Boudreaux’s Cajun Kitchen

My family and I ended up here by accident. And boy, I’m sure glad we did! We ordered combo w/​blackened catfish and stuffed shrimp. Also the seafood gumbo and crawfish bisque is heavenly! My son had the chicken fried chicken. I must say that’s the most delicious chicken I have ever had.
So you ask why not give it 5 stars? Well I was surprised to see that it’s self service. You order and they bring out your food.
But overall, I would recommend this to anyone who craves some good food.

My girlfriend and I ordered the medium sized shrimp and crawfish combo. The crawfish tasted horrible like the crawfish was dead before they cooked it. Trust me I know I used to live in Louisiana. Not to mention the price was expensive and the basket of food was small for the price we paid.

This is my FAVORITE Cajun place… just writing this review makes me want to there. My favorites are the crawfish soup, mahi with their cream sauce and their pecan pie is THE BOMB! The fried pickles are the best I have ever had!

Beats Razoo’s anyday!
Had the shrimp etouffe and the shrimp was fresh and not over-​cooked. The sauce was from a nice medium roux and almost gravy-​like. For the casual atmosphere, I thought the prices were a little high but the portions were good. If you want a fast casual sit down meal, it’s a good option. If you want a full service sit down dinner though, I’d rather pay a little more and go to Pappadeaux or Nate’s.
For what it is, it is good and we’d go back.

I revisited Boudreaux’s and had fish and shrimp tacos. They were pretty tasty — though the atypical sauce tasted like honey mustard-​which is fine with me, just not what I expected. I can now rate the food at 3 stars. I look forward to going back.

Delicious Cajun food in a setup that’s cheaper than most Cajun places around here because you order and pickup your own food, therefore getting out of tipping.
The gumbo has a sprinkling of file on there which is very authentic (my mom is from Louisiana so I have that on authority). The menu is extensive and if you can even pick and choose fresh seafood with your pick of sides. All in all a very good option for cajun food on this side of time.

Ive been here twice and both experience were horrible. The food is very greasy and not authethic. I truly think some may like it but when you have had really good food that is Cajun Style. (Dodies) You will not like this place.

Passable cajun approximations at somewhat above-​average prices. That about says it all. The décor is anonymous with a slight cajun theme. The patio is a complete afterthought consisting of bare concrete and some steel mesh patio tables and chairs. There are numerous LCD’s here if you want to catch a game while waiting for your food. Or to give you some excitement while eating. You’ll need it.
You order your meals here at a counter and they bring the food out when ready. If you sit at the bar, however, a waitress will take your order and bring it out to you like you are at a real restaurant. This confuses and confounds me. Needless to say I frequently make it a point to drink at the bar when I am here.
The food was fairly average. I am uncertain how it is possible to make gumbo taste bland, but mission accomplished. The shrimp was okay, but the sauce was nothing to write home about. My wife does not like the fried pickles, but in all fairness she is tough to please in that category. My son got the catfish the last time we were here and it kept him quite happy. Maybe I should have gotten the catfish
All around a perfectly average experience, if that’s what your looking for.

Everything here was very unexpected. I was expecting a sit-​down restaurant with expensive not very authentic Cajun food. I still went, but the restaurant as a whole surprised me. It is actually order-​at-​the-​counter style with half sized portions of stuff, and the food is pretty tasty for being prepared at a chain restaurant. There are not any lunch specials, but you can easily fill up on $ 10 a head.
The only complaint with the food is the slightly lukewarm temperature, and that is to be expected as I am sure the sauces are just sitting in a heating back, and the seafood is probably pre-​cooked and ready to be served.
The seafood gumbo has a thin stock, but the flavors are there, and there is a ton of seafood in the mix. Not too bad. The jambalaya is probably pretty killer when it is actually piping hot and fresh. It is zippy, and it has plenty of sausage and shrimp to go around. The real winner is the shrimp etouffe. The small order is definitely big enough for a meal, and affordable at $ 7. It comes with a mound of dirty rice and really heavy roux. The dirty rice definitely tastes pretty authentic – I think they actually use chicken liver in it! The roux had that unappealing film, but it did not actually bother me since it was delicious. I actually even enjoyed the fact that the roux was not completely «blended» because I could taste the butter – this is normally not a good thing.
Boudreaux is definitely a place to bring a big group that wants to dine on some quick Cajun cookin’. This joint is not all that Louisiana, but it does the job in a fashion that definitely caters to the «quick and easy» dining crowd.

I’d go as far as an OK, maybe not quite an A-​OK, but decent enough.
Thuy and I were in the area, and were actually planning to hit one of the other (numerous) places in the bonanza of eateries in this area. But then we spot Boudreaux’s and think, «Well we really have not had decent Cajun in a while, and the place we were going to go also has a location closer to home (which we now plan to hit Saturday), so let’s give Boudreaux’s a try.»
First off, this is another one of those «order at the counter, they give you a number, and then they drop the food at your table» sort of places. This seems to be a growing trend and I’m not sure I like it (mostly when it comes to getting another adult beverage — next time I sit at the bar).
I like how there are pictures of the food as you queue for the ordering process. These pictures actually teased us into an appetizer, namely the seafood fondue. If you like cheese, this is the dish for you. It was a big bowl of cheese, with lots of good stuff below; shrimp, crawfish, sausage, vegetables, and a few more tasty, yet mysterious, morsels. It was served with several pieces of thick bread. Very yummy.
Thuy and I opted to split a main and go for the Cajun Combo, which lets you choose between the etoufee and the creole (we went etoufee) and a ½ order of anything from the «Fresh Seafood» section. We almost went fried oysters, but then notice the blackened oysters option. This struck me as risky, be we decide to live on the edge and give it a try.
So the etoufee was OK. Nothing that had me going, «OMG we have to come back to eat more of this!», but solid enough that we enjoyed it. The blackened oysters were another story. We actually liked them. They were not over-​cooked, nor were they over-​seasoned. That being said, I think we would have liked the fried better, but it was nice to try something different.
The one thing we did notice is that while oysters appear on the menu, oysters on the half-​shell did not. I suspect this means the oysters, while «fresh» are also packaged, not shucked in the restaurant. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.
Bottom line is that we enjoyed our meal, but it was not amazing enough to go out of our way to come back.

Pretty good experience, not amazing but enjoyable.
We got a margarita, which was good. Very tart, but I like it that way.
We got the fried calamari to start with. They were fried to perfection, but could have used a little more seasoning (nit picking a bit).
Then we got a seafood platter. It was all pretty good, but nothing amazing.

Having been raised on the real stuff when I was little, most Cajun places outside Louisiana just don’t cut it. Tim’s Cajun Kitchen in Huntsville, AL, and Alligator Café in Dallas are my top two «real deal outside LA» Cajun restaurants. Boudreaux’s might be a third. Atmosphere is not quite as authentic in feel as the other two places – a little more polish than Alligator Café, but also none of Razoo’s campiness, which I hate.
Alligator, blackened = yum. I thought the cocktail sauce was perfectly fine, but it was too spicy for my best friend. I skipped the fries and picked Cajun corn as my side for the lunch special. Not my favorite version of maque choux, but still good. The seafood fondue appetizer was delicious (don’t be put off by the broccoli – broccoli & cheese is a winning combo), with a lot of crawfish & stuff. Just not enough bread for dipping/​sopping up the cheese at the bottom of the dish.
Overall, I’d go back again. I’d like to see how their étouffée and gumbo hold up.

So my wife and I decided to try this place instead of going to one of our usual places. I thought the atmosphere was nice along with the price and menu.
You have to place your order before you take your seat. We were not sure what we wanted, so the cashier suggested that we take a menu and have a seat to look it over. I thought this was a nice touch for us and anyone in line behind us. (No one was there, just thinking of others.)
We took a seat reviewed the menu and made our selections. My wife had the Seafood Platter, while I decided to give the Cajun Combo a shot.
The Seafood Platter is a little of everything; fried shrimp, crawfish, catfish and stuffed shrimp, along with fries. She found most things pretty tasty, the highlight being the crawfish and catfish! However, the stuffed shrimp was definitely too much if you do not like HOT!
The Cajun Combo gives you the option of selecting shrimp or crawfish, creole or étouffée along with a half order of a seafood choice. I went for the shrimp étouffée with catfish on a bed of fries. (Two filets to be specific.) FYI, etoufee is more of a gravy, where as creole is more of a tomato based sauce. I really enoyed the shrimp étouffée. I will be going back to this restaurant for the shrimp étouffée.
Overall, this was good dining experience. A great place to share a meal with the family or friends. The plates are packed with food. We actually did not finish all of our food. I think we will share a meal the next time that we go. And go again, we definitely will.
My name is Dometrius and I don’t live to eat… but maybe I should!

