Tasty Cajun

I had a long layover in Houston and craved Viet-Cajun food! This is located in a strip mall near a Vietnamese church. Being half Vietnamese, Houston is one of my favorite food cities due to its fusion and options of Viet dishes. I'll say the service is typical of a Vietnamese restaurant. No complaints. The food is good, but nothing to write home about. The shrimp was over boiled so it was really had to peel but the crab was excellent. The garlic butter was so good but the sauce thickened up so fast because of how cold the restaurant is. The Bo Luc Lac/Shaking Beef was very tender but I wish there was more beef. The fish sauce was yummy.

The Vietnamese-Cajun scene that Houston has become known for is alive and well here at Tasty Cajun. Their name is merely a reflection of their success in producing some of the city's best crawfish. I don't want to suggest they're the best per se, but based on what I've sampled, I'd be hard pressed not to include them in the conversation.Since they're located in the southeast end of the city next to the all-but-dead mall of Almeda (#1), there isn't a lot of people traffic here. In fact, there isn't ever that many people here that I've seen and given how good they've been, genuinely makes me a tad nervous. They've only been in operation for just over a year as I understand it, but certainly have a lot to offer.The name of the game is the crawfish. All batches I've ever received have been fresh, plump, and abundant all the time. I think compared to the heavy hitters in the crawdaddy game, the prices are decent and the flavors (signature garlic butter, house cajun) are excellent. The spice is also no joke. For folks looking to get a huge batch can do so by ordering on their website, complete with a quote and custom fixings such as potatoes, corn, and other boil worthy items.Of course, the fried catfish, tilapia, and shrimp + oyster platters are worth considering as well. With their popular seafood boils, which also include crab, shrimp, and obviously crawfish, are subject to availability. Don't be surprised to find that some items aren't even available. One area that gets slept on is their actual Vietnamese offerings. They serve a really excellent bowl of bun rieu, and have a myriad of Viet broken rice options (com tam) that should be ordered when seafood isn't in the picture. I personally think their bun mam and their com tam dac biet merits a huge thumbs up.This gem of a place may not win the popular vote anytime soon, but with friendly staff, decent prices, and an excellent array of quality food, I think they deserve all the attention they can get. For now, they can have my 5 stars and my money, as I'll be coming back again and again._____________(#1) Perhaps one of the most depressing places to shop in HTown: https://www.yelp.com/biz/almeda-mall-houston-4

Flavor was packing! I ordered the boiled special- it came with shrimp, a crab cluster, corn and potatoes. My only pet peeve is headless shrimp wasn't an option for the boiled platter. The shrimp was also over cooked, to the point I couldn't eat them all due to the shell sticking to the meat and absolutely shredding it when trying to remove it.

Brand new restaurant, they offered "Bún Mắm" and cơm tấm, with crawfish. Their bún mắm have a lot of lemon grass aroma, with a kick of spices, tasted like the South Vietnam flavor. I have tried many places and this has to be my #1 favorite right now!!!I also get to tried their house special crawfish, they were huge like mini lobsters, filled with green onions and orange slices, the flavor is garlicky and tangy. They were generous with their sauce & garlic. This remind me of crawfish cafe but much better in my opinion. Not as salty.

Great little gem. They have authentic Vietnamese dishes such as Bun rieu (Wish I knew yesterday), bun Bo hue, chao long. Bun Rieu came with blood pudding!!! We got crawfish, bun rieu, and fried oysters! Thank you Hai!

