The Cajun Cua (“cua” means crab in Vietnamese) was probably the first restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City to offer cajun seafood. Cajun is both the name of a rustic cuisine in Louisiana and a spicy seasoning widely used in that cuisine. The Cajun Cua, like many similar restaurants, specializes in a specific aspect of this cuisine: serving boiled seafood (and other ingredients) in bags where it is mixed with certain seasonings.
The Cajun Cua has been around for at least a decade and in 2015-16 became very popular. As it happens in Vietnam, popularity was followed by imitation and other similar themed restaurants mushroomed in Ho Chi Minh City. In my visit in the summer 2019 the fad seemed to have faded away.
The visit
The restaurant is relatively small with a storefront squeezed among the shops of Ly Tu Trong street.
Ordering the main dish – the seafood by the bag – involved two steps: first I made my choices of seafood, then I chose the seasoning; I chose cajun, but other flavors were possible: garlic butter, lemon garlic, basil, juicy. I tried a few of these seasonings in the past and they are all good, full of flavor, but not to the point to kill the seafood taste entirely.
I was also provided a slice of lime to squeeze on a tablespoon of salt and pepper. This is a typical Vietnamese condiment, not related to Cajun cooking.
The preparation can take quite a while. I think I waited half an hour (that is a lot for a restaurant in Asia). But if you are smart, you can do like a group that arrived shortly after me and was served immediately: they had booked their food on the phone beforehand. The chalkboard above illustrates the waiting times.
Above you can see how my bag looked like: it included 250 grams of swimmer crab, 250 grams of green mussels, and 250 grams of prawns.
All the seafood was very good. The bag also came with a piece of corn and a mini slice of sausage (it would have been nice to have more, you can order extra though). I also had a baguette to dip in the leftover sauce after finishing the seafood.
Finally, I had a portion of chicken wings with cajun seasoning. Quite nice if you like spicy food.
The check
Final check was a little over 1,000,000 VND (or 44 USD). Probably there was enough food for two people with a normal appetite. While it is pricey as compared to standard Vietnamese food, you can enjoy some good seafood without breaking the bank.
I have never been in Louisiana and I cannot speak about the authenticity, but overall the experience and the quality of the food is good and it is a nice option for seafood-lovers.
Where in Ho Chi Minh City:
267 Lý Tự Trọng – District 1
(They also have a location in District 7, in Sunrice City, where I have never been.)