I love the simplicity of this place not to mention they offer great tasting seafood dishes with fair prices. Boudreaux also offers 10% or 20% (forgot) discount on sundays if you bring your church’s bulletin. Portions are pretty good and it is definitely worth the money you spend.

Service — 3 Stars
Food — 3 Stars
Boudin Balls (boo-​dan bawls) — 5 Stars
Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad — 5 Stars
Has New Orleans (nu oilyuns) come to Arlington? Not exactly, mon cher, but closer than the 8 ½ hour drive to get the real thing.
Wife, daughter and I went to Highlands Saturday afternoon, without a particular destination to eat, and with all the Longhorns and Cornhuckers wandering around before the Big 12 Championship game in Jerry’s Joint, we opted for the less crowded back on the Highlands food-​courts-​a-​plenty. Boudreaux Cajun wasn’t as crowded at 2:00 p.m., so we tried them.
Interior has some nicely Cajun cutsie decorations. It is an order at the counter, get a number and sit kind of place. Unfamiliar as we were to the menu, (a picture of which I have thoughtfully supplied) the super friendly young lady behind the counter even offered us a taste of the etoufee (eh too fay) to help us decide on our choices.
My daughter wanted to try the Boudin Balls (see pronunciation above), which is really «Hot, spicy pork mixed with onions, cooked rice, herbs, and stuffed in sausage casing», because she’d read that displaced Cajun types (French Arcadians from Canada transported to Louisiana, to the uninformed) were always in a sweat to find some good Boudin. Well, I can’t testify as to how authentic this stuff is, but I can say I think its authentically good-​tasting. Especially dipped in the spicy ranch-​style dressing it came with. It cost $ 5.95 for an order of six or about a Buck a Ball.
Unfortunately, my wife’s Seafood Combo (2 items from the Fresh Fish List with a side item — $ 13.95, she chose the fried shrimp and the Blackened Catfish with Dirty Rice), did not enthrall as much as the Boudin Ball. (ouch! there goes my poetic license) The Blackened Catfish was black but had no discernable spiciness. I mean, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? The dirty rice as a little bland, too. The Fried Shrimp was nicely done though.
My daughter, who had been successfully seduced by the free taste of the étouffée, had the Combo Etoufee ($ 12.95) which was the shrimp and the crawfish etoufees surrounding a bed of white rice. She liked them both, and the roux (roo) was slightly sweet and nicely thick.
Me, I ordered a nonCajun sounding Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad ($ 9.95) because it had ‘Pecan’ in the name, which is usually good enough for me. In addition, it had sweet Romaine lettuce, mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, Granny Smith Apples, Bleu Cheese crumbles, spicy pecans in a honey-​lime vinagrette. On top of this mess they put a pecan-​crusted chicken breast. It was tart and sweet and spicy and crunchy all at once. It was about the best-​est salad I’ve had in quite a while and certainly worthy of a 5 Star rating.
So in summary, we agreed the food was pretty good, but the Cajun-​ity of the place was nothing like Louisiana. Also, the amounts served on the full platters were enormous, so you might want to consider the half orders if you’re not real hungry. It was a close vote, but Boudreaux will have to put up some more spiciness to claim that 4 Star rating from us.

First and foremost, BOurdreaux’s is in the vast wasteland of The Highlands. So many choices! My brother and I went on a mission for Chueys a few weeks back (This former Austinite needed to get her queso on), but the wait list was atrocious. So, we headed over to Boudreaux’s — was it like a little slice of Louisiana heaven? Heck no– it’s in the Highlands. It was however, good, fast and affordable. I had the gumbo and fried pickles (G-d’s special gift to each of us), and my brother had the Shrimp Gumbo. Both were served quickly, perfect sized lunch portions and well done. The manager was super friendly, as were the girls at the counter.
Will I go back? Probably.

