Cajun/Creole Archives

In Cajun/Creole

The Holy Crab: Now Open For Lunch

April 19, 2018

The Holy Crab has recently launched their lunch menu with 10 new items, so if you don’t want seafood boil, you have more lunch friendly options without getting your hands too messy.

Interior

There are lots of seats and tables for small to large groups, but its always good to let them know ahead of time if you have a really big group.

Grilled Chicken Sandwich

This sandwich is served with Cajun fries, which are delicious. Deep fried till golden brown and the cajun spice is so good. Inside the sandwich is grilled chicken, caramelized onion & mushroom, pickled coleslaw, arugula, and Cajun aioli all inside the soft ciabatta bun.

Crispy Fish Sandwich

The Cajun fries is served with this sandwich. This is similar to the other sandwich except it has crispy fried catfish, creamy coleslaw, arugula and a tartar sauce.

Surf and Turf Hash

You will find Cajun-lemon hashbrowns, sausages, tiger prawns, shrimp etouffee sauce, and a fried egg in this skillet. This item is a bit more on the brunch spectrum, but its a nice option.

Lobster Grilled Cheese

This is pure decadence with fresh lobster meat, melted mozzarella, dill & cheddar bechamel sauce, lobster butter, and sweet panini bread. It is served with your choice of seafood chowder or seafood bisque. Super cheesy! Just look at all that cheese.

Shrimp Grilled Cheese

Similar to the above but with shrimp.

Fish and Chips

The delicious fish and chips is made of crispy battered catfish and served with tartar sauce, lemon wedge, Cajun fries and creamy coleslaw. I really liked the value of this lunch dish and it was very huge especially if you get 2 pieces. The catfish was moist and delicious. It’s hard to deny a huge plate of fish and chips.

Creamy Cajun Seafood Pasta

This dish has clams, mussels, crawfish, tiger prawns, and creamy tomato Cajun sauce, sauteed onions and mushrooms, and your choice of linguine or spaghetti. You can also customize the spice level to be mild, medium or spicy.

Garlic Shrimp Pasta

There is tiger prawns, shrimp, house-made garlic pepper sauce, 63-degree poached egg, parmesan, and linguine or spaghetti. If you don’t want shrimp or prawns, you can substitute with chicken.

Dirty Rice

This was my favourite dish on the menu. There is clams, mussels, tiger prawns, calamari, catfish, and the home-made garlic pepper sauce. You can pay a bit extra to add on a fried egg.

Blackened catfish with etouffee on rice

This is huge. You can seriously just share it with another person. It has pan-seared catfish fillet, shrimp etouffee sauce, steamed vegetables and jasmine rice.

Seafood and Avocado Salad

This has layers of crab, shrimp, avocado, tomato, corn, and arugula with red apple dark balsamic and cranaberry pear white balsamic. Mix it all up together and you can enjoy. It’s one of the more healthier items on the menu.

Final Thoughts

They also have a kids menu if you have little ones with you. If you still want The Holy Crab’s regular seafood boil during lunch, they are still serving that too. The lunch menu gives great options if you’re working or strolling through the area of the West End. My favourites are the Dirty Rice, Fish & Chips, and the Garlic Shrimp Pasta.

Address:
1588 Robson St, Vancouver

Website:
http://www.theholycrab.ca/

In Cajun/Creole

The Captain’s Boil: Now Open in Coquitlam

December 11, 2017

The Captain’s Boil is now open in Coquitlam serving up delicious Cajun seafood boil. This is their 4th location in British Columbia with a few more locations opening up in 2018 across Canada.

Interior

There’e a lot of seating for guests in small to large groups. It has a nice nautical theme inside with imagery of seafood, wooden walls and the blue fabric on the booth seats.

Seafood

To start, you pick the seafood you want, then the flavour of it:

Cajun
Garlic Sauce
Lemon Pepper
Captain’s Boil (Combination of all 3)

Then you pick the amount of heat you want with it:

Non-spicy
Mild
Medium
Fire

On the table, there was shrimp, clams, and mussels. There was also fries, cajun seafood rice, corn and broccoli.

There’s something fun about having food toss on the table and eating with your hands. You get a ‘hands on’ experience on getting down and dirty with your seafood. But don’t worry, you get bids so your clothes stay nice and clean.

