*** An updated post can be found here
I remember first reading about Vietnamese Owned, Cajun Seafood restaurants on my good blogging buddy Elmo of Monster Munching‘s site. He wrote about his meal at the Boiling Crab in Garden Grove. On future trips to the area I soon noticed several other of these Crab/Crawfish Boil places with names like the Cajun Corner and Rockin’ Crawfish popping up. And so it seems a new "fad" was founded. Not quite as popular as the current Fro-Yo craze, but quite popular nonetheless.
If you think that a Vietnamese Owned Crab Boil restaurant is a bit of an odd combination, you wouldn’t be the only one. But after considering that there are over 5,000 Vietnamese, and Vietnamese Americans Shrimpers fishing the Gulf of Mexico, it is much easier to connect the dots. According to this article, the Owners of a restaurant called Cafe Artist in Garden Grove decided to see how well crawfish would do in their restaurant, and the rest as they say, is history….. So I guess it just makes sense that the former Pho restaurant Bolsaa, has now become Crab Hut.
The Missus, a big fan of crawfish, displayed amazing restraint, by resisting the urge to be the very first customer when Crab Hut opened its doors. Instead, she decided to wait a few weeks, to let the restaurant settle into a "groove". So when the time finally arrived, She could hardly contain Herself.
On our visit to Crab Hut we found the restaurant’s interior and environment to be…well, an interesting combination of various themes. First off, the ex-Pho(faux-Pho???) restaurant meets Gilligan’s Island motif was a bit odd, but it could be because I had eaten at Bolsaa a few times. The ubiquitous Pho restaurant counter was still visible, and all the tables looked the same, except that they were covered with brown butcher paper.
Add to that, the loud techno pop music, combined with the large Plasma television showing Sponge Bob Squarepants, and you get a pretty surreal experience. There was a group of Young Men and Women working, all of whom were very nice and helpful.
You’ll notice right off, that the prices are very reasonable; crawfish at $7.99/lb, shrimp at $8.99/lb. The process is simple you order seafood by the pound, and select a f
lavoring, "Cajun Sensation", "Garlic Butter", "Lemon Pepper", or "Full House"(which I think is akin to taking your cup and working your way down the soda dispenser at the 7-11). A roll of paper towels is deliver to your table, along with some lime and a container of ground black pepper.
On this visit, along with our seafood we also ordered the Catfish with Fries($8.99). After all, why not finish the job off with something fried?
First off, I need to say that whoever fried this up deserves a raise! Or at least some praise. The round cigar shaped pieces of fish was breaded and fried perfectly, crunchy on the outside, and uber-moist.
The Cajun Fries were also fried perfectly. Both the fish and the fries were dusted with Cajun seasoning, but you could still taste the fish and potato. The only thing I didn’t care for was the overly mayonais-sey tartar sauce. I wish Malt Vinegar was available…maybe next time I’ll bring my own bottle.
Soon enough our seafood arrived in large plastic bags, first the Crawfish ($7.99/lb) ordered with "Cajun Sensation" at medium heat.
This pile of bugs included one piece of corn on the cob, and a few slices of sausage. The crawfish were cooked perfectly, though we found the tails to be on the small side. Not the meatiest, nor tastiest crawfish I’ve had, but pretty good overall. The flesh of the crawfish showed no signs of being frozen, that would be mushy, lumpy, dried out meat, or meat that had shrunk away from the shell. The medium spicy was more hotter than I thought it would be, and at times the flavor of the crawfish was lost.
This was still much better than we had anticipated.
I had a pound of Shrimp ($8.99/lb) with the same seasoning. Like the crawfish, this was cooked perfectly, the shrimp was nice and moist, and very tender.
These were meant to be eaten shell and all. I thought there was a bit too much sauce, and like the crawfish I thought the flavor of the shrimp was overshadowed. The Missus thought these were good, though She preferred the Crawfish. I thought the shrimp were much better.
In the end, we felt like this meal was an excellent value. I’d recommend that you NOT wear anything that will not survive stains(of course bibs are provided!). The service was good, and so was the food. We found the hours to be a bit odd, Crab Hut opens at 2pm during the week, too late for lunch, and too early for dinner. Of course, I’m not sure that you’d want to deal with a pound of bugs, and return to work with shrimpy hands and stained clothes. We were ever so thankful for the entire roll of paper towels and the towelettes at the end…..but Sammy and Frankie still kept sniffing at my hands for the entire evening!
Crab Hut
4646 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111
858-565-1678