| Louisiana Seafood Boils, and other Cajun selections. |
Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 1012
Reviewed: 2/22/2007
Rating: 8
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Cajun Crab House is an easy place to find. It's a few blocks down from the 280 off Winchester. There's plenty of parking in the back and pleasant natural lighting for the dining room. The interior was sparkling clean with a festive environment. The wait staff were full of energy and eager to serve. Greeted with a smile and food delivered quickly.
We started off with a tall order.
cornbread (image 3) - $2 and they are giant bricks of warm cornbread. Bread was moist and slightly sweet. I swiped a light coat of butter and enjoyed. I'd order this again.
red beans and rice (image 4) - $4, this is BY FAR the best deal of the meal. This bowl is huge with red beans on 1 side, spices, onions, veggies, rice on the other, and andouille sausage?? I can't believe they serve this thing for $4 and it is an ALL-IN-ONE meal. It is soooo frickin good, firm beans, fluffy rice, and the oil/essence underneath the rice and beans is wonderful. It isn't too spicy but exudes fatty love. I'm giving this thing a 9.5-10 as it's the best red beans and rice I've ever had.
fried scallops (image 5) - $9, deep fried scallops with moderate batter. Scallops were small and overcooked. If you look at the picture, you'll notice the batter was nearly burned making the scallops way too chewy. Served with monster servings of thick cut fries. I wasn't impressed and would pass on ordering this next time.
crab cakes (image 6) - $10, the biggest disappointment of the lunch. I order crab cakes all the time and had visions of of lump crab cakes. I didn't think they were going to be heavily breaded deep fried cake discs. I could barely taste any crab as it was overwhelmed with a potato mixture? Dipping sauce was an easy cocktail sauce, not the overbearing horseradish. For $10, yeah, I guess I shouldn't complain too much as the portion is huge and served with $2-3 worth of fries but for $10, give me 2 medium sized lump crab cakes and I'd be happy.
shrimp boil (image 7,8) - $11/lb. Terry ordered this one and his review covered it very accurately. Amazing flavor that comes with the price of creating a large mess on the table. I had about 6 shrimps and it's easily in the 9 rating. We're already making plans to return for the other cajun boils.
Thanks to Arlene for submitting the Cajun Crab House, it was a real treat. Prices are excellent for what you receive; great tasting food with sumo sized portions. I couldn't finish the red beans and rice and took it to work to feed my coworker Drew. He proclaimed it was a damm good meal. My score of 8 might appear to be low considering all the praise of the cajun boils, rbr, cornbread but I had to average the low scores from the fried scallops and crab cakes. If I reviewed only red beans and rice with a cajun boil, 9 rating for sure.
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Reviewer: Terry
Total Reviews: 738
Reviewed: 2/23/2007
Rating: 9
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I didn't know what to expect when walking in. I didn't read any reviews of the place beforehand and figured it would be an interesting place based on the menu that jason pointed me to on their website. It sounded like the boils were their signature item, so made a mental note to get one of those.
We drive up, and I'm like - wait a second - this looks familiar. Indeed, we had been here before, when Citronelle occupied the buildling. While the outside resembles Citronelle a bit, the inside was completely changed. Its now looks like a Louisiana type restaurant. Perhaps a bit squeaky clean and too nice, but maybe I'm just spoiled with the Jatbar dives.
Anyway, I scan the menu and make my choice for the Shrimp boil, spicy (hottest of their 3 spice levels), and Kitchen Sink - which is all of their flavors (original, spicy cajun, lemon pepper, garlic butter) mixed together.
Food didn't take long to arrive. I was a bit shocked to see mine. It was a plastic bag filled with boiling hot liquid and full-on shrimps. Wow, this was a bit more hardcore than i anticipated. The bag came in a bowl, so I figured the logical thing was to empty the bag into the bowl. Not only was the bag a greasy mess, but it was SCALDING. So I burned up my hands transferring the shrimps & juice to the bowl. Nice. These had better taste good.
I am here to report that they DO taste good. In fact they are amazing. The spice wasn't terribly spicy (maybe nuclear on the Cluck U scale). But the rest of the concoction was amazing. Super rich, super flavorful. Kitchen sink is the way to go. Its got the fatty goodness of all of that butter, the spicy goodness you want, the garlic to make you smell the rest of the day, and the pepper to amp up the flavor a bit more. All around perfect. It WAS a pain peeling apart the shrimp (and I hate bothering with that stuff) but it was WORTH IT in such a big way. After finishing off all the shrimp, I was a MESS. A towel should be provided by the staff for wiping down. Though their bathroom worked fine too. I washed multiple times but couldn't get the spicy and garlic smell off my fingers. The red was tough to get out of the fingernails too. It was worth it though, and I give this a 9.5 rating just for that dish. They give you a LOT of food too, for the $.
