HIEUX Boil Seafood House — Restaurant in New Orleans

Weeks before our flight to Nola from our home in Hawaii we received our weekly email from one of the many Nola advertising sites. This one listed 10 of their favorite new restaurants. One jumped out as a possibility. It was Hieux Boil Seafood House. We’ve been to Nola numerous times but never during crawfish season. Well it’s now crawfish season and since there are no restaurants in Hawaii where you can find fresh,live crawfish we decided to try Hieux. Being former Wine Educators for over thirty years in NYC we really take our restaurant choices seriously. Here are our reasons why Hieux is now in our top five Nola restaurants. It’s seriously cute from the outside with a very nice and comfortable lanai. We opted for the inside venue. The inside vibe is immaculate with with lots of room on each table for all the many dishes you will eventually choose. The initial greeting was pure Hawaiian Aloha/Nola. Some of the nicest staff members you will ever meet. Their knowledge of each and every dish was amazing. Their explanations really made for a memorable lunch. Their beer list on tap was special; thank you Abita Amber! We were there to pig out and boy did we ever. We hope we will be able to be ready for another of our top ten restaurants tonight, ByWater American Bistro. Speaking of food, here is a list of what we ordered with some special help from our server Taniel. Just Note: you have a choice of sauces. The most popular is Garlic but we opted for Cajun since we are in Nola. Also we picked medium heat and it was a perfect choice for us. Tniel described in detail all of the choices and we decided on The Taste of New Orleans. We started off with an appetizer of Crawfish Beignets with whole crawfish tails mixed in the batter. The rest included Blue Fin Crab, Shrimp, Crawfish, Andouille, Corn and potatoes . The sauce that everything nestled in was by far one of the truest and best examples of Cajun cuisine we’ve ever had. EVERYTHING was super fresh. Bibs helped with the pig out as well as a nicely setup full roll of paper towels. We felt that we died and went to Cajun Heaven. Make reservations because this restaurant will be discovered and seriously packed.

Mon. Oct. 25 2021

When you first opened on Tulane we eagerly made reservations from our home in Hawaii. Our afternoon feast was amazing and we showed our application with our many very positive reviews. When we decided unexpectedly to travel back to NOLA you were our first reservation we made via Yelp. Yesterday we received a text to confirm our reservation for today Monday the 25th at 1pm. We happily did so and received a Thank You. Upon arriving at your Tulane address via taxi we found a locked gate and a LED sign saying open at 3pm. We called your number only to hear a voice message. You can only imagine our total disappointment. I then called you at 3pm and asked for a manager. She apologized and said that there was a new management and all previously reservations were not in their computer log. This made no sense. We find this attitude totally unacceptable and we will rate our new experience as a total negative 180 degree review. This is not what we expected. New...

Whatever you do…do NOT eat here. For ANY reason. Starve yourself and eat your toenails instead if you’re desperate for a meal. If you want well seasoned, high quality, affordable and DELICIOUS seafood go to Cajun Seafood on North Claiborne. They also have amazing fried chicken wings. I also believe they accept EBT, if that’s added incentive.

Now back to THIS catastrophe of a “restaurant.” My best friend placed an order for me on Uber Eats tonight as a treat/surprise. It was 1lb of snow crab legs. To put into perspective what $35 (in the restaurant)/$42 (on Uber Eats) gets you: three small, flimsy, rotten clusters of snow crab with half of the legs missing on each cluster. There’s no way that these weighed in at a pound considering that they’re mostly shell and not even full clusters to begin with.

But, that’s not even the worst of it: the crabs wreaked of ammonia. I mean you could smell it at arms distance. There is no way that this restaurant adheres to food/safety guidelines with that being packaged, sold and delivered to my home. EACH one of those clusters smelled like pure ammonia and you could clearly see the meat rotting at the top once you wiped the seasoning off. I cannot believe this, that could KILL someone!! For the price, there shouldn’t have been a quality issue at all. The market price for snow crab legs is around $15/lb — you charge over 2x that amount AND they’re rotten? One bad cluster and maybe I’d consider it an accidental oversight but ALL of them? Absolute negligence. From a far enough distance, the smell was easily hidden by the mountain load of butter they put on the seafood and the burnt garlic they use for their “garlic butter” flavoring. They’re very good at masking the low quality of their seafood with seasoning — which, even then, is mostly a greasy concoction.

I was so hungry & regretfully ate one of the claws before fully noticing the smell and have since been bent over in pain with the worst stomach ache I’ve had in recent memory. I’m a single mother who cannot afford to miss work and I fear I’ll have to miss work tomorrow AND find someone to care for my children while I nurse myself back to health. I’ll be reporting this restaurant to the health department. I saved the rotten seafood in my freezer as proof of their incompetence. I may even consider legal action if I’m forced to miss work due to illness.

I called and spoke to a sweet hostess who hurriedly put me on hold to get her manager. From the sound of his voice, I assume he’s a white male and couldn’t have been less interested in my concerns. Even while I was talking, he started giving packaging instructions to someone nearby — completely disrespectful. He showed no concern, didn’t even apologize and only recommended that I submit a complaint with Uber. “There’s not much we can do on our end, but I’ll discuss this internally with the team.” was ultimately his response. So, spare me the corporate jargon about “not meeting expectation” that I see the company using towards all bad reviews.

GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!! I wouldn’t eat from there again if they offered me a free, all-you-can eat...

I used to frequent both locations a LOT. Whether it be through food delivery apps, or dining in. This past Saturday I placed an order through chownow. I ordered the dunguness crab platter chargrilled, and some extra sides and sauces. The crabs, which are the main component of the meal, were incredibly overcooked, mushy and inedible. I have patronized this business so much, and the only other issues I’ve ever had were way overcooked crawfish beignets on an order, and dining in my son’s lobster was way overcooked and they remade it, so trust me when I say I haven’t had many complaints in the past. but I ended up having to go buy other food, and so I called the restaurant the next day when they opened to let them know about the crabs and see what could be done. I spoke with a very rude manager, named Chase. His attitude was beyond DISGUSTING. He claimed I had to contact chownow because as per the owners, they're not allowed to give refunds nor remake food. I texted chownow and never got a response, so I called the magazine location and a lady said that that is the policy per the owners, and she took my name and number and said an owner would call me. Of course I never got the call. So I called chownow today since I hadn't heard back. The representative called and Chase told her I waited way too long to make the complaint and not to give me a refund because I just wanted something free or a refund, which is a total slap to my face because I , in the past, have ordered from both restaurants so much, it’s even on my social media how much I’ve patronized this business! How dare he! I called the magazine location again a few minutes ago and the manager , Henry, apologized and said he didn't even know why the lady told me an owner would call because they won't ever. If I wanted to pay 98 dollars for 5 head on shrimp, potatoes, corn, sausages, corn and charbread and sauces, I’d have done that. But to spent almost 100 dollars on a meal where the main component was pure crap is ridiculous. And the fact that this establishment doesnt appreciate their customers enough to make it right, AND further offend me and lie on me? Clearly they don’t care about their paying customers, nor their integrity, which clearly they do NOT HAVE. I’m going to post several of my photos and videos to this review, so other customers can see, not everyone wants something for free or a refund, I have had NO problems paying for my food! I’m sure they don’t care, but both boil houses have lost a...