The Cajun House

I had a very poor experience at The Cajun House. I had just flown in and wanted to grab something quick on the way home, and The Cajun House had been something we've considered trying for some time. We walked in to see a staff member who clearly didn't enjoy his job. He didn't greet us and made us approach him before he asked how many people would be dining. Looking into the dining room, there were several empty tables that had not been bused, and there was only one other party dining at the time. This was already a red flag, indicating that the staff didn't care about the cleanliness or appearance of the dining room. The menu is very extensive. From the outside, it isn't clear, but The Cajun House is a Chinese restaurant first and a seafood boil restaurant second. The first page of the menu is entirely dedicated to dim sum. I was surprised to see that they were serving dim sum late at night, and I questioned how fresh everything was. Flipping through the menu, about two out of ten pages were dedicated to seafood boil or Cajun dishes, which was a bit unexpected given the restaurant's name. Anyway, we decided to go for the seafood boil, and ordered a side of beef skewers to try. From former reviews and pictures, it seemed like these were the most popular items. The beef skewers came out first. One order was 13 dollars and came with five skewers. This was on the pricier side but not unfair. We split the dish. The beef had decent flavor, although nothing crazy. It wasn't fatty, but it had some seasoning on it to make up for the lack of quality. The beef was also relatively tender. It had a bit of a chew, but in a pleasant way, pretty much the texture I would look for in a noodle or fried rice dish. I was somewhat satisfied with this dish. For the seafood boil, we went for the combo. Every combo comes with two potatoes and two pieces of corn by default, each of which can be added on for two dollars each, a sauce, and a selection of two different seafood components. We went for the shrimp and "crab cluster" for an additional three dollars, adding on a dozen sausage slices and the garlic butter sauce. Right off the bat, it was easy to tell that the seafood wasn't very fresh. Both the crab and shrimp had a weird, off-putting flavor and aftertaste. It was slightly fishy and didn't sit well on my palette. We also weren't given anything to crack the crab shell with. We resorted to just using our teeth and trying our best to pull it apart with our hands, and using the skewer sticks from the beef to push out the meat. The garlic butter sauce wasn't great either. The meat wasn't picking up the sauce very well and retained very little flavor. The highlight for me was the sausage. It was surprisingly smoky and burst with flavor. It picked up some of the sauce, but the flavor I liked definitely came independent of the sauce. The potato and corn were both fine. They had decent texture, especially the corn. The potato was on the mushy side, but still served its purpose. For a lot of our meal, there were no employees in sight. It was impossible to wave anyone down. Our waiter was sitting down out of sight, and the only other worker we saw seemed to be working the back of the house. When we finished our food, it wasn't clear if we were supposed to wait for someone to bring us the check. We waited about five to seven minutes before someone came in to pick up an online order. When our waiter popped out to give the customer their order, we walked up to the front and paid out. We weren't given a check to make sure there weren't any mistakes, and just had to go with what he said. From start to finish, the service was really bad. The only time we got a refill on water was when our food got delivered. Other than that, we were never checked on. It just seemed like our waiter didn't care at all. The dining room was messy and unorganized, and the food was generally mediocre, with the seafood leaving a lot to be desired. There was plenty more on the menu to try, especially the Chinese food, but everything seemed dirty, and I didn't like how I was questioning the cleanliness of the food. This combined with the very unpleasant experience I had with the service will definitely discourage me from coming back.