It would be nice if they included some kind of rice with it, but they sell a lot of sides, of which Jason ordered and I sampled. To be honest, a lot of them were utterly forgettable. The scallops were especially bad (I have made better stuff myself at home) and burned. The crab cakes were better, but still not something I would order again. Fries were thick cut and decent enough. I sampled the rice and that is something I would order again since it went well with the shrimp. Corn bread was not bad too, nothing exciting or original though. All of this stuff hurts the place for the people who don't know you gotta order the boils. So I am knocking a half point off for that.
Bottom line: its all about the boils.
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Reviewer: wchane
Total Reviews: 147
Reviewed: 2/24/2007
Rating: 9.5
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Wow...JATBAR really gets around, this place has been open for only 2 months and I'm surprised to find that JaT have already made a visit.
Cajun Crab House took over what was Citronelle. As you walk in you're hit with a contemporary southern theme; mardi gras strewn across the ceiling and louisana street signs laiden with mardi gras beads.
If you've done your research this place has gotten really mixed reviews; however one thing that stayed consistant was the food is GOOD.
We ordered a good variety, everything from the crabcakes to the kitchen sink.
Shrimp Cocktail - A LOT of shrimp in a square tray full of cocktail sauce. Tasted a lot like shrimp cocktail...that's a good thing I guess.
Crab Cakes - These were the smallest crab cakes I've ever seen but there were quite a bit on a plate. Served with thick cut fries and a mystery dipping sauce. Some of us argued it was cocktail sauce, some of us said it was ketchup (we've had a beer or two by now); at first I thought it was ketchup but when we ordered a second order it definitely was not ketchup...but didn't taste like cocktail sauce either. strange. however the crab cakes were good, full of crab and full of spices.
Gumbo - This was more of a soup then the gumbo I'm used to. It said it had Crab, Shrimp and Sausage...I wasn't sure if I tasted any Crab, I think it was chopped/shredded so much it mingled with the rice. Anyways...it's a bit salty, and the spices catch up to you. I wouldn't recommend this as an entree unless you love spicy food or have a quasi-death wish. This is something that you'd imagine would pair nicely with a rice pilaf (think curry & rice)
Kitchen Sink - This is the boil that has 1/2 a dungeness crab, 2 corn on the cobs and a bunch of andouille sausage.
a. Dungeness Crab - Wow this is good. Moist, tender, fresh and flavorful. I can't really describe it anymore, it was delicious.
b. Andouille Sausage - Not much to say, it tasted like sausage. I think they sauteed them before putting them into the boil. I wish they would cut them thicker, give the boil more dimension.
c. Corn - This tasted like KFC corn tossed in some kind of chili sauce. The cobs were obviously over cooked, but I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. For what it's worth I actually enjoyed it.
Crawfish Boil - We weren't through eating so we ordered a pound of Crawfish to dig through. I don't normally like crawfish or attempt to eat it as they remind me of really big insects, however I went along with it and started popping shells. Tasted ok...couldn't get used to it. Those around me told me they were really good.
Cornbread - One of the 'bricks' was cold but the other three were piping hot. The cold one tasted decent, the hot ones were delicious. Very dense, and bits of corn strewn about. Good eats.
Chicken Noodle Soup - Skip this. It came out of a sysco meal service bag or a progresso can. Sodium rich and old noodles, I actually didn't see any chicken in there. The only 'bad' item that I recall.
Abita Amber - What's a southern meal without southern beer? I JUST learned about Abita earlier today so I was stoked when I found it on their menu. I ordered one right away, but did it taste good? It's a more favorful Budweiser (don't crucify me yet), it's very pale, very crisp, and very bubbly...however it has a delicious almost buttery finish.
Abita Turbo Dog Ale - Unsatisfied with the normal Abita, I went with the Turbo Dog next and this is quite tasty. Darker, Richer, and more developed...I stuck with the the rest of the night.
I think that covered the meal portion of dinner, we ordered so much I'm not sure if I left anything out.
Service : We had a rsvp and the host didn't keep us waiting long. Our server was Kimi who I'm happy to say had a great sense of humor to tolerate us behaving badly (shennagans). She took care of all our needs, tied lobster bibs on all of us, brought out extra napkins, wet naps, beer, water, and whatever else we needed. We didn't experience any of the service woes I've read about. Perfect 10.
So why the 9.5? This is definitely not a business lunch joint, and it's definitely not a place you take someone to a first date to. It's MESSY, in fact I have not been this 'dirty' at the dinner table since I was in elementery school. We all had a good laugh, we created a HUGE mess on our table (read: shennagans) and there were crab/crawfish/sausage/whatever else we touched bits and piecs on all our stemware, silverware and a mound of napkins on the table.
Total Bill for the 6 of us was about $160 before tip.
If it's legit cajun boils you're seeking this place has them, if it's white table cloths and fine china you're expecting...you've entered through the wrong doors. We had a wonderful time, in fact one of the better dinners as of late. If you're willing to get messy and leave the table manners at home, Cajun Crab House is strongly recommended.
9.5/10
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