I came here once before in 2021 and I'm so surprised I didn't already have a review! Well, I came here again with my boyfriend for delicious crawfish because we both wanted something tasty and savory! The first time we came here, the restaurant didn't have their liquior license yet so they encouraged us to bring our own beer and alcoholic drinks if we wanted. They had soda and water available. I went to get some beer and wine coolers for my boyfriend and I at that time. This time, they were serving beer, at least it was available on their menu so I guess they got the license! This time, we ordered a total of 7lbs of crawfish (5lbs first then another 2lb b/c we wanted more) in their house sauce and spicy. I also ordered their bun rieu (noodles with crab broth) to try it out since I was curious to see how this restaurant makes it. The server who took care of us was diligent in making sure we had everything we need. It seemed like it was just her working so when people started coming in, she had to run back and forth to cater to 2 tables at a time. Service was good overall for just 1 server and she brought us everything we requested in a timely manner also which was really nice. The crawfish were really good size and the sauce was delicious! It was very garlicy and buttery with just the right amount of spice, not overally spicy that I couldn't taste anything or was sweating alot but enough. I could definitely handle alot spicer but I wanted to enjoy my food this time. The Bun Rieu was also very good. It had thin rice noodles, a nice clear broth with 1 piece of pork blood, 4 fish sausage balls and 2 slices of pork sausages (cha lua). The fish sausage balls were kind of grainy tasting like it was over cooked and the pork sausage slices had that grainy texture too, also a different color so I think it wasn't entirely pork meat. I wish they had included tomatoes in it which is most common for this dish but there weren't any. I think overall I definitely would come back here for the crawfish again before the seasons over. My only complaint would be that I wish they had limes available because I had requested limes but the server brought us only lemons so I have to assume they don't have limes on hand. It would have made a difference in the flavor of the bun rieu with lime instead of lemons and it would have been better enjoyed with the crawfish dipping sauce my boyfriend makes (salt, pepper and lime mixed together). Definitely would recommend though to everyone who enjoys Viet-Cajun crawfish!!

The outside of this place might be a little questionable but the food was amazing! The service was quick 8 everything was piping hot! This egg rolls were so good, I had to order more. The house crawfish was my favorite. The blend of favors were yummy. The Cajun crawfish was yummy as well just without the garlicky taste. This place was quite far from me but I would make the drive again! The prices were also pretty decent.

Let me just say Yelpers never disappoint. Again Yelpers.Never.Disappoint!!! I went to get my drivers license replaced, and surprisingly, it was quick and painless, so with some extra time to spare, I figured I'd get crawfish before I went back to work. Pulled up my handy dandy Yelp open and what did you know 4.5 stars and enroute to my house (I work from home). The Plaza was a bit sketchy, not a lot of cars in the entire Plaza. But Yelp said it was good so I went forward trusting the process OMG!!!! First...$7.99/lb WINNING! I ordered egg rolls... DELICIOUS AND FRIED TO PERFECTION. But let's get to the real highlight of this trip. I ordered 2lbs, house special seasoning, spicy with corn, sausage, and potatoes. I could have done without the sausage. It's ok. The corn and potato were cooked perfectly. But the crawfish....OOOOOOHHHH the crawfish. Flavored to the gawds....and HUGE! Like all.of.them. not just one or 2...maybe 1 or 2 were small lol WINNING!!!!Then as if it could be any better....a nice gentleman paid for my meal and just asked that I tip the waiter. Gladly! JACKPOT!!!! GOD IS SO GOOD! Can't wait to pay that blessing forward!!Baby when I tell you I couldn't get home fast enough to post this review. Please visit if you can...you won't be disappointed. I will be back!

Service and ambiance is very typical of a family owned Vietnamese restaurant. The staff is welcoming and friendly from the moment you enter.Their crawfish is currently $11.99/lb. We initially ordered 5 pounds of garlic butter crawfish and then ordered another round after we finished it. The first batch had medium sized crawfish and was very flavorful with the sauce thoroughly soaked into the crawfish while the second batch had larger crawfish but did not contain as much flavor as the first batch.For drinks, I do not recommend their milk tea. There was some type of flavor that was not typical to a milk tea that I would not want to get again. Their milk teas also come with crystal boba rather than the regular boba pearls. On the otherhand, the coconut drink was very refreshing. They initially serve it with a straw in the coconut, and you can ask them to chop it in half when you're done with the juice to eat from it as well.With crawfish prices being so high this year, I might not be eating their crawfish again anytime soon, but it is still good enough to eat if I'm in the area and in need to satisfy a crawfish craving. They do have a large variety of foods on their menu, so I do need to come back to try their others foods.

The grill pork sandwich (banh mi) was very tasty. Everyone in my family really liked it. The crab paste soup (bun rieu) was good too. I will try other dishes next time.