I have been here twice and haven’t left here hungry yet. Their portions are huge and I have shared it with my friend every time. The last time I got food here, I ordered the Cajun Combo with Crawfish Étouffée and Fried Crawfish. Both were quite tasty. For appetizers we ordered Boudin balls and fried alligators. The balls were a little bland but the kicked up ranch sauce helped it out immensely. The fried alligators were normal, nothing different or special.
The atmosphere is casual and laid back. I haven’t seen this place busy at all so you shouldn’t have trouble finding a place to sit or wait long for your food. I wished they cleared out our dishes earlier but other than that I was happy as a clam.

Today was the first night of my vacation in Texas. My cousins, sister and I were starving to death but didn’t know exactly what we wanted. Driving around, we somehow ran into this place. The inside was very nice and it gave us all a fun vibe. The girl taking my order was very helpful asking me and telling me about the plates I was thinking about getting. I finally settled on an order of fried alligator with a side of fries. I know it may sound weird but surprisingly it was good. I loved it. Everything has spices added to it. I would definitely come here again.

Boudreaux’s is fairly decent food in an overly restaurant crowded Arlington Highlands.
Tonight we had a plentiful half order of the Shrimp Creole, a half order of the Shrimp Étouffée, and a couple pieces of fried catfish.
The orders were $ 8.95 and plenty enough food for one person. The étouffée was pretty good, nice and sweet. The creole was a bit boring, neither spicy nor sweet, just there. The shrimp in both weren’t bad, nothing to write home about though. And the catfish… well, I’ve had better. It was just ok.
The highlights of the meal were the bread that came with the meal, the cole slaw that came with the catfish and the fact that you didn’t have to have a waiter.
The downsides were the prices (a bit high, I thought), waiting 12 minutes for bread pudding to come out and then when I asked about it they microwaved it and it was ready in 1 minute, and no one cleaning up our plates when we sat there finished with dinner for 30 minutes. How hard is it to send someone around and pick up plates? Lesser restaurants do that. And the bread pudding wasn’t even that great, at least not worth the $ 5.
There are probably better hole-​in-​the-​wall cajun joints (not sure where, but I bet there are), but if you want the glitz and glamor of something in the Highlands, this is your cajun joint. Though, if I want cajun food again, I’m not sure I wouldn’t go to Pappadeux.
Oh, and their house hot sauce is hot. You have been warned.

I grew up in Louisiana and have been on a lifelong quest to find people that know how to cook cajun food the right way in the DFW area. Katrina has helped to blow a few good people our way recently. Let me first say that since it’s crawfish season, this particular review will be devoted primarily to that.
I can’t say enough good things about Boudreaux’s. Even though they lack table service and they seem to be a franchise, they do up the authenticity fairly good, but Razzoo’s does a better job at that. In the past two weeks I’ve tried Razzoo’s, Pappadeaux’s, and Ocean Rock as well and this place blows the rest away! Their crawfish come in an oyster bucket and I think I was shorted on what should have been 2 lbs. I also think I deserved at least two potatoes and two ears of corn but only got one of each… and the potato was tiny.
But seriously, they did a fantastic job with the crawfish. I give them high marks on the purging process… which is one of the most important steps. They also did a great job with the spices. Most of the places over here don’t take the time to purge them properly and they over-​spice them by throwing the dry boil mix all over the outside. Folks here think you can spice food to the max and call it cajun.
They also had a good distribution of sizes with most of them in the medium to small range with just enough of the big boys mixed in to get some much-​sought-​after claw meat. They had plenty of paper napkins too and I think it’s a huge mistake to have cloth napkins… they’re no help at all. They also already had my sauces of choice on the table… ketchup with tabasco on top… although my dad would have to ask for worchestershire and A-​1 steak sauce too. The atmosphere was great too with Zydeco music playing in the background and frozen concoctions to help you hang on… hurricanes that is.
In addition to the crawfish, we ordered an appetizer of a dozen boiled shrimp and I ate most of them because they freakin’ rocked! I also ate half of my wife’s shrimp creole because I don’t let seafood go to waste. We stopped before ordering the bread pudding, so I wouldn’t roll out the door.
I’m already planning my next trip there so I can journey through the rest of the menu.