Final Thoughts

It’s good to have the addition of The Captain’s Boil in the area as there isn’t anything similar in Coquitlam. It can definitely get busy, so go when it’s not peak time or try to get reservations.

Address:
1111 Ponderosa St, Coquitlam

Website: https://www.thecaptainsboil.com/

In Cajun/Creole

The Holy Crab: Monster Roll Challenge

November 7, 2017

The Holy Crab in Downtown Vancouver has the Monster Roll Challenge where guests are invited to devour their 36-inch seafood roll in 5 minutes or less. It weighs a whopping 6 pounds. If you are defeated, you have to pay $75 plus tax. I was up for the challenge and so was Maggi, so we rolled up our sleeves to destroy this monster. This is only available until November 30, 2017.

The Monster Roll

Inside, you’ll find crab, shrimp, calamari, soft shell crab, fish finger, onion, garlic, mushroom, bell peppers, mayo, and your choice of Cajun sauce (mild, medium, spicy, or holy moly). We went with mild because I didn’t want to suffer the consequences the following day.

36 inches is the size of 3 Subway footlongs, so that means we had to eat 1.5 foot longs or 18 inches each.When we watched them assemble this, we felt very confident we could finish. Once they started adding more and more on top, we could see why this really isn’t an easy challenge.

The Rules

Be the fastest team of 2 to finish a 36-inch seafood roll and place your names and time on our leaderboard – 1st place will win a $300 GIFT CARD to The Holy Crab!
The seafood roll will be cut in half for every team. Time starts at the same time for both of you, and you and your teammate are responsible for eating your own half (no helping each other).
The cost of the Monster Roll is $75 (tax excluded). Names and time will be recorded when your team finishes the roll.
BONUS – If your team finishes the seafood roll in 5 minutes, your team gets the roll for FREE and receives a $25 gift card to The Holy Crab for your next visit.
Unlimited water and/or soft drinks are provided (must let staff know before the competition starts).
Only 5 Monster Rolls available per day – FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED (no reservations). Available every day during opening hours.
The team with the fastest time on our leaderboard by Nov. 30 will be the grand prize winner and names will be announced on Dec 1st.

Let’s Eat

We started off at a good pace, but soon we realized it was more that we could handle. My strategy was to go for all the good stuff first by eating the seafood, then the bread. At first it had a good taste since I love seafood and if it’s crispy and deep-fried, I’m so into it. At the 4 minute mark, I really started to feel it and I didn’t like the mixture of all the sauces. After 10 minutes, we threw in the towel. I easily demolished the seafood and still had a good amount of bread left.

Maggi on the other hand almost demolished the bread and has some seafood leftover. The hardest part was the richness of the lobster oil soaked in the vegetables, then the added sauces inside. I may have thrown up a little bit afterwards.

Address:
1588 Robson St, Vancouver

Website:
http://www.theholycrab.ca/

In Cajun/Creole

Captains Boil Cambie: Cajun Seafood Boil

August 19, 2017

The Captain’s Boil has just opened on Cambie Street serving up delicious cajun seafood boil. They have open a few locations in Vancouver in the last year. Definitely expanding quickly. We were invited to check out the space and a few of their popular items to order.

Crawfish

Crawfish are essentially like mini lobster. To eat this, you have to take off the head, peel off the shell and eat the meat inside. I personally don’t like crawfish compared to all the other types of seafood available because its a lot of work to get a little bit of meat.

Clams

Clams are delicious especially with the roasted garlic and melted butter. Naturally sweet and very delicious. Also, easy to eat as you pick the met from between the shells.

Mussels

The mussels were very plump and meaty size. I enjoyed them with the sauces. I would recommend this too.

Snow Crab Legs

They do say crabs are like the spiders of the sea, but don’t let their spikey legs scare you. Inside is succulent sweet crab flesh. It will take a bit of work to get into it, but it’s not too difficult.

Lobster

They get lobster shipped in daily for freshness and it’s good. It’s best paired with the secret Captain’s Boil sauce. The tail is the meatiest part and the best part. The claws are meaty too but the taste is slightly different.

Okra and Corn

You need some veggies to balance the seafood heavy meal. Okra is something I personally like but some people may not like it due to its slimey texture. The corn is amazing especially during the summer as it’s in season and so sweet.

