Hello! It's Vicky again… This time not writing about the amazing food we get up here in the SF Bay Area. Sam and I took a trip to visit his family in Texas. The last time I was in his neck of the woods was back when I was 3. It was a fantastic trip and he scheduled around my stomach… and balanced it all out with some great sightseeing.
Sam chose a great Cajun seafood restaurant to show me what REAL Cajun food tastes like. Also… it was very apparent that Texas definitely has huge portions! We met up with his parents at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen near Sugar Land. We started out with huge crusty loaves of piping hot bread served with butter.
We ordered a Blackened shrimp and crawfish cheese fondeaux (notice the play on words!) to start. Obviously we were digging into this dish before I scrambled to get a picture of it. Glorious! Melted cheese, which is always a good thing, mixed in with crawfish tails and shrimp. I was regretting not packing my fat jeans on this trip. 
I ordered the Salmon Diablo which was a portion of Char-grilled Salmon topped with crab mean, crawfish, and pico de gallo in a lemon garlic sauce served with dirty rice. The dish was delicious… the only issue I had was that at the center, my salmon was severely undercooked. The server was pleasant and immediately brought out the dish completely redone. I was never a fan of crawfish out here in California but this trip made me enjoy mudbugs. The crawfish there was amazing… juicy, flavorful, delicious! The topping had huge chunks of blue crab meat. The lemon garlic sauce rounded off the spice very well and it was my first time enjoying dirty rice!
Sam chose the soft shell crab served two ways and had it prepared as a blackened version and a fried version. The blackening and cajun spices they used in Texas were amazing… I still haven't found a comparable brand out here yet. The softshell crab was fresh and delicious. I was especially partial to the cajun blackened one. 
His parents split an entree, knowing how large the portions were going to come out. They ordered the Opelousas prepared with Mahi Mahi instead of catfish. It was a mahi mahi steak blackened with oysters, shrimp, and crawfish in a lemon butter sauce with dirty rice. We shared and I have to say… blackened seafood is now one my favorite lists of things to eat…
In the morning, Sam took me to a long time Texas establishment. Now keep in mind that I am not a fan of donuts… I never really enjoyed Krispy Kreme… but just thinking about this donut makes me drool. Shipley's!!! The donuts were light and fluffy and had a good chew to them. Absolutely delicious!!! You can see my eager teethmarks before I finally remembered to take a picture of it first.
Lastly… I'll leave you with a lovely portrait of their family dog – I would hear so many stories about her. She would hang out underneath the kitchen table as we ate. It was great to have seen Houston and hang out with his family.
Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen
12711 Hwy 59 S.
Stafford, TX 77477
281.240.5533
Shipley Do-Nuts (multiple locations but the one we went to was in Sugar Land)
11315 Hwy 6 South
Sugar Land, TX 77478
281.494.1474