Boil Seafood House — Restaurant in New Orleans

We decided to come over to New Orleans for a last meal before heading home after a week in Thibideaux, at the Manning Passing Academy. We were in athletic clothes which is why we picked this place instead of a more upscale place where we would feel under-dressed. My wife and I walked in a little before 4 pm Sunday with our 7 & 16 year olds, the downstairs was full so they sat us upstairs.

Our server, Samantha R (according to the ticket) was disengaged from the beginning. She went through the playbook of bad (need to be fired immediately) servers throughout the course of our meal.

We waited for 20 minutes at a picnic table in an empty room with chunks of paint falling off the wall basically by ourselves (1 other table) before even being greeted by our server. When she finally did come over she apologized for the wait and we were still in good spirits so we brushed it off and ordered immediately.

There was a male server helping the other table(s) that was doing a great job. I think the juxtaposition added to my frustration.

We ordered some gator nuggets (my 7 year old insisted 😆) , drinks, some fries and the "Taste of New Orleans" seafood bucket to share for the table. The bucket had crawfish, shrimp, andouille, & blue crab. Being in New Orleans, we expected fresh seafood. (Im not going to go into my resume; that's obnoxious, but I am a chef/restaunteur that wasnt the unsophisticated rube she viewed me as) Some of it was fresh... The crawfish were all black in the joints and tasted fine but were on par with frozen I've had in the midwest which is disappointing in New Orleans.

The shrimp were just, bad. Soft mushy flesh thin papery shells, no Bueno. We heard the other server suggestive selling the frozen imported (according to the menu) IQF head-off shrimp later in the meal and it was super apparent why.

I will say, the sauce and seasoning tasted great. The andouille was awesome, and the blue crabs were fresh and delicious. Overall the food was "fine" for the price, on par with any frozen seafood boil place; just not in New Orleans, especially with the awful service.

My drink sat empty the whole meal. We had to go to the bar ourselves to get utensils and paper towels. She dropped the check on her 2nd trip without saying much besides "no rush" without refilling our drinks or checking in with us about or food. We saw the good server check on his tables at multiple points throughout the meal and the short-haired male (manager?) even checked on the other two tables and not us, for some reason.

When I looked at the ticket I was disappointed to see that she had auto-gratted our 4 top without saying anything about it. The menu states clearly they do auto-gratuity on parties of 5 or larger. I have spent 25+ years in the industry, I tip well, but if 18% is all she wants I guess that's her prerogative 🤷‍♂️.

The part that bothers me most is that she did a terrible job (and she knew it) then she tried to just scam her way around it. My hands were covered in butter etc., after I looked over the bill I set it asside to finish our meal and tried not to let it ruin our experience. She kept walking by looking to see if I had put my card on the tray. At one point she had the (manager?) come do the same thing but didn't say a word to us, either. I heard him tell her that we were still eating (he wasnt being rude). Minutes later she walked by texting on her phone into the bathroom multiple times. At one point she asked a member of the support staff to watch us?! It was just a gross and obvious feeling of a server jumping to WAY wrong conclusions and making countless poor decisions based on invalid assumptions.

I paid our 90ish dollar bill with cash; I gave her $100 and she had the audacity to look me in the eyes and ask "do you want change". I let her know that I did in fact want my change, without drawing attention to her tactics and she still kind of gave me attitude about it. 🙄

I hate being profiled, it was obvious; she did a horrible job and really put a damper on the last day of our visit for...

Not much of a negative Nancy but I had to write a review. Where to begin?

Bugs: I walked in with my friends at 5pm on a Sunday and we noticed that the place was not packed at all. We sat down and my friend freaked out because a harmless and small spider crawled on his face. I’m not sure what happened after eating here, but my face were feasted by bugs or something, it looked like a I had an allergic reaction only on my face. For a second I thought I had an allergic reaction to the food. I have been eating shellfish and I never had a reaction. I even ate the left over the following day when we got back home and didn’t even break out. So it must be the atmosphere.

Food quality: I ordered the Shack, garlic butter, and not spicy. I got a Boil House and medium spicy; all of their food came out salty which the other 4 also agreed. My friend only ordered Cajun shrimps; which came out last and it was served cold twice after requesting to reheat them (which he eventually just said to remove the plate after attempting to digest one salty and cold shrimp). They were well staffed with moderate people in the restaurant and maybe only one person was working that day but the service experience that day was a fluke big time.

Surprise charges: when it was time to pay, somehow my other friend who ordered the same entree as me + beer ended up having less amount than my bill and I didn’t order anything else other than the entree and water. I told the waitress that the numbers are off and I had told her that the food was $46 but she said it was $52 the total came out to be $56 WITH 10% discount! We pressed to print receipt on their checkout device but after 10 minutes waiting as they were getting a bit busy at this point (8ish), we requested for a receipt, which took (20 minutes - w/o exaggerating) and I was right, they added side orders that I never asked was put in my tab. Because we waited so long just to get everything, I showed her the receipt and she insisted to wait to give me a refund me we didn’t leave the restaurant until 8:40pm. I promise you we tried to just have a good time and eat and not sit there for almost 4 hours which is a lot of time wasted when we wanted to tour the area before we leave NOLA. I couldn’t wait wait there for another 20 minutes for a $8 refund.

I definitely would not come back here again but maybe everyone in there was just not...

This was my first time having a seafood “boil” and what a huge disappointment it was. I made a reservation for seven people at 7:00 pm day of, in fact 45 mins before the reservation. That should have been my first clue as the other boil we wanted to go to was booked a week in advance. We arrived a little early but they sat us immediately - it’s a Thursday evening and not very busy. They put us at a picnic table meant for six but we squeezed a seventh on the end of the bench. Some of us ordered sodas and a few ordered cocktails. Both arrived in their own due time - nothing speedy that’s for sure. In fact, one mixed drink was forgotten which worked out ok because then that member of our party ordered something else instead as he saw something he’d rather have on the menu after missing it the first time. Five of the seven of us ordered small dinner salads. They were the best part of the meal. Everything was fresh and the ranch dressing was good. But it all went down hill from there. We ordered “The Feast” with extra corn and potatoes, sausage, and crawfish. Even with the extra items the food was minimal (makes me wonder what if we hadn’t ordered any of the extras would we have even noticed the difference?). The flavoring of the food was ok but certainly not great. The portion sizes were small. The oysters and mussels had mostly empty shells. The lobster was tough and chewy. The waitress was sufficiently attentive but not overly friendly nor helpful - it was as if she hated being there. We waited for the check for quite a while after we had finished. We never got drink refills. The waitress was kind enough to split the check although the menu said they wouldn’t for parties of six or more. A 20% gratuity was automatically added to the check total because of the size of the party. Others around us seemed to be enjoying themselves and the food, but for me it was not my cup of tea. Maybe the next boil somewhere else will be a...