Cajun Seafood Fried Rice

This was a hit and miss with the table. If you’re looking for something extra on the side to have with the meal, this might be good. I personally don’t like rice too much.

Fries

How can you go wrong with a basket of fries?

Final Thoughts

Overall, it’s fun to have cajun seafood in a while especially with a table full of people. Getting your hands dirty with bibs and gloves on is super fun. Be sure to check to market price of some of the seafood before coming here so you know what to expect in terms of pricing.

We Rate The Captain’s Boil:

Address:
3250 Cambie St, Vancouver

Website:
https://www.thecaptainsboil.com/

In Brunch

Chewies Steam and Oyster Bar: Brunch Time in Coal Harbour

February 14, 2015

Chewies serves up New Orleans inspired soul food like traditional Creole and Cajun dishes. Their signatures dishes include fried gator & hush puppies, classic gumbo, southern fried chicken and Jambalaya. They also have a variety of fresh oysters on the menu too.

On the weekends, they have their brunch menu. The girls and I wanted to check it out. The restaurant is a bit hard to spot at the moment since there is a lot of construction around the area.

It was the Superbowl day, so this place was empty on the weekend. There was only 1 other table in the restaurant, but that was ok because we could take our time.

Pulled Beef Brisket hash ($17) has smoked beef brisket, black beans, chilli verde, home fries topped with 2 poached eggs. CanuckGirl and TaiwaneseGirl both had this dish and was impressed that there was a large amount of beef brisket on top. It coated the home fries well with all that brisket. They didn’t like how their egg wasn’t soft poached.

Southern Biscuit Breakfast ($14) has 2 buttermilk biscuits, white gravy choice of bacon or sausage, cajun spied hash browns and 2 eggs any style. I got bacon and poached eggs for my dish.

I wanted my eggs soft, but it was more on the medium side.

Southen Fried Chicken and Waffles ($14) has buttermilk waffles topped with southern fired chicken with a cajun honey butter drizzle. The chicken was ok, but it isn’t as juicy as we would have liked.

Overall, the brunch was alright. None of the dishes really stood out. We all just thought it was ok.

We Rate Chewies:

Address:
1055 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC

Website:
http://chewies.ca/

In Cajun/Creole

Ouisi Bistro: Southern Food in Vancouver

September 16, 2014

Ouisi Bistro is located on Granville Street in Fairview. They are an New Orleans Restaurant in Vancouver serving up Cajun and Creole cuisine. M was missing this food since he hasn’t had it in over 10 years. There really aren’t a lot of restaurants in Vancouver specializing in this type of cuisine. M insisted we come here as I haven’t been here yet. They have been around since 1994.

The dining room is dark, romantic, and filled with Jazz pictures.

They also have an outdoor garden courtyard to dine at. It’s a good option for the Summer if you want to still be out in the sun.

There are even little lights above you….also TONS OF BUGS.

Ouisi Bistro has a good collection of single malts and bourbons. So, M got himself an ounce of Ardbeg. He’s been on the search of the best Whiskey, but he didn’t like this one because it had a plastic after taste.

Too bad the first drink had a fly in it, but we asked them to get us a new one.

Jambalaya ($17) is a classic Louisiana dish with tomatoes, smoked ham, andouille, chorizo sausage and two sautéed Gulf prawns. The dish comes with corn bread and your choice of 2 sides.

M thought the dish was ok, but did not have much rice. It was mostly the sauce and chorizo. M did not like corn bread either as it was very dry.

Seafood Creole ($19.75) has Gulf prawns, scallops, mussels and baby shrimp sautéed in their homemade creole sauce. The seafood was not fresh and quite small. This was not worth the price. I was disappointed with this dish.

I think I needed more carbs than just the Corn Bread. Perhaps some rice so it soaks up the sauce.

For our sides that came with our meal, we got Jicama Slaw, Lemon Braised Kale, Sweet Potato-Pecan Hash, and Cajun style Potato Salad. None of them were particularly good.

Overall, the first visit here was disappointing. It took a while for the dishes to come out but nothing tasted fresh…like it was sitting in a pot for a few days waiting for it to be scooped up.

We rate Ouisi Bistro: