From the folks sucking back crawfish heads to the goldfish hoovering up every morsel in their tank, everyone is chowing down at Crawfish & Noodles, a Viet-Cajun institution in Chinatown. Cajun dishes including boiled crawfish and turkey necks are infused with Vietnamese flavors like lemongrass, ginger, chili, and fish sauce. Dining here feels like stumbling into a wayward sports bar, where the TVs blare Astros games, and everyone is donning bibs and comically large plastic gloves like cartoon surgeons while frantically snapping crawfish in half.

First I stopped in at Crawfish & Noodles, which is credited with kick-starting the region’s fusion trend, and dove into metal bowl of crawfish smothered in a fragrant spiced garlic and butter sauce, served with the requisite sides of boiled potatoes and corn on the cob. Another favorite is Crawfish & Beignets, which excels at those two things: crawfish, bathed in a sweet, citrusy Thai sauce and sautéed with white and green onions and oranges, and beignets, dusted with powdered sugar and served with generous helpings of honey and condensed milk.

Foodies known to take a drive down Bellaire Boulevard to Houston’s Chinatown, where they’ll find traditional eats from across Asia. Feast your way through all the neighborhood has to offer: saucy dumplings, noodles and flavorful pork buns, vegetarian joints, ramen, crawfish, and pho. As Houston is home to the third-largest Vietnamese population in America and rocks some truly incredible Vietnamese food, head to Crawfish & Noodles peel, pinch and suck down a bucket of garlic-butter drenched Viet-Cajun mudbugs.

Buffalo Bayou Park, with its rolling riverside hills and stunning views of Downtown, dispels the impression that Houston is all concrete.

B – B&B Butchers, B.B. Lemon, B.B. Italia, Baguette and Tea (Montrose), Banana Leaf, Barcelona, Bari, Barnaby's (Fountainview), Barnaby's (Heights), Barnaby's (Midtown), Barnaby's (Montrose), Barnaby's (Museum District), Barnaby's (River Oaks), Barnaby's (Spring Branch), Bayou City Seafood & Pasta, BB's (all locations), BCN, Becks Prime (all locations but Downtown), Benny Chows, Betelgeuse Betelgeuse (both locations), Better Luck Tomorrow, Bijan, Birraporetti's (both locations), Bistro Le Cep, Black Walnut Café (all locations), Blind Goat, Bloom & Bee, Bludorn, Blue Nile, Blue Onyx, Boheme, Bori, Bosscat, Brasil, Brasserie 19, Brasserie du Parc, Brenner's (both locations), Burger Vibe

Highlights include two cavernous Chinese-Vietnamese dim sum buffets, Kim Son and Ocean Palace, spice specialist Mala Sichuan Bistro, Cantonese eatery Mein, vegan banh mi sandwich shop Duy Sandwiches, Korean barbecue newcomer Hongdae 33, and Viet-Cajun pioneers Cajun Kitchen and Crawfish & Noodles — tossing mudbugs in garlic butter as well as in citrus and Southeast Asian herbs like lemongrass and basil. And if you should find yourself on the west side of town, in the suburb of Katy, check out rising stars like Malaysian restaurant Phat Eatery and Money Cat, a Japanese small plate concept that integrates Houston’s multicultural flavors.

Trong Nguyen, a James Beard finalist in 2020, is often touted as the local chef who put Vietnamese-Cajun cuisine on the national radar (it didn’t hurt that he appeared on celebrity chef David Chang’s Netflix series “Ugly Delicious”). His original Asiatown restaurant — which now includes a second location in the Heights at the Houston Farmers Market, run by his sons — is practically a pilgrimage for anyone visiting Houston. During crawfish season, nearly every table is anchored by a metal bowl teeming with glossy mudbugs doused in a butter sauce that turns into an orange-red hue from a proprietary blend of spices.

A Viet-Cajun cuisine pioneer, James Beard Award-recognized Trong Nguyen developed a secret butter-garlic sauce recipe for his crawfish boils at Crawfish & Noodles. But his restaurant also offers a full Vietnamese menu that spans appetizers, noodle and rice dishes. Don't miss the finger-licking cua rang muoi salt-and-pepper blue crabs, the excellent bo luc lac shaking beef fried rice plate, or the pho dac biet, made with a silky, lightly aromatic broth that's about as good as anything you'd find in the motherland.

Crawfish & Noodles, 11360 Bellaire: As one of the originators of Viet-Cajun crawfish, this Asiatown classic has been featured on Netflix’s Ugly Delicious, Food Network, Travel Channel and Top Chef — making Crawfish & Noodles one of Houston’s most popular destinations for the seasonal crustaceans. Trong Nguyen, owner and James Beard finalist, helped fuel the surge of Vietnamese-Cajun cuisine popularity. Show up early to beat the lines and snag your pounds before the season comes to a close.

Chef/owner Trong Nguyen started offering mudbugs in mouth-numbing garlic butter more than a decade 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 eclectic menu includes other non-mudbug dishes you simply cannot miss, from the Vietnamese fried chicken dish com ga xa xiu to savory hot-pots like the lau duoi bo with oxtail. Come prepared to wait up to an hour—it’s totally worth it.

Gaining features on prestigious platforms like Food Network and Netflix's "Ugly Delicious," Crawfish & Noodles is the perfect spot to grab the spiciest treats in Houston. Being a shining star in Houston's vibrant Asiatown, this James Beard Award-nominated restaurant promises a flavourful journey through its recipes. Viet-Cajun crawfish bursting with spicy, buttery goodness, and loaded noodle bowls like pho and mi, with house-made savoury broth gives an adventurous feast.

