Nab a seat beneath the covered front patio of this standby for fiery crawfish. Flavors include Cajun mix, lemon pepper, garlic butter, and 88 Boiling, which is a mix of all the above. Try green mussels or snow crab for an alternative boil option.

This is a friendly, no-frills spot with a couple of TVs, inexpensive beer, and both Cajun and Viet-Cajun mudbugs. The garlic butter sauce is more garlicky than others you’ll find in town. As for heat, there’s multiple levels, starting with spicy and extra spicy (we’re cool with extra). Other types of seafood boils are also available. Still hungry? Tack on an order of fried catfish with a side of vegetable fried rice.

This is the kind of mom-and-pop place that’s a joy to stumble upon. The owner, Henry Tran, is a former shrimper and fisherman from Port Arthur who started doing boils for family and friends out of a trailer in Waller in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The trailer grew so popular, he eventually opened his own restaurant. Tran offers two crawfish flavors: traditional Cajun and a sweet-and-sour garlic glaze called Craven. He still drives down to Louisiana himself to pick out his crawfish, so it’s of impeccable quality and freshness.

The crawfish here are cooked in a wok after being boiled in Cajun seasoning, much the same way crab and lobster are prepared in Chinese cuisine, so those spices and oils coat everything and get way down deep in the crevices. The Kitchen Special, tossed with green onion, garlic, lemons, orange, butter, and garlic, is sweet, savory, tangy, and wholly original; while the Thai Basil flavor conjures the streets of Bangkok.

Crawfish & Beignets originally opened in 2000 in Hong Kong City Mall and relocated down the road to Dynasty Plaza in 2019. The crawfish boils here come with three options. There's the classic Cajun and the Krajun, the restaurant's version of Viet-Cajun with garlic and butter. But we are particularly obsessed with the Thai crawfish, made super-tangy and lightly sweet with the addition of orange slices, plus white and green onions.

Chef and owner Trong Nguyen started offering mudbugs in mouth-numbing garlic butter more than 15 years ago, just as that style was becoming a staple of the Houston crawfish diet. An order of Viet-Cajun medium here is fiery enough, but don’t stop there: Nguyen’s menu includes other non-crawfish dishes you simply cannot miss, from the Vietnamese fried chicken, com ga xa xiu, to savory hot pots like the lau duoi bo with oxtail.

At his original café inside Hong Kong City Mall, and now two other locations in the Heights and Shenandoah, owner Kiet Duong uses real butter as well as sugar, which makes his crawfish sweeter and, let’s be honest, more addictive. The flavors—Original Cajun, Kickin’ Cajun, garlic butter, lemon pepper, Thai basil, and The Mix, a blend of garlic butter and lemon pepper—appeal to a range of palates. Duong says that guests like to combine their flavors, with the garlic butter/Thai basil combo now one of the most popular orders.

The popular House Special flavor—a blend of garlic, butter, and myriad other spices—is far less sweet than anything you’ll find in the predominantly Vietnamese area on or around Bellaire Boulevard. And while the crawdads are delicious, they’re not always the main event. Owner James Duong says that their Hungry Home Platter—a mouthwatering mix of king crab, blue crab, snow crab, sausage, Gulf shrimp, crawfish, corn, and potatoes—is a best-seller.

The flavors here—lemon pepper, hot and sour, garlic butter, and wild Cajun—are less buttery than at other places, something that owner Lee Ngo says he was aiming for, because too much butter fills you up and makes you want to eat less. And, frankly, since some joints tend to go way overboard with the stuff, we can’t disagree with his thinking. Wild Cajun also boils blue crab, snow crab clusters, crab legs, and jumbo shrimp. For an over-the-top experience, get the turkey neck platter with corn, potato, sausage, and yes, a big ol’ heap of garlic butter.