Cabo Restaurant Crawfish & Seafood

UGH. So my first time here was a definite no-​go. I’m a HUGE crawfish fan so I was pretty excited to try this place out. I ordered 2lbs of the whole seasoning sauce
medium spicy crawfish. I ended up eating about 11 of them. They were all small and the sauce was extremely grody. So I had to to-​go, went to crawdaddy to order their sauce, and re-​made it at home. Never returning back to Cabo again. It was boo boo :(

This place is a hole in the wall, service is actually not do bad. They serve Crawdads without the long wait that Boiling Crab has, which is a double plus! The place isn’t what you would call nice, but hey I am just there to eat those yummy creatures (crawdads) They have other yummy Vietnamese dishes too, just in case I go with a crawdad hater. ^^

So me and my friend were craving boiling crab, and no one was opened till later. So we gave this place a shot. I must say when we first entered, were kind of like eh? are we in the right place? they serve phở, hot plates, or everything that boiling crab practically has lol.
This place doesnt get enough credit that it should. I know looks arent that great, but its exactly the same as boiling crab minus the LONG WAIT! so im not complaining. they actually have HUMONGOUS crawfish even though i dont really eat it, but my friend ordered that… but we definitely got our seafood fix for lunch cause everyone else didnt open till 3pm.
Get off the boiling crab bandwagon and give this place a try at least. I still go to boiling crab when i have family visit from another area, but me and my friends usually go here so we dont have to deal with the wait.

like others have stated, crappy inside…
i got the crawfish «all2gether» — very comparable to Boiling Crab. tasty! i loved it. it was also just as oily so I’m not sure if I’m happy about that.
grilled mussels — it was okay. wouldn’t order it again. tasted like cajun flavoring on it…
experience was good. i would recommend

Don’t let the vast emptiness and strange ambience fool you.
I’m just going to put this out there, this place has a very similar flavor to Boiling Crab’s. It isn’t AS robust in garlic flavor … but it’s very similar.
The owner was extremely nice and was very welcoming. I was a bit taken back at the typical Vietnamese restaurant décor and dingy carpet, but I reminded myself I was here for the food.
I ordered a pound of shrimp, medium spicy, «all2gether» –which is their way of saying «who shebang». The food came out in a good amount of time and the shrimp were perfectly cooked for the most part. They were easy to peel and the heads weren’t mushy like at other places. The sauce was sweet, but flavorful. And get this … they serve limes and provide plates. It’s a nice change from BC’s barbaric dining, but hey some people might be fond of that!
I feel like the pound of shrimp was a generous pound, because when I thought I was done there would still be plenty of shrimp left in my bag. Hoorah! I love mom & pop establishments with good food.
Holding on to my 4 stars until I try some more of their other stuff, but for now 4 stars to support small businesses!

Having already been to both Boiling Crabs and Crawdaddy in San Jose, my boyfriend and I wanted to venture out to other crawfish places. I looked this place up on Unilocal and decided to give it a try. Upon entering at around 9:00PM, the place was pretty empty. I don’t know about you, but coming to an empty crawfish place sounds like a great thing to me, especially with the super long waits at other restaurants.
I thought the service was great! I think it was the female owner who served us. The food came out fairly quickly. The lady also came to check in with us from time-​to-​time, and even asked us about our opinion of the food when we went to go pay.
We ordered a pound of crawfish, a pound of shrimp, some corn, and cajun fries. The crawfish & shrimp were $ 9.99/lb, corn was $ 0.75/each, and I think the cajun fries were $ 2.99. Everything came out to be about $ 26-​$ 27, not too bad.
Overall, I felt very satisfied with the food and fast service. We were able to sit down, eat, and finish in about less than an hour. We got the mild sauce and I thought it could compare to that of Boiling Crab’s. I absolutely loved the corn, and the crawfish were bigger than other places I’ve been to. Usually I would peel off the shrimp’s shell, but I didn’t have to here because it was softer. The fries weren’t the greatest, but they complemented our meal very well because they weren’t incredibly filling which I often find myself being at other places. My warning is to not let the fries be the last thing you finish up. I think it’s great to support local businesses so my boyfriend and I have decided to just come here whenever we want to satisfy our crawfish craving.

