Bayou Cajun Seafood & Crawfish

There’s a reason why this place is rated 2.5 out of 5 on Unilocal and almost empty on Sunday night. First, it was not Cajun it was ran by Vietnamese. Secondly, the food they served is horrible. I was paying $ 20 for Cajun combo and they served me boiled cooked FROZEN crawfish (the same one you would find in a Chinese buffet at $ 1 a plate)! I’ve been eating crawfish my whole life and I’ve never paid this much for cooked frozen crawfish. It’s ridiculous. I would suggest anyone interested in Cajun seafood avoiding this place.

I would like to do better with this review but I really can’t. I think it is because of the kitchen. or maybe the size of the kitchen.
The food was good. I had the bayou combo #1 with the garlic sauce, medium heat. Lots of crawfish, assorted shrimp (could have had more shrimp) sausage (pretty tasty) with corn and potato. I liked the flavor, food was hot. my wife had the fried catfish. She was supposed to have the fried catfish appetizer but they brought her the meal. Also it is supposed to come with cocktail sauce but we had to ask for the cocktail sauce. it came with tartar sauce. An overlook but… you remember these things. I tried the catfish and it wasn’t bad. The breading didn’t overwhelm the fish.
one person ordered the calamari po’boy and he didn’t have complaints about it. Good, lots of calamari, and he said it was pretty good. the other 2 in the group also got the bayou combo #1 with a side of gumbo to share between them. both had no complaints about the food.
The waitresses were there, filling glasses, getting drinks, asking if we needed things. Very helpful.
The problem is how they brought out the food. I think this was because of the size of the kitchen maybe. We were a party of 6 but the place wasn’t that busy.
2 people got served, then the rest waited… and waited… couple more got served, then the rest waited and waited… finally got all of us served… we did have to ask for the fried macaroni and cheese balls. I think they forgot that we had ordered that too. if the first people served would have waited until everyone was served, they would have had a cold meal. We told them to get going and eat while it was hot. The last person served actually thought they had forgot about her. The waitress said it was coming.
At least they did serve it while it was hot. if they would have served it all at once when everything was done, the first groups probably would have had a very cold meal. That would have been way worse.
The wait staff was really nice. they tried really hard and kept us informed on what was going on. Food was good… but I can’t give it more than a 3 because how it was served and the little gotchas.
they have to get better in the kitchen with the coordination of getting everything out at once. And with everything hot and ready to eat.

I am so fed up with restaurants opening in advertising Cajun food when all they know how to do is make hot food with shrimp or crawfish. I had crawfish etufee which was no more than a gumbo with crawfish. There was no roué at all it was a horrible Dish. If you are looking for Cajun food, do not go here.

It’s called «Bayou Cajun», but they had no Old Bay, melted butter, nor any other fixins’ that are popular with Cajun Crawfish Boils. So why the 4-​stars? Because the crawfish, shrimp, and snow crab legs were huge and absolutely delicious! I do not know how the Asian chef seasoned everything, but he did a fabulous job. I ate my 2lbs, and my wife’s. She polished off all the crab legs and shrimp.
Nina and Sarah were our servers, and they kept our drinks full, and kept an eye towards our table. They were always ready to take care of us, by were not obtrusive at all.
The service, portions, and delicious seasoning have earned our business again! I can’t wait to return.

Looking at the previous reviews I don’t know whether I’m doing justice to the whole ratings thingy or not. I didn’t know how the restaurant was when I walked in and I was happy eating what I ate. We had a gumbo which was light and fresh and then we ordered a boiled seafood platter that came with 3 crabs, lot of shrimp, potatoes and corn. We didn’t take the sausage. The sauce was lip smacking good, so much so that we ordered a side of white rice to accompany the sauce. We also took the Shrimp Étouffée, which was not exactly the Louisiana style, but was tasty enough.
Will go again for the taste, and yeah I didn’t mind the display for the Phở either. Maybe I’ll try that next time.

Woot Woot! Celebrating my girl Courtney’s bday and she wanted crab legs. WHAT! Food was off the chain My mouth still has a little hum going on from the shabang crab legs SO GOOD! This is our second visit will be back. Thank you for the great food and service Bayou

I thought I’d try this place because of the name. I am Cajun as the day is long. I should have taken my cue really when at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday night there was only one other person that appeared to be a customer in the place. They had a sign about a live band on Friday’s starting at 7p.m. so hey, maybe the crowd comes later.
I took a chance. I wish I wouldn’t have. Ordered fried oysters for an appetizer, not good, 7 rubbery, greasy oysters came out. not tasty at all.
My wife got the Shrimp Po Boy, I got a Fried Crawfish Po Boy. Our server asked what kind of sauce we would like, tarter or cocktail. I asked about remoulade, the server looked at me like I was from another planet, I took the cocktail. Not a wise choice, mixing my own Catsup and Tabassco would have been far superior. Both sandwichs were a lot of bread, a lot of shredded lettuce and short on the seafood. As I said, I was willing to take a chance, I should have un away quickly as soon as I walked in. My comment to you, RUN away, do not bother if you really want a good Cajun experience.

