Same for me. Every once in a rare while, I get a hankerin’ for some dead cow, but if you’re buying, I’m ordering lobster! 
I’m in full agreement with Jim! Anything with more than 4 legs and has antennae is a bug!
So far in my life, steak, hands down. But I can’t help but feel I’m missing something with lobster. Every time I’ve had it, it was at a chain sit-down place and it was just so-so, and far too expensive.
But I used to feel that way about crab. In fact, I still do, mostly. But one time (at Joe’s Crab Shack, no less) I spent far too much money on a bunch of crab, and it just blew me away. King crab, Dungeness crab and some other kind in a pot, all thick, hot and well seasoned. And when I cracked the shells, they came off easily and left huge chunks of really flavorful crab meat. I really never had that experience before or since. But now I know that crab can be way better than that stuff from Red Lobster that is cold by the time it gets to your table, has rubbery shells that you can’t barely crack and when you do the meat comes out molecule by chewy molecule. If I ever get back near an ocean I’m definitely going to seek out the good kind of crab again.
So maybe there’s some excellent lobster out there that I just haven’t had. If I could get some that was as much better than the lobster I’ve had as that crab was better than the crab I had before, it just might beat steak. Even steak has consistency problems, especially at chain restaurants, but being in the Midwest I’ve had enough to know how absolutely awesome great steak can be. Maybe if I was from Maine or Massachusetts or something I’d feel that way about lobster instead.
I hinted at it in my post, but freshness has 100% to do with how good your lobster or crab tastes. I can tell if it has been sitting in the fridge for a couple of days after steaming or boiling - it becomes completely flavorless. Give it a day or two more in the fridge, and it starts to smell like ammonia. Shellfish has an extremely short shelf-life.
Freezing also kills the yummy fresh flavor. I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet good money that shellfish is cooked and then frozen somewhere overseas (to save the cost of labor and live tanks over here), then shipped to the big chains and the buffets. Then your average American has the lobster platter at one of these places, and wonders what all the fuss and expense is about, because the shellfish is tasteless and/or mealy.
When I was a kid we often had lobster at home. I’d go to the supermarket after school, bring back four lobsters, still alive, in the basket of my bike, and they’d get cooked only a few hours later. We don’t buy dead lobster at the store.
The best blue crabs I’ve had were caught in the water off the back porch of the house we rented on the Jersey shore, and cooked that night.
Where in Aus? Best steak I’ve ever had was in Aus…though I’m aware that as you’re in Aus, unless you’re local then you’re really not local, so I may not continue with my recommendation for fear of tempting you with something so cruelly unavailable…
Damn right. I’ve been disappointed too many times so I (almost) never order steak when I’m out: I buy decent meat from a butcher I trust and cook it how I want it at home. Unless I’m eating at the sort of place I can’t generally afford, I don’t gamble! Steak which is merely adequate is such a disappointment given how great it can be…and that disappointment is rather compounded by the fact that it’s invariably the priciest item on the menu!
Good lobster is spectacular, and so is good steak; so-so lobster is so-so, but so-so steak is rubbish.
I’ve had lobster on numerous occasions at Chauncey Creek in Maine so I’m pretty sure I’ve had lobster about as fresh and delicious as it comes.
Meh. Gimme the steak; a good piece cooked just right is pretty mouthwatering. (Although I’m not a huge meat fan either. Gimme the lasagna!)
So, you’re calling my ex-wife a bug? How dare you!
Um, no country has ever made a national sport out of fighting lobsters.
No running of the lobsters.
No riding wild lobsters for sport to see who can stay on for barely over a half dozen seconds.
This man speaks the truth. Costco has excellent steaks. My parents often buy tons of meat at a time and give some steaks to my brother and I. Their NY strips are really good.
Well, no one ever told some of the lobsters I brought home from the store that.
Though I got the last laugh. With butter.
Steak.
No mud-bugs.
Based on the exactly one time I’ve had lobster: steak all the way. Because that lobster was not good. I do’nt remember what it tasted like anymore, but I remember really hating it, and feeling horrible because they’d spent so much. Usually I can pull off going ahead and eating food I don’t particularly like, but I could not do so with that lobster. The butter dipping just made it worse.
Oh, and I generally like seafood. Shrimp seemed the most similar, and I adore shrimp.
For overall flavor, lobster.
If I had to eat it everyday? Steak (rare).
I would Consider the Lobster, but choose a good steak instead.
That I can handle - someone else doing all the digging and de-shelling.
When I haven’t had a good steak in a while I forget how amazing it is. Then I take that first bite… I like lobster but not as much. Now crab I might have trouble picking. My favorite is Bairdi but I think they stopped harvesting them again.
If the lobster was cooked fresh from a live one pulled out of a tank, yes. Frozen or already dead, no. Best lobster I ever had was fresh killed, then the tail and claw meat poached in butter that had been flavored with garlic and lemon. I do love a well prepared steak - had a wagyu NY strip at a Ruth Chris once that was marvelous but I am happy with a non-wagyu as well.
My favorite meal would probably be a combination of that butter poached lobster with that Ruth’s Chris wagyu, with a baked potato and the creamed spinach, with a nice side salad and piece of cheesecake for dessert. And maybe the prosciutto wrapped grilled asparagus as an appetizer.
See, that’s quite opposite my experience. I’ve had what was, I suppose, at least decent lobster based on the restaurants I was eating them at, and I would have preferred even a run-of-the-mill sirloin from the corner diner to it. And with lobster rolls, I’m always wondering why am I paying $17 for this when I could be having a shrimp poboy at half the price and twice the flavor!