It’s essentially the most great time of the 12 months. Your calendar alarm reminder has buzzed. It’s formally crawfish season, and, like us, you’re able to get somewhat messy at your subsequent dinner. Whether or not you name them crawfish, crayfish, crawdads, or mudbugs; or whether or not you want them coated in garlic and butter, Viet-Cajun model, or spiced up with a basic Cajun kick, there’s a boil spot for you.
It was robust, however we narrowed down our favourite eating places to eat crawfish in Houston. Understand that some locations open somewhat later within the season.
Atchafalaya Crawfish & Cajun Specialties
Pearland
This outlet is owned by a wholesaler in Louisiana that provides lots of Houston’s favourite crawfish eating places. And whereas you may get contemporary, low cost, properly spiced crawfish, corn, and potatoes, you may’t sit right down to take pleasure in them as a result of there are not any eating tables. As a substitute, choose all the things up on the to-go window out entrance. Cooking all the things your self? You may as well get reside crawfish right here, too. Atchafalaya is already open for the season.
BB’s Tex-Orleans
A number of Areas
Brooks Bassler’s native chain gives a Houston tackle Huge Straightforward grub with po’boys, gumbo, fried fish, and, when in season, crawfish. Select between old-school Louisiana model, with no added spices after the boil, or Tex-Orleans, the place garlic paste is blended in post-boil. Diners have the choice to throw some sausage into their boils, together with uncommon varieties like spicy alligator andouille, in addition to different crawfish fixins like corn and potatoes.
Boil Home
Heights
The LSU banners on this tiny wooden shack are your first clue that that is the spot for genuine Louisiana-style crawfish. The common crawfish choice is filled with lemony and frivolously spicy taste, whereas the “lips swollen” model gives most warmth. Boils can include a facet of exceptionally smoky sausage, finest washed down with a craft beer or frozen marg on the entrance porch. In a rush? Hit the drive-through. Boil Home opened for the season on February 1.
Cajun Craven
South Belt/Ellington
That is the form of mom-and-pop place that’s a pleasure to come upon. The proprietor, Henry Tran, is a former shrimper and fisherman from Port Arthur who began doing boils for household and associates out of a trailer in Waller within the late ’80s and early ’90s. The trailer grew so standard, he ultimately opened his personal restaurant. Tran gives two crawfish flavors: conventional Cajun and a sweet-and-sour garlic glaze known as Craven.
Cajun Kitchen
Asiatown
The crawfish listed here are cooked in a wok after being soaked in a Cajun boil, a lot the identical method crab and lobster are ready in Chinese language delicacies, in order that these spices and oils coat all the things and get method down deep within the crevices. The Kitchen Particular, tossed with inexperienced onion, garlic, lemons, orange, butter, and garlic, is nice, savory, tangy, and wholly authentic; whereas the Thai Basil taste conjures the streets of Bangkok.
Crawfish & Beignets
Asiatown
Crawfish & Beignets initially opened in 2000 in Hong Kong Metropolis Mall and relocated down the highway to Dynasty Plaza in 2019. The crawfish boils right here include three choices. There’s the basic Cajun and the Krajun, the restaurant’s model of Viet-Cajun with garlic and butter. However we’re notably obsessive about the Thai Citrus crawfish, made super-tangy and frivolously candy with the addition of orange slices, plus white and inexperienced onions.
Crawfish & Noodles
Asiatown and Heights
Chef and proprietor Trong Nguyen began providing mudbugs in mouth-numbing garlic butter in 2008, simply as that model was turning into a staple of the Houston crawfish weight-reduction plan. An order of Viet-Cajun medium right here is fiery sufficient, however don’t cease there: Nguyen’s menu consists of different non-crawfish dishes you merely can’t miss, just like the Viet-Cajun blue crab, com ga xa xiu, and fried seafood gumbo.
Chow down on some Crawfish Café at one among its 5 areas.
Crawfish Café
A number of areas
In any respect 5 areas, proprietor Kiet Duong makes use of actual butter in addition to sugar, which makes his crawfish sweeter and, let’s be sincere, extra addictive. The flavors—Unique Cajun, Kickin’ Cajun, Texas Cajun, Coco Loco, garlic butter, lemon pepper, Thai basil, and The Combine, a mix of garlic butter and lemon pepper—attraction to a variety of palates. Or, you may combine and match one of many restaurant’s home blends to cater to your liking.
Manvel, Angleton
That is the place for the last word Cajun crawfish repair, due to the irresistibly mouth-burning Mr. Crawfish spice mix cooked into the mudbugs. You’ll additionally benefit from the pleasant service, fast bar service, and upbeat zydeco soundtrack, to not point out the tremendous useful post-meal washing station. For a heartier meal, get the pasta Mardi Gras (with shrimp, crawfish, and smoked sausage in étouffée sauce), crimson beans and rice, or redfish topped with crawfish étouffée.
Pook’s Crawfish Gap
Santa fe
This sprawling country-style institution, run by a pair who caters crawfish occasions, gives principally out of doors seating and, on the weekends, reside music. Eat at one of many picnic tables and let the breeze hit you from the rolled-up storage doorways, or fill your cooler with a crawfish feast to go. Professional tip: Pook’s is BYOB.
Ragin’ Cajun
Higher Kirby, Spring department
Whenever you see the large crimson crawfish on high of the restaurant that greets friends, you’ll know you’re on the proper place. The menu consists of a great deal of Louisiana staples—gumbo, chargrilled oysters, boudin, even Natchitoches meat pies—and gives barbecue sauce–marinated, deep-fried blue crabs in season (normally from June to October). Crawfish is bought by the pound with every kind of extras—corn, potatoes, sausage, onerous boiled eggs, you title it.
Wild Cajun
Asiatown
The flavors right here—lemon pepper, Louisiana Cajun, garlic butter, and wild Cajun—are much less buttery than at different locations, one thing that proprietor Lee Ngo says he was aiming for, as a result of an excessive amount of butter fills you up and makes you wish to eat much less. And, frankly, since some joints are inclined to go method overboard with the stuff, we are able to’t disagree along with his considering. Wild Cajun additionally snow crab clusters, crab legs, and jumbo shrimp. For an over-the-top expertise, select from one of many fried platters, served with french fries and garlic bread.
Timothy Malcolm contributed to this information.