Disappointing. Two stars because the first time I’d ordered crawfish to go, it was delicious. Got the bayou sauce, a mixture of creamy garlic, parmesan and spices. This was maybe 6 months ago. Just had some tonight. Ordered crawfish with bayou sauce to go and got home, it was a dry salty rub. No sauce whatsoever. My husband ate one and couldn’t eat anymore because it was super salty and dry. I ate the rest because I’ve been craving crawfish for weeks and can’t waste $ 14 by throwing it all away. It was super salty. Either they messed the order up or they got a new owner or chef and messed up a good thing. Either way, it makes me not want to go there anymore, but it’s the closest crawfish joint to me. *cries*

Disappointing.
Service was slow, there was apparently not a bartender available to mix one of the advertised drinks. Took nearly an hour for the order to arrive after being placed. Server was polite and kept my iced tea filled, at least.
Two different boiled platters ordered, one came with 3 crabs, butt two of the crabs had virtually no meat inside. Sausage on each order was approximately 2 inches long; literally a two bite sausage. One half of a red potato, and one ‘cobette’ of corn. Red beans and rice were mostly flavorless. Shrimp were well prepared, as were the crawfish.
I likely won’t be back.

Ordered the Louisiana shrimp dish. Horrible
It tasted like black pepper and shitty shrimp

If I could put no star for review, I would.
The experience was horrible. We bought 4lbs crawfish and most are not fresh at all and even smelly. We explained this situation to the servant and didn’t get any answers from the restaurant management.
I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant especially during crawfish off-​season.

This review is based on the opinions of my significant other, who claims to be a crawfish connoisseur. First of all, she’s Vietnamese, and they don’t mess around when it comes to eating some quality crawfish. We have been to many buffets and restaurants serving crawfish in Jacksonville, and the best one so far is Boiling Crawfish on Normandy Blvd on the west side of town. Unfortunately, we live on Southside, and we wanted to find a crawfish restaurant closer to where we live, so we decided to give this restaurant a try. What a big mistake!
We ordered the Bayou Combo #2 and a Bahama Mama for drink. The drink was mediocre and a bit weak, but the server was nice enough to bring us another shot of rum to add to it. It took about 20 to 25 minutes for the food to come out. Our first impression was that the sizes of the crawfishes were a little bit small compared to other restaurants that we’ve been to. My wife tried the crawfishes first, and she immediately spat it out. The crawfishes were not properly washed, and there were still mud on the belly and legs of the crawfishes. It gave the crawfishes a weird taste, and it made it inedible for her. She said it tasted like «mud and dead fish.» We complained to the server, and the server went to speak to the chef. The chef said that the crawfishes were washed, and they were supposed to be that way. I suggested to her to try another piece of crawfish; she did, and she spat that one out, too. We inspected all of the crawfishes, and they all had mud on and dirt on the ventral side. We ended up leaving most of the crawfishes on the plate. What a waste.
The snow crabs were alright, but our mood was already spoiled by the dirty crawfishes. The corn and potato were good as well, but that’s not what we came here to eat.
Pros:
Good service
Good cajun sauce
Good potatoes and corn
Cons:
Dirty crawfishes with weird taste (big no no)
Sizes of crawfishes were small
Mediocre snow crab
Not so tasty Bahama Mama
Next time we want some seafood, we’ll be sure to drive our happy butts to the Westside and avoid this place like the plague.

This place isn’t much too look at and you can tell they are still trying to find their groove but the food that I had was good.
I hope to see some improvement in there service in the future b/​c the experience I had the other night was subpar.
A few key points…
— one of the 2 items I ordered was no longer available but I didn’t find that out until a good 25 minutes after I placed my order.
— my server, while nice enough, would sit down across from me at my booth while I was eating whenever he came to check on me. .I’m sorry but this is not ok unless I know you personally.
Their saving grace in this review is the flavorful food. That’s it.

Okay. To all the Unilocalers crying about the dumbest things, I must say you are ungrateful. The number one combination gives you about six shrimp, 20 crawfish, half a corn, half of a sausage link and one small potato for $ 14.99. It’s available in different sauces, I picked the «shabam» as it is oil based as opposed to cream. Then you can order mild, spicy, extra spicy, in which I got it spicy. The mud bugs were a decent size! The flavors were spot on. The value is there! I read about how it is run by Asians it can’t be good. That’s hog wash. I also read because they put a type of honey mustard on their Shrimp po boy it’s blasphemy. My friend ordered it and loved it. It’s half the price than in New Orleans. Having just ate at Prejeans and Willies (some of the best food in Louisiana) I must say the flavors here are spot on. The restaurant décor and lighting suck. Terribly. But the food is good and I’ll make this a regular stop in my rotation. The shopping complex it’s in sucks, but that’s beach and St. John’s for Ya! Some of my fellow Unilocalers truly suck. Thank God it’s all just a matter of opinion. Go here and order the number one combo shabam spicy and thank me later.

