Asian Cajun too - Evanston

Lunch today was very good. I was expecting a "sloppy seafood in a bag" experience like Angry Crab or the Boiler, but was pleasantly surprised to find it was more conventional (and less sloppy!). Good stuff!

Asian Cajun Too recently "re-opened" with a new menu which includes Vietnamese dishes in addition to the Cajun seafood. This included an ownership change, as the restaurant is now owned and managed by the sister of the previous owner.

Here's two thirds of the outside :

And the inside, with the prices per pound on the wall:



So, what did we have? As described on the menu...

Fresh Spring Rolls - Shrimp & Pork, Lettuce, Mint, Rice noodle, are wrapped with soft rice paper and dip with peanut sauce

Seafood Platter - Shrimp, Oysters, Catfish, Onion Rings

Seafood Boil - Salmon, Trifecta Sauce (Cajun, Garlic Butter & Cajun, Lemon Pepper) (I know not much salmon is visible in the photo, but that's because I took it from the wrong angle. The amount of salmon was quite ample.)

Seafood Boil - Mussels, Trifecta Sauce (Cajun, Garlic Butter & Cajun, Lemon Pepper)

Seafood Boil - Headless Shrimp, Thai Chili Sauce

Crawfish Fried Rice - Crawfish meat, pork sausage, cajun spice, bell pepper, onion, and egg, cilantro.

The seafood boil dishes are offered with a choice of five levels of how spicy. We ordered all three as "medium", the midpoint of the five levels, and it was quite spicy. (On a scale from 1 mild to 10 blow your head off, I'd give it a 7.)

The gang:

Happy holidays, and looking forward to seeing everyone next year!

Asian Cajun too - Evanston
1322 Chicago Ave
Evanston IL 60201
(224) 236-3978

Agree with everything in Ken's post. The food, overall, was much better than I expected. And the sauces themselves — just spooned over plain white rice — made another tasty dish for me.

I agree the boils were outstanding, although the seafood platter was every bit as good as Long John Silver's.

The left over sauces from the boils, on rice, were fantastic...or even better on a left over piece of catfish from the seafood platter. The medium was good and I was surprised that I was completely happy with it, though the next level up probably would be to my liking too. I see extra sauce can be ordered for $1, so when I go back maybe I'll order the food medium and get a couple additional 'extra spicy' sauces.

References were made when ordering, and on various threads on LTH about how messy getting the boils served in bags is. I'm sorry to have missed this experience. I looked in the other two restaurant posts referenced, but did not see any photos of bags, and a general google photo search of seafood boil bags did not reveal the feared messiness. Does anybody know of any such photos or feel they can describe in words? Perhaps when I go back I could request one or two bags be brought out in the bag, but with a bowl, so we can dump the contents into the bowl once it starts getting messy? I don't even know if that makes sense, being unfamiliar with them.

PS: excellent photos!!

A day later, I have to add, the owner's sparkling, enthusiastic and helpful personality contributed significantly to the quality of the meal.

When I went with the Evanston lunch group, I immediately decided to bring the group I lead here, but didn't think about it further. Having gone a second time, I gotta go back, gotta go back, yes! Posting pictures of most of the new items.

I'm still not ready to eat again since dinner last night....

Fried tofu was ordered as a token vegetarian item...but I was surprised how light and airy it was...maybe best with one of the sauces from the boils, but I will order again.
alternative to the traditional shrimp spring roll
I ordered crawfish, in keeping with the cajun theme, both spicy and mild. I guess the mild was clearly milder but the spicy wasn't obviously spicier to me than medium (which everything else was, like when ELG came here)
I love catfish, so I had to order this
Several of us really were impressed by the ginger lemon sauce on the clams
The pho was ordered to have one mild dish as a palate cleanse...but was also used as a vehicle for using up some of the extra sauces.
We also ordered potstickers, and boils of salmon, shrimp and mussles (I forgot to ask for headless shrimp till too late).