Today we’d like to introduce you to Kiet Duong.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Being in Houston with its close proximity to Louisiana, crawfish was something I first ate as a teenager in a backyard boil. In 2012, as Viet Cajun style crawfish started to become more popular, I had the opportunity to open my own crawfish restaurant.
I knew this would be a challenge for me since I had no culinary experience and have never even worked in a restaurant. After long hours and countless days of taste testing, planning, building and preparing as best as I could, I opened Crawfish Cafe in February of 2013 inside of Hong Kong City Mall.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Definitely not! The restaurant business is probably one of the hardest things you can do. When we first started I had no restaurant experience. I brought in a few guys who were in the same position as me and it was rough. One of the things we learned very quickly was food needed to be prepped. We didn’t prep anything. Of course this wouldn’t have been a problem with someone who had experience.
Please tell us about Crawfish Cafe.
We are known for our boiled seafood specifically crawfish. We serve our crawfish in 6 different sauces which include original Cajun Louisiana style, garlic butter, lemon pepper, kicking Cajun, Thai basil and the mix which is a mixture of garlic butter and lemon pepper.
We take a lot of pride when it comes to cooking crawfish. The crawfish first goes through a sorting and cleaning process where we remove all the dead crawfish. It then goes through a cooking and soaking process to absorb all the Cajun flavors in the head and tail meat before adding extra flavor by tossing it in one of our six sauces.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I wouldn’t do anything differently because it taught us a great deal about running the restaurant. If we didn’t go through those hardships then, I don’t think we would be the same and wouldn’t be where we are today.
Contact Info:
- Address:11205 Bellaire Blvd, Suite C36
- Website:http://www.crawfishcafe.com
- Phone:2815751746
- Email:contact@crawfishcafe.com
- Instagram:https://instagram.com/crawfishcafe/
- Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/pg/crawfishcafe
- Twitter:https://twitter.com/CrawfishCafe
- Yelp:http://www.yelp.com/biz/crawfish-cafe-houston-3
Image Credit:
Instagram @phileats
Instagram @datfoodporn
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