Finding this place was a great surprise because initially we were planning to eat at Han Kee (a few doors down). Indeed a mom & pop store. The décor resembled a simple noodle house w/​2 flat screen tvs. It’s very quiet here. There is a small number of staff here, so you kinda have to let them know what you need. Beer does not come automatic here.
We came on a weekday, it was empty during dinner time. We were a little bit hesitant at first, but every one deserves a first try.
The Crawfish (cajun style) resembled baby lobsters. It was a win-​win situation !! Cajun style very similar to BC’s.
Definately going to refer this to my friends.

The sauce is pretty similar to BC! Definitely not crowded as there were maybe only three parties that came in the entire night, including us.
Pricing was the same as BC: shrimp-​$ 9.99/crawfish-$ 9.99. Add corn for .75 a piece. We also got garlic noodles on the side which was ok.
Service was friendly and on point. They came to fill water and ask if things were ok every once in awhile.
Would probably go back if BC was ever not worth waiting 3 hrs for!

Cabo Restaurant Crawfish & Seafood is a fairly new mom-​and-​pop-​shop that serves a bunch of random dishes. They obviously serve the typical Louisiana crawfish that other crawfish joints serve, but what makes this place unique, is that they serve Vietnamese rice plates and noodles as well. Unfortunately, their variety is their downfall. I think they try to serve so many different dishes, that they lack in quality per dish.
I came here for lunch with a friend and we ordered the ‘sizzling beef cubes,’ (
) the Cabo special wings,’ (
), and the ‘with everything’ crawfish. Apparently they tried to use the ‘shabang’ name, because I noticed how they whited-​out the ‘shabang’ and wrote ‘with everything’ on top. I really tried to enjoy the food, but the flavors were lacking. The sizzling beef cubes was basically a bo luc lac, or better known as, ‘shaking beef’ on a sizzling hot plate. I don’t want to sound rude, but I’ve made better. The Cabo special wings, were not so special. They were not very well seasoned and very dry. The crawfish sauce was good, but not good enough for me to come back.
There are just way too many other crawfish restaurants in the area that have already established themselves and I don’t see how this place will survive with the competition. I also have to mention that the place is very dingy and looks like it’s been there for centuries. I feel really bad for even writing this review, but I have to be honest! I am sorry Cabo!

I love supporting Mom and Pop shops and this is a fairly new restaurant located in the heart of Vietnamese cuisine in South San Jose off of Tully. Did you know San Jose is actually a city in Cabo? That’s how the name of the restaurant came about; well at least I assume so. The restaurant was completely empty when we arrived for dinner on a weekend night. The owner (or worker) was actually vacuuming when we came in. They advertise Crawfish and bun bo hue as their specialty on their sign. Like most restaurants in this area, you can’t expect ambiance. It’s no fine dining, the carpet may be a bit dirty and the chairs mismatched.
We were craving crawfish but didn’t want to deal with the wait at Boiling Crab so we decided to check this place out. We ordered the crawfish, shrimp, sweet potato fries and the blue crab special. The crawfish was tasty, a decent size and the «All2gether» sauce wasn’t quite as addicting or flavorful as Boiling Crab but it is tasty and did the job. The sausage and corn was typical, nothing super special. The shrimp was more on the chewier side and didn’t have the bouncy, fresh taste to it. The blue crabs were good, but not enough meat since they were small so I wouldn’t order that again. For $ 6 a pound, I’d rather get another pound of crawfish. Overall, it was a good meal and I don’t mind coming back. There’s no loud music, no ridiculous long wait and the prices here are a bit cheaper than it’s counterparts at Boiling Crab and Crawdaddy.

I always wanted to try the boiling crab but never got a chance because i dont feel like waiting 2 hours for a table. Read here that this place was exactly like the BC (shabang sauce) so i had to try check it out.
got the bun bo hue. HUGE with tons of noodles and only 5.25
not as good as bun bo hue san jose but not bad either.
got two corns & a pound of their shrimp mild (someone with me was a cooch) with garlic butter and cajun. Damn that shrimp was the best i ever had, much better than Crawfishaholic. The sauce was thick and rich. I will be back someday to try the crawfish.

