In a fairly tone down strip mall a few miles west of the strip, lies a restaurant whose bold flavors should make the roof blow from the top. Hot and Juicy Crawfish is located on the edge of Las Vegas’ Chinatown. It’s spaces is decorated very mildly with a few beer posters hanging on the walls. Tables in rows are all covered in White plastic and each table has a paper towel roll and holder on each of them. I had read this is a place you don’t go for the décor. You go for what goes on the table.
I had heard about this place also from the show Man V. Food on the Travel Channel episode of Las Vegas where I learned about a place called Hash House A Go-Go. I had written about that earlier in a previous entry you should see below. The show talked about how with an eclectic mix of herbs and spices they make a sauce that tops the boiled up Crawfish that is so full of flavor that your mouth will thank you for months.
I had done some reading on other blogs that had said, in addition to the crawfish, we should try the shrimp and the Dungeness Crab. I love Dungeness crab and it’s not common for me to see it on menus other than locations on the west coast. Native to the San Francisco bay area, Dungeness crabs stay mostly on the west coast unless you find a few other places with an appreciation for it. When we inquired about it, we were told they were out of the Dungeness for the day. Bummer, but I’m sure I’d find something else to replace it. We decided to get the Crawfish, the Shrimp, and the King Crab. We asked about sauces that can be put on the seafood. You had a choice of Louisiana style, Juicy Cajun, Garlic Butter, Lemon Pepper, or the most popular Hot and Juicy Special. We were told that the Hot and Juicy Special is basically all the others combined.
You also had to select a level of spice for each of the sauces you picked. You had Mild, Medium, Spicy and Extra Spicy. My cousin Mike who was with me is more human than I am when it comes to spice. It is very rare that I say that something is too spicy. For me, the more heat the better. But not everyone is like that. Our Server Noemy, who was on the show, told us that their spices are hotter than most and to order one level down from what you would normally order. So we ordered Mild for the shrimp, Medium for the Crawfish and because Mike doesn't like crab, I got them Extra Spicy.
The Crawfish came out first. All the food is served in a plastic bag that holds the seafood with the sauce.
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The crawfish comes with two pieces of Corn and two red bliss potatoes which are also in the bag. When you look inside, you see the crawfish swimming in this rich bold sauce and they are speckled with fresh garlic. When you open the bag up, your table is overwhelmed with the scent.
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We then reached in and grabbed our first of many crustation. Now for those you not fortunate to have seen a Crawfish, it’s basically a small lobster. But the only thing worth working to eat for are the tails. Yes there are some where the claws are big but the shells are so thick that its difficult to break it open to get the corn kernel size piece of meat. So as you know, the shell is not edible but the entire is covered in the incredible sauce. So watching others in the place found me putting the entire head into my mouth to suck off all the garlic and juice that was layered in it’s legs. (sounds really barbaric doesn’t it). As you remember, we ordered this dish with medium spice. It was hot but not to the point that you were reaching for your beer. The rich flavor was enhanced with the heat and the heat didn’t over power at all. But I was thinking if this was Medium, I might be in trouble with the King Crab ordered Extra Spicy. Then keeping in “Conan the Barbarian” form, you tear the tail from the body. You suck out the juices from the head portion, (yes, you’re sucking on all it’s guts at this point. But it’s so good!!!!! Then you squeeze the tip of the tail so the meat pops out of the top of the tail. With your teeth, you pull the meat from it’s shell. How much meat do you get? Well its probably equivalent to a piece of meat a little larger than a cashew nut. Yes that is right, all that work for that size meat. But that is why you get lots of them and you get other things.
Like Shrimp which came out next. So when you finish a crawfish, you have the body and the tail shell left over. We asked Noemy what we do with the shells, she said that is why the tables are covered in plastic. Just put them on the table. So we did.
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The crawfish comes with two pieces of Corn and two red bliss potatoes which are also in the bag. When you look inside, you see the crawfish swimming in this rich bold sauce and they are speckled with fresh garlic. When you open the bag up, your table is overwhelmed with the scent.
