Boiling Cajun

When I got to the Boiling Crab, I asked the people at the counter if they boiled their crawfish fresh or from frozen. They said fresh. I ordered medium spicy and they came out very hot. (temperature) They tasted like they had been boiled a day or two before without seasoning and then had the seasoning poured over them or they had been dipped into boiling seasoned water. Very bland. Very chewy. They knew I was from Louisiana and they still told me a fib. Shame on them. My tab was over $ 40.

Wow.
So, it’s counter service, so only tip slightly more than 10%, making the tab $ 53. I order king crab legs at $ 23.99 a lb. and my girlfriend orders crawfish and shrimp etouffe.
Alright, so my girlfriends etouffe comes out and I give it a quick taste. Nothing there, bland, no seasoning. I immediately don’t like it. Plus, that’s not etouffe anyway, yet it’s not quite gumbo. It’s some soupy chicken stock kinda something. This place doesn’t get it. Cajun? The concept is way off. This is Houston, our neighbors are Cajun and we know Cajun here. This is an Idaho version.
Ok, 10 minutes later, my King Crab legs come out. Ok, I don’t know how to eat this. At $ 23.99 I’m served a large bowl with a bag of legs, an ear of corn, and a potato. What do I do with this? I haven’t been provided a garbage bowl. Ok, dump the bag into the bowl. They’ve provided me with a bib, so I’ll place my garbage into the top of the bib. But wait, wtf, where is my butter and lemons? To make matters worse, the first bite had a ‘gamy’ taste? Seafood ‘gamy’? Yeah, best I can describe it. I got the spicy and ate it all. The spice was quite good. Yet, all the while, I’m battling opening these things. The shells didn’t snap like they were supposed too. I’m totally willing to chew up my fingers (king crab has burrs) to snap open the shells to get at the spicy taste, but you just knew they were previously frozen, they weren’t cooperating. JB’s review made me go ah, yes, «they were allowed to sit too long». That explains the limpness of the shells and that ‘gamey’ flavor.
Lookit, I’m willing to go back and try some fried baskets. My gf said she looked around and those all looked great. Sitting there, I knew without a doubt, to never return for high end food, or Cajun. Those should be wiped off their menu if they hope to survive.
I’ll be back to try some simple fried baskets. If those are good, and if they wipe off the high end, Cajun foods off their menu, they may just survive.
Again, they have no business serving high end, Cajun food here. Wipe those off the menu and keep it simple.

I watched and watched and waited and waited. I once pulled up into the lot just to check out the progress. I’ve seen fast food restaurants build from the ground faster than it took this place to finally open and it was already fully built. Now finally, it has opened and I finally was able to walk into those doors and sample the areas newest and much needed Cajun eatery.
Let’s pause a brief moment for a sigh.
Sigh.
Okay I’m ready.
Counter service! I am so, so, so not happy whenever I walk into a place and it’s counter service. Especially a place selling seafood. What is it with this phase of seafood restaurants opening up AS IF they are a wing joint. And not only do they make it counter service, they also make their crawfish the exact same way a wing only place would make their wings. You know, cook em all the same, let you pick a seasoning and then shake your food up in a bag of that seasoning.
Let me be very clear here. That is NOT how you make crawfish. Places like this and LA Crawfish are constantly getting away with this «fast food crawfish» mentality of making crawfish and then charging an arm and a leg per pound. Please. stop. the. madness. You make crawfish like this, they need to be no more than 2.99/lb NOT 7.99.
Okay sorry about that moment there. Let me change the tone here.
I really really wanted to give these guys 5 stars. I really did. I wanted this to be my new cajun stop and because of 1 and I mean 1 thing, it’s still hopeful. The shrimp basket.
The shrimp basket here deserves a paragraph by itself. If that was the only thing I ordered I would have given it 4 stars easily. (Can’t do 5 because its counter service.) Hands down the very best shrimp basket I’ve ever had… period. The 12 shrimp and fries were perfectly seasoned. I mean perfectly. That was a well deserved $ 12.99 investment. So good I wanted to swallow my burps afterwards.
And then this is where we insert the «B» word. Yeah, that word that changes everything. That massive big juicy shaken everyone head turning famously debated and talked about «B» word. Yeah…
The «but!» (add an extra «t» if you want it bigger.)
In order to make it a fair review, I did my fair share of sampling. The wings to start, look delicious. They are the perfect size. but. they are so soft. They have no crisp. The soft shell crab are 8.99 per … but. they have a dirty taste to them, so much I had to take a napkin to clean my tongue. The seafood boiled with shrimp, crawfish and sausages look amazingly seasoned … but. it’s all on the outside. These are not the heads you wanna suck. (Ahem). Because it’s shaken in a bag of seasoning vs cooked within the seasoning, all are bland on the inside. Only the corn is tasty through and through.
Well at least they have beer. In a bottle. From the back. And Blue Moon. With no orange!
Nevertheless, I will return for sure to sample some other items. But as of now… as of right now … the shrimp basket isn’t enough make up for the entire experience here.
Don’t Shake em and Prosper!