Since Boiling Crab and Crawdaddys were closed, found this place to be open from 9am — 9pm. We made it through the awful Tully road traffic to this little place in a strip mall. (if you are taking Tully east from 101, u-​turn at Quimby and will be on your right) It’s hard to find since there are so many little restaurants in that area. The place was completely empty. At first was not sure if it was open. As others stated, the interior has nothing except the table/​chairs and 2 TVs on the wall.
They offer both Vietnamese food and crawfish and other seafood. We ordered a lb of crawfish w/​shabang sauce, mild, king crab legs with same sauce, fried calamari, and a bowl of Mi Quang.
The crawfish, was good, not as big as I was expecting from the reviews. The sauce was exactly like BC’s. The crab was good as well, but I think I like it sans sauce like Crawdaddys. The calamari was excellent, cooked perfectly. I have not had Mi Quang before so was not sure what I was expecting. The soup had more noodle than broth, with lots of pork and shrimp. The noodles were yellow and a little wider, I really enjoyed it. The broth was good as well. When we were done, we were still the only ones in there.
I would like to come here again, but don’t go to this area often, so most likely hit Crawdaddys instead.

I usually don’t write reviews… but I consider this a special case. Also, this review is for SEAFOOD only. I had crawfish, shrimp, and king crab leg and zero Vietnamese food.
If you are eating seafood here like I did, make sure to ask them for their seafood menu because there are 2 menus and they usually only give people the non-​seafood menu. When I first walked in I was very confused because this thoroughly looked like a Vietnamese restaurant only. The outside sign said crawfish but there was no mention of it on the menu I got. I saw this confusion with later customers that came in as well.
Quick and dirty summary: Come here if you only want to eat shrimp. Sauce is good and shrimps are huge! Less selection than BC in terms of variety (ie. no oysters, no clams, etc.). Also, if you really care about environment, get to go. This place’s environment is very plain and nothing special.
5 star taste
4.5 star food quality
3.5 star service
3 star environment
***Taste
Pros:
1) Cajun shrimp medium — SOOOO GOOD!!! I loved it! I am big fan of BC, and I have to say that the taste is different, but equally as good. One time BC was too crowded I went to Crawdady and didn’t find the taste anything special. So I’ll say 5 star taste to BC and Cabo and 3 start taste to Crawdady. Hopefully this helps you compare. Spiciness level is about the same as BC.
2) Sha bang hot crawfish — very good as well! Not as much sauce as the cajun, but tastes very good to me :)
3) Sha bang medium king crab legs — same cause as 2, yum!
***Food quality
Pros:
1) Shrimp — $ 9.99 a pound. HUGE, way bigger and meatier than BC.
Cons:
1) Crawfish — $ 9.99 a pound (fresh). Fairly small. Not as big as other reviewers say they are. I guess maybe seasons different? There was one really big one in my batch but the rest were about as big as BC ones. Fresh though. I just didn’t like they fact that they were small.
2) King crab legs — $ 15.99 a pound. Seems like they use a different kind than BC. The meat was hard to dig out and I didn’t get much out of my money. Negative on this. I’d say don’t get this here.
3) Not much selection — I really wanted to have a variety of food here like I always do at BC. I wanted to eat oysters, clams, and all that good stuff. But their selection here is more limited.
***Service
Pros:
1) They are available to you
2) Act fast once you give a request
Cons:
1) English not very good
2) Not super friendly, as in, they aren’t cheerful and welcoming. They are just kind of, there.
3) Not very fast food service — it seems to me that they have ONE pot for cooking seafood. Because they bring out our food one batch at a time at quite long periods. So I’d be finishing my shrimp when they give me the crawfish etc. BUT I might be wrong because I went early so they might just have opened one station for cooking or something.
***Environment
Pros:
1) Organized, not dirty
Cons:
1) Not pretty. Very plain. Not as pleasant a place to eat at as at BC. This place is less lively. More like you are really there just to eat and not eat + enjoy the environment.