I remember bookmarking Bayou Cajun Seafood immediately after seeing a picture of that # 1 combo. I had to check them out. I might have set my expectations unrealistically high based on a picture of crawfish smothered in Cajun sauce.
Disclaimer: I am not being «ignant» but I did not expect a Cajun restaurant to be run by Asians. I walked up to the storefront peered through the glass and had to do a double take to make sure I got the address right. It didn’t help that there was a sign in the window saying now serving phò. I thought that was funny.
Our server was patient and polite as I must have taken 15 minutes to make a decision on what to order. I eventually decided on what I’ve seen in 90% of the pictures. A combo with crawfish, potato, sausage, shrimp and corn. The give you the option to choose the sauce/​flavor and I went with the spicy Cajun.
I’m no expert in Cajun cuisine but I did like my meal. The shrimp did not lack seasoning/​flavor. The Spicy was spicy it will make your eyes tear up a little. Wished the crawfish was a little juicier. Lack of juice normally means the crawfish has been sitting for a while.
I also had gumbo and my friend Aaron B. who is a Louisiana native says it wasn’t authentic. He was not impressed but he knows Cajun food. As for my under-​exposed palette it was good enough eating.

Well something different was on the menu for tonight. We haven’t had crawfish in a while so. We arrived tonight and were just about the only folks in the place. Good or bad who knows but they won’t run out of food. It ended up being a good thing. We had great service by a young lady that was new to the service industry. Bless her heart she tried to be attentive and she was tiring too hard. It was good over all. The food we chose was 1lb of crawfish and some shrimp and sausage along with your normal potato and corn. I got mine spicy and the wife went with butter garlic. Is it me or is it normally Garlic butter? The crawfish were cooked well and easily shucked as were the shrimp. The sign of well cooked shellfish is the ease in which it is removed from it’s shell. The seasonings were also good mine had a good kick and you could taste all the flavors. Not just slathered with hot sauce and some butter. The butter garlic was just that a lot of butter n garlic with a bunch of Italian seasonings thrown in. I all We will return and maybe even eat something else on the menu. Probably not I really like me some mudbugs.

We are some Cajun wanna be’s and truly lovers of crawfishes! This was a great little place to have a nice Cajun boil. Decent sized crawfish and shrimp cooked well, not overdone. The corn was yummy and sweet also not over cooked. The seasoning were very good, Honey’s was HOT as ordered and mine was very tasty. Service was very good, our server was very familiar with the menu and cuisine. She was also very attentive. We will certainly come back for more.

I loved this down to earth restaurant. If you’re looking for fancy this is not the place for you, but if you’re looking to have a delicious Cajun seafood boil and get your hands messy, then this is definitely the place for you.
I split the crawfish, shrimp, snow crab legs, sausage and corn combo with Bayou spice. It was absolutely delicious!!! My only negative was that we did not have wet wipes, but there were plenty of paper towels.
All in all, we had a great time eating and laughing, and in the end this is really what it’s all about.

We went to Bayou Cajun the other night with a group of friends, and boy was it goood!
From the time we entered to the time we left everyone of us agreed that the food, service and atmosphere was great! :-)
I had split the combo #2 with a friend, which came with snow crab legs, potatoes, corn, andouille sausage, crawfish and shrimp. We chose the the bayou seasoning with the mild heat and it came out perfect!
The service was very friendly and attentive and was always more then willing to accommodate any requests from our large party! The food was so good, that I even got an extra pound of crawfish to take home with me!
I will most definitely keep Bayou Cajun on my list of favorites in Jax! It goes with out saying never judge a restaurant by its exterior, and this place just proves that! Happy eating:-).

Finally! A crawfish and seafood joint closer to home! Yay!
I came here with another friend tonight – we were both equally impressed by the friendliness and attentiveness of the staff and by the bathrooms. (The bathrooms were very nicely decorated, were clean, and smelled super nice.)
For the food:
My friend ordered a salad with grilled chicken and no dressing, and I got 3 lbs of crawfish. I ordered 3 different flavors: plain (steamed only) for my friend to try, the shabang, and bayou seasoning (recommended by our server.) It was his first time eating crawfish and he seemed to like it. I’m really glad I went with our server’s recommendation and got the bayou seasoning… the shabang was good, but that bayou seasoning is phenomenal. I couldn’t get enough of it! And some of those mud bugs were ginormous!
I ordered some to-​go for DH with the bayou seasoning, and he really enjoyed it as well. We both agree that the bayou seasoning is the best flavor we’ve tasted so far out of all the crawfish joints.
Bayou Cajun is now my go-​to for crawfish and I will definitely be back whenever I get a hankering. 5 stars for food, service, quality, and value.