chopsticks over and basically tossed them down on our table. Honestly, I found that pretty unpleasant. My friend and I looked at each other while we were eating and said, "What was that?"
My friend even commented, "Chinese restaurant staff can be so unfriendly sometimes."
That has never happened to me at Boston Lobster. The staff there have always been very friendly and attentive whenever I've gone.
I had actually been to Newport Seafood Restaurant several times before the COVID pandemic, and I even got their lobster for takeout back then. I remember it being so delicious that, during the pandemic, I once saw on Google that the restaurant was open and drove all the way here, only to find that it was actually closed. I remember being pretty disappointed that day.
So coming back here again after such a long time brought back some memories. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with the service today.
On the positive side, I found the restroom here to be cleaner than the one at Boston Lobster. However, the toilet here flushes automatically rather than having a manual flush, and I actually found that a little inconvenient.
One nice advantage here is that they have private rooms, which would be great if you come with a larger group and want to sit separately with your own party.
They do have lunch specials on weekends, which is nice. But personally, I think I'll probably go back to Boston Lobster next time. Their prices are actually about $1-$2 cheaper, I prefer their food overall, there's no valet parking charge, and most importantly, their service has been consistently much friendlier in my experience.
So while I enjoyed coming back to Newport Seafood Restaurant after all these years and I did find some dishes here very good, Boston Lobster is still the place I would personally choose for my next visit to this area.