Owner and executive chef Trong Nguyen has helped to thrust Viet-Cajun cuisine into the national spotlight with various celebrity chefs and food writers making their way to his restaurant for a taste of his personal take on the fusion of Vietnamese and Cajun flavors. Nguyen has also been a James Beard Semifinalist twice, in 2018 and 2019. While the restaurant boasts both Vietnamese and Cajun menus, it's the live crawfish that keep many Houstonians returning for more.

Of all the foods in Asiatown, Viet-Cajun crawfish is the only one that can claim the neighborhood as its birthplace. The hybrid cuisine took form in the late 2000s as Vietnamese immigrants in Louisiana began adapting Gulf Coast fish to the ethos of Southeast Asian seafood boils. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, many moved to Houston and began to tinker with the format, boiling the mudbugs in Cajun spices and then tossing them in a garlic-butter sauce.

This Chinatown staple remains Houston’s most famous destination for Viet-Cajun crawfish. Credit for that goes its appearances on multiple TV shows — remember when Andrew Zimmern ate his tails shell-on — as well as the recognition chef-owner Trong Nguyen received last year as a James Beard Award finalist. The signature garlic butter seasoning has been copied by restaurants all over, but the original still does it a little better.

This family-owned Viet-Cajun restaurant combines seafood choices with a Texan flare and authentic Southern Vietnamese cuisine and Crawfish & Noodles has been featured on Netflix, NBC, and ABC. Come try the flavorful crawfish with a variety of Vietnamese sides. The menu also includes traditional Vietnamese dishes such as stir-fried noodles and fried rice as well as classic seafood staples (oysters, shrimp, clam, fried catfish).

Crawfish & Noodles is more trendy than traditional with its take on Viet-Cajun cuisine. The restaurant blends Asian flavors such as fish sauce and honey garlic sauce with Cajun staples like hot wings and crawfish. Where:11360 Bellaire Blvd Ste 990, Houston, TX 77072Operating Hours: Monday – Thursday: 5:00 pm – 10:00 pm | Friday: 5:00 pm – 11:00 pm | Saturday: 12:00 pm – 11:00 pm | Sunday: 12:00 pm – 10:00 pm

Viet-Cajun cuisine has taken the city by storm, resulting in several new eateries specializing in this very thing, like southwest Houston restaurant Crawfish & Noodles. The establishment is owned by James Beard Award finalist Chef Trong Nguyen, one of the Viet-Cajun cuisine's early pioneers and adopters. The restaurant's menu is simple enough, complete with oysters, shrimp, crawfish, and more.

Crawfish & Noodles is a unique Vietcajun fusion that’s won all the awards, been on all the foodie shows, and maintains a permanent spot on the Eater list of must-eat restaurants in Houston. A multi-time James Beard nominee, chef Trong Nguyen pairs garlicky, buttery mudbugs with traditional pho soup bowls that somehow work perfectly to give you that cravable salty, spicy, savory goodness.

This Chinatown restaurant is one of the city’s most beloved crawfish spots thanks to its tasty Viet-Cajun mudbugs. It was also featured in David Chang’s Netflix documentary, Ugly Delicious, which earned it national recognition. Now with two locations, Chef Trong Nguyen invites customers on a culinary journey where Cajun and Vietnamese influences come together for a truly heavenly meal.

Tie on a plastic bib and grab the nearest roll of paper towels—it’s about to get messy. The order at this sprawling restaurant with communal tables is the namesake ruby-red crawfish, boiled and doused in a butter sauce spiked with Cajun spices and garlic. Get them extra-spicy for the tear-inducing levels of cayenne; eat them without the optional latex gloves for the street cred.

From the folks sucking back crawfish heads to the goldfish hoovering up every morsel in their tank, everyone is chowing down at Crawfish & Noodles, a Viet-Cajun institution in Chinatown. Cajun dishes including boiled crawfish and turkey necks are infused with Vietnamese flavors like lemongrass, ginger, chili, and fish sauce. What to order: crawfish by the pound, turkey neck, phở

11360 Bellaire Blvd #990, Houston, TX 77072Phone: 281-988-8098 Visit Website. A post shared by Crawfish & Noodles (@crawfishandnoodles). Located across from Chinatown’s famous Honk Kong Food Market, Crawfish & Noodles is a refined, modern Viet-Creole fusion bistro from Vietnamese transplant and James Beard Semifinalist Executive Chef Trong Nguyen.

Some of my favorites are Hong Kong Food Street, which serves Cantonese-style food; Jang Guem Tofu and BBQ House, a Korean restaurant; and Crawfish & Noodles, which makes Vietnamese-Cajun food that’s unique to the area. All of these places are nearby one another. Try them all in the same night!

For lunch, explore the Houston Farmers Market on Airline Drive, recently renovated it’s home to some brilliant restaurants, including Crawfish & Noodles for Viet-Cajun fusion or Underbelly Burger, which flips proper old-school burgers.

More Vietnamese people live in Houston than almost anywhere else in the country. Vietnamese food is so popular and pervasive, that it’s often fused with other types of foods to create something wholly new. Enter: Viet-Cajun crawfish.

If you're going to order here, make sure you get an order of the Cajun-spiced, garlic butter crawfish. Houston is known for their Viet-Cajun crawfish and there's nothing quite like Crawfish and Noodles' recipe.

Crawfish & Noodles offers a modern take on Vietnamese cuisine. Their menu features innovative dishes, such as their signature crawfish noodle soup and spicy shrimp fried rice.

Now with two locations, it’s easier than ever to sample the dish that put Crawfish & Noodles on the map. crawfishandnoodles.com