Trong Nguyen learned to cook from his grandmother in Vietnam, came to the United States in the 1990s, and spent decades in casino marketing before betting everything on a crawfish pot. His restaurant, in a busy strip center on the Little Saigon stretch of Bellaire Boulevard, became one of the places that defined Viet-Cajun cooking: Louisiana crawfish boiled, then tossed in a heady sauce of butter, garlic and his own spice blend, with heat from mild to blazing. Tables are covered, bibs go on, and conversation stops. Crawfish runs from late January into early July; the rest of the year, Gulf oysters, raw, chargrilled or baked with cheese, and crawfish fried rice keep the room full. Nguyen was a James Beard Award finalist in 2020.
What to expect
- Tables can be booked on Resy; walk-ins may face a wait on spring weekend nights.
- Heat comes in four levels; mild has all the garlic butter and no heat.
- Crawfish are at their peak from March through May.
What to order
- Viet-Cajun crawfish by the pound in garlic butter
- Chargrilled Gulf oysters
- Crawfish fried rice
- Trong NguyenChef-owner
- Late January to early JulyCrawfish season
- Viet-Cajun boil, choose your heatStyle