Crawfish Fusion

We tried this place about a month or two ago and I thought it was really good. We had fresh oysters, the étouffée, garlic noodles, and fried oysters which were all yummy. We were given the fried oysters on the house because the kitchen was backed up which was really sweet of them. Service was attentive too. Welcoming atmosphere once we walked in

Ambience — Nice, modern interior. Family friendly. Not too packed during weekend lunch. Some seating outside if you dig the sights and sounds of downtown Palo Alto. Currently a little understaffed, but had friends fly service nonetheless.
Food
Salt and Pepper Calamari — crispy in consistency and not overly salted. Served with a tangy sauce and loaded with spring onions. Good stuff.
Clam Chowder — flavorful and thick in consistency — I personally prefer large chunks of Clam but didn’t get that, sadly!
Dungeness Crab — they charge per crab (as opposed to per pound). Meaty crab that served four — the flesh was sweet and fresh and was well paired with butter garlic sauce.
Shrimp — freshly sweet shrimp served in cajun sauce. Highly recommend pairing this with Cajun sauce — it was flavorful and complimented the shrimp’s sweet flavor. I recommend this stuff!
Garlic Noodles — pretty good. Pair this with the seafood sauces for maximum yum!

Crawfish Fusion is one of the newest additions to downtown Palo Alto and, although the time of fusion seafood and crawfish boils seems to have passed after the Boiling Crab phase, Crawfish Fusion is a welcome seafood-​centric addition to downtown.
The décor is clean and modern and the dark wood tables are surrounded by six flat screens playing sports. We arrived at lunch and found a few tables filled with patrons. Interestingly, when we first arrived at opening time, the entry door was locked so we had to return 15 minutes later.
The menu, despite expecations of being similar to Boiling Crab, is actually much more extensive and interesting. While there are seafood and crawfish boils, there are also several house specialties featuring cajun classics such as étouffée and gumbo and several deep fried seafood basket combinations with oysters, fish, and shrimp alongside fries. The menu is rounded out by appetizers (raw oysters, salads), starches (garlic noodles and fried rices) and desserts.
Service, while friendly, is a touch inexperienced but better manned at dinner. Waits for putting in orders, being and receiving the bill are longer than expected while the staff try to juggle busing orders and greeting newcomers. Not entirely unexpected with a new business and they probably need time to work the kinks out. Our order:
Gumbo — $ 15. A nice size entrée of crawfish, shrimp, and celery in a gumbo stew was served with a side of white rice. It was served hot and the flavors were tasty and the seafood was tender and not overcooked. I enjoyed the gumbo and had been tempted to order the similar seafood gumbo ($ 26) that was cooked the same way but included crab meat. Overall, happy with my choice.
Cajun Garlic Noodles — $ 16. They have several options for garlic noodles and this is where the fusion comes in. The garlic noodles are very similar to several Vietnamese restaurants (Thanh Long, Crustacean, PPQ Dungeness, Tamarine, Xanh), but you have a choice of chicken, shrimp, or cajun style like I chose. The cajun version included stir fried small crawfish and slices of a delicious and slightly spicy sausage. The garlic noodles were great with plentiful garlic but I would have liked more sausage and crawfish. Another note is that this entrée came out much later than the gumbo.
Beignets — $ 6. After enjoying and finishing both entrees, we decided to go for their dessert option. I’ve had a few beignets in the Bay Area (most recently at the Bywater, David Kinch’s New Orleans inspired South Bay restaurant) so I was looking forward to trying some more. The dessert came out quickly and was nicely served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Lots of powdered sugar covered the four freshly fried beignets. They were a bit dense (like a donut) but still fresh and delicious. The ice cream was a nice touch too.
Overall, we had a great meal at Crawfish Fusion. Initially, I was expecting it to be Boiling Crab copycat, but the menu is much more and the execution is solid. The house specialties, deep fried seafood options, and many appetizers make this a place you could return to again and again.
If I had any input, it’s that the service and kitchen are still ramping up. However, we liked the food, found all entrees served hot, and again are happy for a Cajun seafood option (especially over Nola) in downtown PA.
Personally, I want to come back to try the deep fried seafood baskets, some of the raw oysters, and some more cajun classics.
Crawfish Fusion accepts credit cards, including American Express.

