You can eat, watch lobster at same time
Either way, try LBS salad in homage to screenplay contender
Lobster. It’s not just for dinner.
Feature film The Lobster is up for an Academy Award this coming Sunday
The Best Original Screenplay contender, written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou, is an English-language black comedy about a society where pairing up is compulsory. Singles have 45 days to find a new partner or they’re turned into the animal of their choice.
Colin Farrell plays a divorcee who opts to become a lobster because, he says, “lobsters live for over 100 years, are blueblooded like aristocrats and stay fertile all their lives. I also like the sea, very much.”
(His friend thinks it’s pathetic. “They’ll catch you and put you in a pot of boiling water until you die,” he predicts.)
While Star movie critic Peter Howell doesn’t see the appeal of The Lobster — “meh on movie, yuk on crustacean,” he said in an email — I do, most specifically when it comes to eating. LBS on Yonge St., pronounced “pounds,” is a restaurant that used to focus on lobster, burgers and salads. It switched to a seafood format three months ago.
The lobster salad ($29) is triumph of texture and flavour.
First there is the crunch of shaved celery, heirloom carrots and peppery radishes. Cooling cucumber ribbons wind their way through the bowl, both floppy and firm. The tail and claw meat from a 1.25pound lobster is in there, properly steamed and cleaned. Even the contrasting lettuces — bitter frisée with sweet baby romaine — play their parts well.
Tarragon, like black comedy, must be subtle. So it is in the buttermilk dressing, “a no-brainer” combination with lobster, according to executive chef Kate Venables-Lloyd. Finally, toasted pumpkin seeds add earthiness.
There’s nothing absurd about this meal. As for the movie, Venables-Lloyd says she can see the appeal of Farrell’s character’s choice.
“Lobsters live at the bottom of the ocean, which must be an interesting place to be. And they mate for life,” she says. Her own choice would be a cat. “They have a fantastic life, sleeping, purring and chasing birds.” LBS restaurant, 100 Yonge St. (at Adelaide St.), 647-351-4747, lbstoronto.com. Open Monday to Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Saturday, 5:30 to 11:30 p.m. apataki@thestar.ca, @amypataki