Crawdaddy's Kitchen — Restaurant in Shreveport

I have refused to eat gumbo and jambalaya until I was able to eat it first in Louisiana. I have traveled a great deal around the world, but wasn't able to get to LA until a week ago. I was traveling from NC to TX and made sure I was going to be rolling through LA during lunch time. Because of the hurricane just coming through, I decided to avoid southern LA but I was still going to go through Shreveport. I actually chose a different place in the city that was super well rated and popular, but they were serving a Sunday brunch menu that had had no traditional Cajun food, so back to the drawing board. A few minutes on google and I settled on Crawdaddy's. The atmosphere of the restaurant is very "southern home cooking" style. I ordered a cup of gumbo and a cup of jambalaya. While waiting for my food, I was still scooping out the menu and decided to add a shrimp and grits as well. The shrimp and grits came out first. I've had this dish here in NC and while it was my favorite I've ever had (call that a 10), this was a 9.5. The gumbo came out next with a side of rice and saltine crackers. So, as I mentioned before I've never had gumbo before, but I have been in the "food biz" for a long time and has seen countless gumbos throughout my day on TV and the web. Of course, every recipe of everything is always going to be different. This gumbo was thinner than I expected, but it has a nice flavor, chicken, sausage and other ingredients in it. It had some nice heat to it, but not overwhelming. Being my first, I will rate this a 7. It wasn't what I was expecting/hoping The jambalaya was last and CERTAINLY now least. Came out w/ saltines as well and some green onion on top. This dish is full of tons of flavor. I was already super full so I had about 3 bites and got a to go container and ate it while I was driving through Texas. 10/10!!! I will be driving through again in about a month and this is a...

$81.99 for the seafood platter at the time of writing : included was 1 lb shrimp, 1 lb crab legs, 2 pounds crawfish, 4 small potatoes and 2/3 ( 2 pcs small) an ear of corn , also roughly ¾ lb of a decent quality sausage - despite requesting heavily seasoned- the entire meal was quite bland - it is a substantial portion of food; despite some ( specifically the crab legs) being poorly executed ( overcooked, bland etc ) the overall flavor was not unbearable - there were several tail-less crawfish heads brought to the table , enough to feel as though they were "padding out" the 2 lbs of crawfish. There were 6 in our party; triggering the 18% gratuity - which is concerning because the staff, while attentive - in my opinion- did not warrant more than 10-15% - I did not inquire if they engage in "tip-share" practices, but I prefer any tip that I warrant, be it 10% or 50%+ should go directly to my server - not the entire staff, or the bartender that did nothing as we did not consume alcohol for this particular gathering. Overall, I feel this is a decent restaurant; despite many inconsistencies- the fried catfish is usually top notch. It is worth a visit to any non-cajun , but if you're going to experience a "taste of New Orleans " or bona fide Cajun food - this location might be a slight disappointment. However, no one in our party left hungry, or were particularly disappointed by the meal. If you call your self Crawdaddy's- IMO the crawfish should be exemplary- While I do support the restaurant and wish them well -it is not my "go-to" for regular seafood or southern cuisine.

78/100 3.50 / 5 ☆

as a side note I wish to include this is a miserable year for crawfish yields and the price is exorbitant everywhere - 10lbs was approx $80...

When we arrived we knew by the full parking lot and people standing at the door we were in for a wait, which was no big deal. We were told 15 to 20 minutes would be our wait. We were seated about an hour later...still, not a big deal, for good food 🙂 We were seated and greeted shortly thereafter by Jasmine who was sweet as could be. We ordered alligator as an appetizer and our drinks. When our drinks came we put in our food order. My husband had stuffed, fried shrimp, I had grilled shrimp with fried red potatoes and we had an order of fried crab cakes. Our food arrived and we mentioned that we had never gotten our alligator, which was no problem because we had plenty of food at that point. My shrimp was overcooked and was like rubber but the red potatoes with onions were amazing, best part of the whole meal. My husband's stuffed fried shrimp was very good and he liked the fries that came with it. The fried crab cakes were like hockey pucks, hard and not tasty at all. The place stayed packed and busy the entire time we were there so much so our waitress didn't have the time to even refill our drinks. I went and filled them myself to help her out. What we noticed though, is that there were plenty of waitstaff standing around at the t-shirt area chatting with each other and watching their other coworkers work. I wish those that weren't as busy could have jumped in and helped their coworkers out a little bit. We had plenty of time in our hour wait to read the reviews and were hopeful that our visit would be a great one. I left a 3 star review because we did have a few tasty food items and because of what a sweetheart...