Amazing Cajun house garlic noodle! This is on the heavier side (they’re definitely not shy with the butter) but well worth it as a cheat meal :)
Étouffée was delicious and full of flavor. The only disappointment was the bacon garlic Brussels sprouts.
Neither of these dishes were «lookers» (not that it looked bad!) but were downright delicious!
Also ask for their Cajun hot sauce on the side to add to your food if you like spicy!
Entrees run from about $ 18 – 30, a bit pricey for the modest amount of seafood you get, but that’s to be expected in downtown Palo Alto.
Service was very nice, though I can definitely see it being slow on a busier night.

Tried this place a few weeks ago and while the date was great and the food was pretty swell, the service was a bit lack luster.
I think we had the cajun garlic noodles and they were pretty tasty, the waitress was nice and honest in that we would get a pretty good portion each by splitting the entrée. After we received our food however the waitstaff didn’t come back for quite sometime, from what I recall. And it was a different person each time, I’m not sure if they were closing shop or what but I never saw the same waiter/​ess twice.
Other than that I feel like I have quite an inadequate experience and if we stayed longer, or dabbled in a bit more food, I could give this place a better/​more accurate score.
All in all, I’ll probably come back again-​their lunch seems tempting and I do work in Palo Alto.

Wasnt the worst wasnt the best, ill prefer to drive to San Jose to get boiling crab. The shrimp had a good taste but it was a little overwhelming with a soy sauce taste.

When I first heard of this place, I was thinking it was like Boiling Crab but it is higher end. It’s much more than an high end Boiling Crab with a lot more selection. They even have gloves for eating crab so it is less messy.
We had the garlic noodles, Dungeness Crab, and Gumbo. All were pretty good but the garlic noodles were the best and close to the best I’ve had. The Gumbo really had a kick but it was good. While I did not like the crab as much– it might be that I am use to the Boiling Crab sauce.
The service was spectacular and the food was good. I would come back to try some of the other dishes. We definitely recommend the House Garlic Noodles.

Amazing Sea bass and Calamari. Taste and beautiful presentation.
Sea bass was uniquely served wrapped in thin slices of seasoned potato. Perfectly cooked!
Next trip I’ll have a very hard time trying something new.
Wine list not impressive but a beer might go better anyway.
Service was attentive and pleasant but a little young and unrefined.
Could use some training in table setting and wine pouring but overall a great meal out and a definite repeater.

Terrific food and friendly service. Good atmosphere and ok wine list. Loved the «seafood in heaven» entrée and the tuna appetizer.

The ambiance was really nice. However, the service was just so so because there was only one waitress available. Also, I came here for the shrimp and while the shrimp were bigger than they are at other locations that serve shellfish by the pound, it just didn’t compare in terms of taste.

Tried this place out on a Saturday night. I ordered the cajun garlic noodle, which was very tasty. The noodles were well-​seasoned and flavorful, and there was a generous enough amount of crab and sausage. A bit on the heavy side but that’s to be expected given the cuisine.
The service was pretty rough in some ways and great in others. I went on a Saturday night as a party of four. We were seated immediately, but service was quite slow, taking over an hour for us to receive all our dishes. It was also inconsistent, as the couple at the table next to us received their food first despite arriving later and ordering the same dish as a member of our party.
However, the manager’s response was a shining star, as he apologized profusely and did everything he could to make it right. His response more than made up for the rest of the night, and demonstrated that he has the customer in mind first. I will be happy to return again at some point.

Food was prepared well. That’s why they’re getting 3 stars. It wasn’t superb but it was good enough. Plus, they have a better assortment of food than other crawfish places. Not everything is fried or a boil. It’s just a fancier crawfish joint located in downtown Palo Alto than the others so is that suppose to justify their prices? I suppose. I’ve had better boils at other crawfish joints though. Maybe I’ll stick to the other items on the menu if I ever return.
Service was just very slow. The food came out really slow. Maybe it was bc of the party of 40 upstairs?! Regardless, they should’ve prepared for it accordingly since reservations are made ahead of time. Fortunately, we had great company with us so we had wonderful conversations while waiting for our food to arrive at the table. The hunger from smelling everyone else’s food grew the longer we waited.