I came here based on the reviews and wanted just some noodles. Noodles usually leave me warm inside and full, but not here.
Inside: You can tell it’s own/​ran by a guy, cause it’s like a guys first place, there is no decoration of any sort other than 2 TV’s mounted on the wall. Just straight up white walls, tables, chairs, and condiments. *The condiments were empty too. The spoons felt sticky and dirty (I use spoons because I felt several of them in the center thing) –_​–
The sign outside says there’s a special for noodles, great. I was the waiter/​owner about it, and he stated it was only for the top 3 noodle dishs: Bun thit nong, bo bun hue, and MI QUANG
Not so special: that is the normal price for those dishes (regular size)
Well since some one said the MI QUANG was really good here, i decided to give it a try.
Soup was good, noodles were alright, had a mixed amount of mixed meats, etc. I liked it.
What I didn’t like: the bowl was like ½ filled. I know it’s a regular size and it’s pretty cheap, but man, it’s not much at all. I actually left hungry.
Beautiful’s Bo Bun Hue — tasted water down and she didn’t even finish it. She eats ALOT and loves bo bun hue AND was hungry. Does that say much? yea, not that good at all or even force yourself to eat.
Customer Service: none. I don’t really expect any from a Asian restaurant, sorry to be stereotypical but it’s true. I set my bar to customer service level to 0 and that is exactly what I got. Came in, got menu, what you want, order, left, came back with food, never saw him until I paid for the food.
Additional notes: Don’t leave TLC on with surgery being performed on TV, it’s not appetizing and don’t have them both at the same volume where it just sounds all weird inside. Don’t leave your coffee, etc on the paying counter, really UNPROFESSIONAL. Pick up your trash man, you have clutter all over the place. Bus your tables and clean them, which also means if the sauces are low, fill them up. If you’re opening a business, it means you’re set and ready go to, get someone to at least decorate it a little bit.
The first impression of this place? my last, I won’t be coming here any time soon.
Fresh crawfish crawdad $ 9/​lb

This place is the Mom and Pop shop version of the Boiling Crab and Phở LOL!!!
I found the place on Unilocal and since I was craving some spicy shrimp and I knew that the Boiling Crab would have a long long long long wait (the last time I was there we waited for 2.5 hours!).we decided to see if there is another alternative!!!
Apparently Cabo is new in town and since the reviews on Unilocal are pretty good we decided to give it a try.
The restaurant was empty when we entered and it worried us a bit… we were like. hmmmm would this place really serve fresh and yummy seafood?
The waitress (the owner) was very friendly, she gave us the menu both the seafood stuff as well as the usual vietnamese noodles and rice items. Prices are cheap and comparable to the other San Jose’s Vietnamese restaurants, especially the noodles and rice :) …
We got the shrimp (2 lbs), 4 corns, 1 rice, 1 sweet potato fries and an order of grilled mussels with garlic sauce.
OMG!!! the food was so good!!! I especially LOVE their grilled mussels!!! The shrimps are good too, comparable to boiling crabs!!!
There were a couple other tables that came but they all ordered the rice plates and noodles, we were the only tables eating seafood :)
Total was less than $ 37 before tip… very reasonable :)
We will be back :)

Ah, the Tully Road version of Boiling Crab.
Like the other reviews say, this place is good. Unlike Boiling Crab, they have other things on their menu like rice plates, etc. They only have about 6 tables, but they do have a flat screen (random) so you can watch a Vietnamese talk show while eating for a true Asian dining experience.
I like this place and my uncle loves it. He hates waiting at boiling crab. BUT their crawfish are slightly odd. Several of the crawfish we got were either pregnant or had long streams of white intestines. One of my little cousins accidentally swallowed one of the intestines but it didn’t go down all the way so we all watched as he pulled out a long white string intestine from his mouth. how appetizing. I found a pregnant one with a clump of tiny orange eggs and kindly placed it in front of my other little cousin. The poor guy was so grossed out (he has a weak stomach) that he said he had to force himself to swallow his throw-​up. I’m not sure how Boiling Crab gets rid of those things since they are internal to the crawfish, but anyway, I thought it was random. Minus 1 star for traumatizing my little cousins (or was that my fault?).