.JPG)
We then reached in and grabbed our first of many crustation. Now for those you not fortunate to have seen a Crawfish, it’s basically a small lobster. But the only thing worth working to eat for are the tails. Yes there are some where the claws are big but the shells are so thick that its difficult to break it open to get the corn kernel size piece of meat. So as you know, the shell is not edible but the entire is covered in the incredible sauce. So watching others in the place found me putting the entire head into my mouth to suck off all the garlic and juice that was layered in it’s legs. (sounds really barbaric doesn’t it). As you remember, we ordered this dish with medium spice. It was hot but not to the point that you were reaching for your beer. The rich flavor was enhanced with the heat and the heat didn’t over power at all. But I was thinking if this was Medium, I might be in trouble with the King Crab ordered Extra Spicy. Then keeping in “Conan the Barbarian” form, you tear the tail from the body. You suck out the juices from the head portion, (yes, you’re sucking on all it’s guts at this point. But it’s so good!!!!! Then you squeeze the tip of the tail so the meat pops out of the top of the tail. With your teeth, you pull the meat from it’s shell. How much meat do you get? Well its probably equivalent to a piece of meat a little larger than a cashew nut. Yes that is right, all that work for that size meat. But that is why you get lots of them and you get other things.
Like Shrimp which came out next. So when you finish a crawfish, you have the body and the tail shell left over. We asked Noemy what we do with the shells, she said that is why the tables are covered in plastic. Just put them on the table. So we did.
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The shrimp were ordered in Mild spice. It too came in a plastic bag. The shrimps were cooked whole meaning, they had the heads on them as well. The sauce was much thinner than the Crawfish and because the shell on a shrimp is much smoother than a crawfish, the sauce didn’t stay on the shrimp so well. You take the shrimp and obviously remove the head. The inside of the Shrimp isn’t filled with the juice as well as the crawfish so you don’t suck the heads of this one. But you peel the shrimp as you would in any peel and eat shrimp and dip the shrimp back into the sauce. I found without the heat it was more buttery tasting but had a nice mild flavor. And was a good change from the medium heat.
Then comes the king crab. Noemy said that she was worried for me because not many people order the extra spicy because of it’s mega heat. So I opened the bag and sauce was much deeper in color than the crawfish. Plus the chunks of garlic were much darker as they absorbed all the sauce into them.
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I grabbed some meat from the Knuckle which had a good amount of sauce in it. Here goes, I said to my cousin as he watched and waited for the burning reaction to my stupidity. The flavor of the sauce was much much richer than the medium. The heat was there like the medium and we both waited for my hair to melt from my head. I made sure to identify where the beer was incase I was suddenly blinded from overwhelming heat that was going to put a hole in my tongue. We waited. Hair remained on my head, no hole in my tongue, lips were not on fire and of course there was no sweat on my brow. So I dove in. Noemy can over to see how I was coping and she said, you’re not sweating. I think she was disappointed that she didn’t see a sweaty blubbering mess at the table.
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I grabbed some meat from the Knuckle which had a good amount of sauce in it. Here goes, I said to my cousin as he watched and waited for the burning reaction to my stupidity. The flavor of the sauce was much much richer than the medium. The heat was there like the medium and we both waited for my hair to melt from my head. I made sure to identify where the beer was incase I was suddenly blinded from overwhelming heat that was going to put a hole in my tongue. We waited. Hair remained on my head, no hole in my tongue, lips were not on fire and of course there was no sweat on my brow. So I dove in. Noemy can over to see how I was coping and she said, you’re not sweating. I think she was disappointed that she didn’t see a sweaty blubbering mess at the table.
By the end of the meal, it looked like the aftermath of a Viking meal with carcasses thrown astray on the table. It was really a funny sight. Now you look at the photo and you think, well Al is officially a disgusting pig and we should question what he things is good or not.
But when you look around at the other tables, you see the same pile of shells everywhere. But the best is watching them clean up. Lift the plastic from the corners and ball it all up for the trash. Wha-la.
But when you look around at the other tables, you see the same pile of shells everywhere. But the best is watching them clean up. Lift the plastic from the corners and ball it all up for the trash. Wha-la.
If you like seafood and you like with bold flavors, you will love Hot and Juicy Crawfish. It’s worth the 15 min. taxi ride from the strip.
Hot and Juicy Crawfish can be found at 4810 Spring Mountain Rd in Las Vegas. 702-891-8889. You can also see them online at www.myspace.com/hotnjuicy_crawfish
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