For a place on University, the ambience of the restaurant definitely fit but the food was not as up to par as I had hoped.
Looking at past reviews, I decided to go with the shrimp dish (a pound) with the regular house sauce. This particular meal, I was not as hungry so my boyfriend and I shared the pound. We went with medium spice which was even too much for me. Usually I eat pretty spicy levels but this house spice was especially jarring. I loved the fresh garlic on the shrimp and the shrimps themselves were larger and higher quality than places like Boiling Crab.
If you are not looking to travel far out of PA for seafood, Crawfish Fusion is not a bad option– just a bit on the expensive side. I might be back to try their garlic noodles as they seem to be quite popular but only if I have a sudden craving for seafood.

TL;DR: Food: 5 stars, service: 3 – 4 stars, rounding up because overall it was a great dinner, and they’re still really new, so I’m sure they’ll work out the service kinks soon.
I came here on Valentine’s day in a party of 4, with 7 pm reservations. We were seated right away. Now, it’s important to mention that the other 3 members of my party had all lived in New Orleans for 10 years, so I was particularly interested in what they would think of the food here. Long story short: they loved it!
We shared:
–Appetizer–
BAKED LAURA CHENEL GOAT CHEESE: Soft, warm goat cheese with a light pesto tomato sauce, served with toasted bread. Slightly annoying: even though we were clear when we ordered that we would be sharing all the dishes, they only brought out two pieces of bread, and then we had to wait ~5 min for more to come out once we pointed out that we needed 4 pieces. The dish was good, but the other dishes were much better.
–Entrees–
CRAWFISH ETOUFFEE: This one got a big thumbs up from the New Orleans crowd, though they did think that it was a little skimpy on the crawfish. I enjoyed it immensely!
MUSSELS (medium spice, lemon pepper sauce): When this came out, we initially thought it had the wrong sauce because it was covered in so much garlic, but a closer inspection of the broth proved that it was, in fact, lemon pepper — just with tons and tons of garlic as well! Which is great, because I LOVE garlic. We ate every last piece — and even skimmed the garlic chunks out of the broth at the end.
SEAFOOD DE-​SHELLED (spicy, original sauce): Ditto with the garlic! Very spicy, but not overwhelmingly so — it was good! The scallops were my favorite part. The calamari was a little overcooked, though. We ate every solid piece of this dish (and drank lots of water along the way!). Very yummy.
CAJUN HOUSE GARLIC NOODLE: We were a little skeptical about this dish when we ordered it, but it turned out to be delicious — probably my favorite dish of the night! The noodles had a great texture, lots of garlic flavor, and the sausage and crawfish toppings were juicy and flavorful. I definitely recommend this!
–Desserts–
CREME BRULEE: Standard crème brûlée, nice and creamy. Served with blueberries, mint, and strawberries on top.
BEIGNETS: Hot, light, fluffy, and covered in powdered sugar. What more could you want from a beignet? Protip: dip them in the crème brûlée for some next-​level decadence!
Onto the service, which, as I mentioned, had some hiccups. There seemed to be a lack of coordination amongst the servers and between the servers and the kitchen. For instance, the manager randomly came out and started taking away our plates when we were only halfway through our meal (she thought we were done, but actually we were just waiting for our next dish). Then, another server cleared half our dirty entrée dishes when the dessert came out, but left half behind for a while, which was weird.
Our waiter was very concerned and apologetic that we were waiting «so long» between dishes (the appetizer came out after the étouffée, and every entrée came out at a different time). This could have been really annoying, but we actually thought it was great — since we were sharing everything, we could enjoy each dish fresh from the kitchen as it came out, rather than being overwhelmed by getting everything at once (though the appetizer still should have arrived first). Furthermore, we ordered the mussels «spicy» and the mixed seafood «medium», but the seafood was definitely much spicier than the mussels. Oh well.
However, our waiter was super super nice, and obviously happy to be there and excited about the food. His attitude made up for any hiccups in the service! And again, this place is so new — I’m sure they’ll get the timing issues down soon.
Overall, I definitely recommend this place! A great addition to University Ave.