Our family tried the following:
1. Fresh Crawfish the whole shebang
2. Bun Bo hue
3. Grilled rice and shaking beef
4. Soybean milk
5. Chicken wings
6. Cajun fries
The kids seemed to enjoy 5 and 6, a little bit spicy for them. 4. Is just straight from the can so we were disappointed that the restaurant didn’t have a fresh version. 3 is ok the steak cubes are big and haven’t marinated well so from an esthetic standpoint the steaks don’t look that appealing. The grilled rice, on the other hand, is quite good. 2 is good but for the price I counted exactly 6 or 7 pieces of meat and steamed pork meat. If I have to compare this restaurant’s bun Bo hue and An Nam I’d say you get more value from Cabo than An Nam. 1 has too much butter in it but you will get your money worth here cuz the crawfish are sizable. One thing I noted is that the last crawfish I chew on is probably a frozen one because it tasted horrible compared to the other ones. I walk out of there wondering how the heck a frozen one could have ended up in the bag. Never got that one question answered.
The restroom almost runs out of toilet paper and there are no spare ones in sight. The restaurant ambience, if any, is extremely casual. No pictures on walls. We visit the restaurant during dinner time so family members of the owners come and talk loudly, typical Vietnamese family run restaurant. The tables are not numbered so the poor server needs instructions from the cashier, i supoose, the owner, as to which table the food he is carrying belongs to. We will come back and try their food again for sure.

So I was back in town for the holidays and craving some finger lickin’ crawfish. Opted to not endure the 1 – 2 hour wait for boiling crab, although I know how good it could be. I stumbled onto Cabo, its literally a block from the house. sweeeet!
Their main menu is for your more traditional Vietnamese noodles and rice dishes. The sell their Cajun style seafood by the pound on a separate ghetto menu. It’s just a piece of printer paper. I ordered two pounds of crawfish, one frozen $ 5.99, one fresh $ 8.99. Pretty good prices, I recommend going for the fresh one all the way though. You can really tell the difference from the frozen ones and they are a lot bigger. These were the BIGGEST crawfishes I’ve seen anywhere. The whole Shabang is pretty good but not as flavorful as other places i’ve tried. Also their spiciest level isn’t spicy enough for me. but best of all is NO WAITING AT ALL!

****************** REVIEW 341 ******************
I was off-​site meeting and drove by this place with a grand-​opening sign. The place looks tiny & corner, hard to see, but the crawfish text is big enough to catch my attention.
Being an owner of a crawfish restaurant in SF before, I was skeptical to this place out, plus this is just another crawfish resto along with 100 in San Jose already? However, I made a U-​turn & saw MI‘ QUANG. I got to come in.
Cabo has less than 35 seats, just 2 rows of tables, a few TVs, and small, family owned resto from Central Vietnam. I love MI QUANG, so I got to order it.
MI QUANG is a Vietnamese noodle dish that is from the provinces of Quang Nam, South Central Coast of Vietnam. It’s hard to find this dish here, because it takes more time to cook & prefect this dish. It’s 1 of my favorite dishes.
Cabo’s MI QUANG was tasty, just enough amount of broth. The wide yellow tumeric noodles are cooked with seasoned pork chops, chicken, sauteed shrimp, peanuts, chili pepper, then served with water mint basil, shaved banana flower, bean sprout, shredded cabbage, and rice cracker. Although they missed the Hue beef sausage and egg. For only $ 4.95 this giant bowl of noodles soup? What a steal?
Broken rice dish with grilled pork was another great dish here, plenty of food for 1 person. Flavorful, well marinated and good all around.
We then ordered the live Nola crawfish. Cooked with garlic, Nola seasoning, butter, and the spices to your liking. They offer 2 types, live or frozen! & why would you go frozen when the live Nola is less than $ 8 per lb? The broth was well seasoning, full of flavor, and the claws are big for me to crack it!
Since they only grand-​opening recently, all noodles soup are $ 4.95 per dish! They serve a lot of Vietnamese Broken-​rice dishes, as well as noodle soups such as BUN BO HUE (Hue, Central Vietnam spicy beef noodle soup).
Service is friendly and quick. I will definitely come back from some more Central Vietnamese dishes and crawffish fix!

Huge Crawfish!!! Guaranteed larger than Boiling Crab and Crawdaddy’s!
Their whole sha-​bang sauce is just as good as Boiling Crab’s, their Garlic butter sauce is less oily than Crawdaddy! Crawfish here is only $ 8.99 a pound and plus buy 5lbs get 1lb free!
Love here so much! The owners are very nice; took 1 star off for the interior setting, should delegate more exiting stuff.