Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen — Restaurant in Dallas

I would describe this location at the Friday dinner peak time as barley controlled Chaos. They were very busy. We had to wait about 35 minutes to get a table and the bar area was so crowded it took us nearly 20 min just to get a beer and a cocktail. The restaurant itself while extremely busy was being adequately cleaned and kept up by the staff. When we were finally seated our table was clean, dry and spotless. Our waiter Clifton D.was friendly and professional. Took our orders with ease. It took less time to get our appetizer, the Fried Calamari then it did to get our first drinks that we ordered at the bar while we were still waiting to be seated. The Calamari was expertly fried light airy and golden delicious. We then sampled the Texas Red Fish and I have never tried this before and I was really surprised. One of the top 5 best I've had it was similar to rainbow trout but the portion was more ample in size and texture was buttery but firm really delicious. My wife sampled the blackened Grouper and found it also wonderfully delicious. So although they were slammed busy the Kitchen and the wait staff carried everything off without a hitch. Pappadeaux Dallas still lives up to its reputation as one of the best avaliable Louisiana Seafood kitchens around. Kudos to you all. We had the key Lime pie for our dessert and it did not disappoint. Presentation was artful and the pie was really good. The only thing I am detracting on is the Bar. They have a really limited selection of Draft beer available and almost no local Texas Craft beers or ales, this was really disappointing. Also they only stock Bullet Rye Bourbon, which for a restaurant as high end as they are is both surprising and rather disappointing. I love a good top shelf old fashioned on a Friday night and unfortunately it was not to be found here. The Bar selection is in serious need of updating. But if wine or domestic beer is your thing with great Cajun style seafood then they will still have you covered. Maybe next time we come by will just opt for some dinner wine which they do have in abundance. Thanks for a otherwise great dinner and a...

Prior to this, my last time at this restaurant was about a year ago. So I don't know if they were having an "off day" or the quality of food has just diminished across the board.

The Food: There were 4 of us and all but 1 of us had an issue with their food. I had shrimp & grits. The shrimp were VERY salty and the grits were covered with a brown "gravy" which was also salty. 🤢 I've had shrimp & grits at other restaurants and none put gravy on the grits. My friend had a platter which consisted of crab balls, fried shrimp, & chicken tenders. The shrimp & chicken were mostly breading & the crab balls tasted nothing like crab. I tasted a small piece of it and I can't put into words what it tasted liked. I've had enough crab cakes to know what it's supposed to taste like and what she got wasn't it. In addition, it had something in it that reminded me of a squid tentacle 😳. Her husband had Chicken Alfredo which he said had no seasoning and was dry. He added a bunch of salt and he said it didnt make a difference. He asked for more alfredo sauce. The sauce he got was the consistency of milk (Alfredo sauce is typically a little thick). The best thing I had was the strawberry lemonade (which came from the bar)

The Service: Our server was very friendly and VERY slow. Ironically, on his badge, it said "trainer" under his name. I started to think it should've said "trainee". (Let me quickly say, the restaurant was maybe 1/2 full). When we asked for water (for all of us), 3 people got it. The 4th person never got hers. Our food took a long time to come. The people across from us ordered about 3 mins before we did. They'd eaten and had started packing up their left overs when we finally got our food. No reason was ever given for the delay.

There's more to tell, but I'm sure ya'll get the gist of our experience. Needless to say, it'll be long time before we...

Went here for the first time and got the Pappadeaux Sampler at first, along with the alligator fries. It's pricey, and it's not somewhere you'd go to everyday, but it's well worth the money.

Before you even start your meal, they start you off with a whole loaf of what I assume to be freshly baked bread judging by how delicately crispy it was. Amazing by itself, but with the butter they give you it already left me with a good impression to start with.

The alligator fries were 15 bucks, and for an appetizer they sure as hell tasted like 15 bucks. They're served with some fried onions and some kind of tangy sauce, but I found myself eating the appetizer without any condiments.

The Sampler itself was... Huge. More than my friend and I anticipated. Luckily we came hungry and had a huge assortment of fried seafood served on a bed of fries. Suffice to say it was more than filling.

The second time that week we came back to try their advertised Mardi Gras pasta, along with the lobster bisque. I will say that the lobster was somewhat poorly prepared, as I had multiple small shell bits here and there as I ate it, but the soup itself was amazing with the bread.

As for the pasta... Well, I wasn't sure if I'd even like it, but this place surprised me a second time. It's hard to explain, but you can tell there was lots of time and care that went into this dish. Again it was a huge serving size, and just as filling as the Sampler.

I can't vouch for the drinks or liquor, since I wanted to be sober for the experience, but they had a good assortment from what I could tell, along with specialty drinks. I'll be back here very soon to taste the other menu items.

Quick note though: I'm almost certain their lunch portions pale in comparison to the dinner sizes....