Great new spot in Palo Alto! Love the variety on the menu. I don’t eat fish and the hubby doesn’t eat shrimp-​this plane covered us both.
Let me just say one thing specific… the fried oysters were SO so good. They had the best flavor!
I took one star away because they need to use more seasoning (salt). Other than that, this is our new spot!

I love this spot! I’ve been here two times now. The Cajun shrimp was sooooooooo good. I had the medium spice level but I think I could’ve handled the hot level.
The fried oysters and calamari are really good. But then again, anything fried is good…
I got the paella, mussels, foie gras, and scallops too. All were cooked perfectly. We were absolutely stuffed, uncomfortably so. But we couldn’t stop eating because it was good ass food.
Service was solid. The staff was super friendly and attentive. I felt like it was a great time out with my friends.

Great food — oax tail dish was to die for; Cajun crawfish, even though we ordered mild, was a bit spicy to my taste, but still good; soups — clam chowder and lobster broth — were perfect!
Staff was friendly and welcoming; they may still need to figure out a thing or two, but overall we enjoyed our dinner and will definitely be back to try other dishes.

This place was excellent but I really wonder about its future in Palo Alto. The location is great, the interior is great, the service is great, the price is fair, and most importantly, the food is great. I ordered a pound of crawfish with a their house seasoning and a medium spice and it was fantastic. I cannot wait to get it again.
The problem is I wonder if this kind of restaurant can succeed in a location with the work/​living demographic of Palo Alto. This place, at its best, is a place where you get your hands dirty and really grub on some good food. People in Palo Alto, on the other hand, are often neat, health freaks that want to be fancy, at all costs. If this describes you, get off your high-​horse and eat here. C’mon fellow techies, c’mon young Stanford students! Eat here and help this place flourish! I know I will be doing my part.

Walked by here while doing some shopping and decided to give it a go. Bit of a warning sign that a restaurant with a big grand opening sign in downtown Palo Alto had almost no one I it but I notched it up to the theme of the restaurant being a bit confusing and the décor not particularly welcoming.
We sat outside and ordered the fried seafood combo and a fried catfish basket. The wait staff was generally friendly but also seemed a bit confused, confusing the order at first and also not quite able to explain the dishes on the menu. When the food came it was pretty reasonable — the Cajun fries were actually quite good — fresh and fluffy on the inside with a decent spicy flavor. The fried seafood was reasonable but wasn’t amazing either.
Overall I probably wouldn’t come back for what we ordered and there are a few teething problems on the service to sort out.

This sit down restaurant took over where Taxim used to be. Frankly I definitely think it’s improvement in terms of good food and I think it fills out the regional cuisines we see here on University. It’s part cajun seafood, part asian that offers different flavors complementing NOLA’s and Sam’s.
Personally, I started out with a thai iced tea, which was pretty standard.
For the app, I got Salt and Pepper Calamari — wasn’t expecting much but I was pretty happy with it. Definitely a thicker batter than just a quick dredge in flower, with both strips of squid and tentacles. You have diced scallions, carrots, and jalapenos. Really a fan of the dipping sauce that comes with it. It’s a little tangy and spicy and very light. It’s a great contrast to the typical fatty aiolis and marinara you usually see.
For my entrée I had the crawfish étouffée. It’s pretty tomato based, but I think it’s true to the dish. Roux was standard, with a good amount of shrimp and crawfish in the dish.
Other options included the typical by the pound boil and some stir frys and garlic noodles. I was offered beignets at the end of it, but frankly I’m already bloated for just one person eating all of this.
I would say it’s a tiny bit pricier by the pound compared to places like Boiling Crab. I don’t know if it’s the restaurant’s choice or the Palo Alto standard is responsible. But the food was good, and I’m definitely gonna return soon to try some great flavored seafood.