My family loves seafood, so we had been anxiously waiting for Boiling Cajun to open (and thrilled at the prospect of not having to drive to Chinatown to eat at LA Fisherman or 88 Seafood). The décor and atmosphere are quite nice. The staff is friendly. The location is great. The food though… to put it nicely, the food was not good.
The crawfish were not purged and lacked flavor. The seasoning was watery. One could do better at home with a bottle of crab boil and a few cloves of garlic.
The shrimp were waterlogged and chewy as if they had been frozen and allowed to thaw and sit for too long. Although they were supposed to be garlic butter flavored, there was absolutely no garlic in the sauce and no discernible butter (not even the fake kind you get at LA Crawfish).
The snow crabs were more of the same– flavorless and overcooked.
There were potatoes and corn in each bag, however because the seasoning was so thin and watery, none of them picked up any of the flavors we chose.
To make matters worse, at 8 $ a pound for sausage, it was plain old cheap kielbasa sausage that you could pick up for $ 3 at the grocery store.
Lastly, the shrimp po boy was mainly bread and lettuce with four of the loneliest most pathetic looking fried shrimp you’d ever laid your eyes on.
So, after a few months of waiting and $ 80 spent, I ended up with an angry family who threatened mutiny if they were ever to dine at Boiling Cajun again.

Food was not good. Crawfish had no flavor, my husband’s gumbo needed seasoning. I also got the chicken wings and they were cold and tasted freezer burned. Too bad, was hoping to be able to leave a good review.

Things are looking better, gumbo was great! Catfish was good it seems the are getting better and working on it

This new eatery just opened near my house a couple weeks ago. I came in to try the shrimp po-​boy. I opted for the dinner table with fries instead of the lunch special that included a salad with the fries because the server indicated that the po boy was approximately 4 inches long. With my food arrived, I noticed a decent sized sandwich with plenty of fries, but my main criticism was that the ratio between the shrimp and the bread was way off. For the approx 10 inch po boy, there were only five quarter sized shrimp. They either need to use larger shrimp or more of the tiny shrimp. I think there is potential because the shrimp crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. The lettuce and tomato was fresh. The bread was more like store bought bagged rolls instead of French bakery bread. After I ate the top half my sandwich that contained some shrimp, there was a lot of bread, lettuce and tomato as indicated in my photograph. The cajun fries were also fresh fried and made to my request without too much seasoning. However, I certainly did not feel that the po boy that I was served was worth the $ 9 price tag. There are certainly other restaurants in the area that serves po boys that have double the amount of shrimp for less than what I paid.
My friend ordered the mahi mahi dinner portion which look like it had a six ounce, meaty portion of fish along with steamed vegetables and rice. He indicated that the fish was delicious, but for the price tag of $ 14.99, he would like to have a slightly larger portion.
Overall, I feel that this place has potential if they increase their portions. The food tasted pretty good, but paying $ 9 for 5 ridiculously small shrimp (40 – 50 count) between two slices of store bought sandwich roll does not promote return customers. A po boy should at least have a bit of shrimp for every bite, but in this case, the shrimp only covered approximately one third of the bread. While I relayed the message to the owner through the very polite and graceful server Anton, I am still not sure that changes will need made.
Maybe I will update this review after a couple more visits, and I would probably give it another shot for crawfish season. I hope that the owner gives better value for the buck, or this restaurant may not make it like there predecessors.

Brand new place! We had catfish salad and seafood gumbo. Everything was pretty good. Can’t wait to try more of the menu. Stagg was friendly and delightful.