Restaurant Review: Yellow Étouffée? It's an "Etouffail"

 Take a look at the picture above. Does this look like étouffée to you? Yellow étouffée. I have never seen yellow étouffée. When they brought this dish out, my face must have fallen 1,000 miles. WTH?

This pic is from a local restaurant here. I'm not going to name it. People from around here might recognize this "etouffail." Any other inquiries can be made via email.

We decided to stop in for lunch one day. It hasn't been around that long, but forgive me because I can't recall exactly when they opened. We were a party of three. One other person besides me ordered this monstrosity. We both ate what we were served because we don't like to waste food. 

Don't get me wrong though. It was palatable. It wasn't bad. It didn't have much flavor at all, really. It tasted like white sauce with some spices (?). It didn't taste like crawfish at all, and there weren't many in there. I ordered a meal and the "étouffée" was used as a sauce over a blackened filet of unknown origin. I dodged a bullet there, because I almost ordered the standalone étouffée option. 

It was pretty hilarious...actually, hideous and hilarious at the same time. The first thing our friend said was: "What are they hiding?" Indeed. 

What are they hiding? It must be flavor because we didn't find much of that. That has the be the blandest "Cajun" meal I ever ate. Even the dirty rice was too clean. Frozen green beans. I don't mind those in a restaurant (or at home sometimes), if they are prepared the right way. These were acceptable. 

So I'm guessing they just took a powdered sauce, rehydrated it, and added some S&P, maybe some turmeric, curry, or a bit of saffron. Probably not saffron though. Or maybe it was simply a bagged powdered concoction and they added nothing extra. This is pure speculation on my part -- all I know for sure is that it wasn't true étouffée prepared from scratch. The blackened filet was okay, at least it had some flavor. It had no real heat though, unfortunately. 

But that yellow étouffée...I thought it was going to taste like mustard. Thank goodness it didn't. But...yellow? For those who have experienced the real thing: Have you ever seen yellow étouffée...ever? 

I am not an expert at Cajun cooking or Creole cooking -- I can pull off a few dishes really well and I'm always willing to try my hand at others -- but I know étouffée, and Honey, that ain't it! Justin Wilson would have had a coronary if he saw that stuff. 

I completely understand about wanting to add your own twist, but they added so many twists to this one that it spun out of existence. There wasn't even a hint of the "Holy Trinity" present. They didn't use it. 

Frankly, I was appalled; but I held my tongue. We were hungry and exhausted after a busy morning of parade duties in a neighboring town. We ate our meal and tried to drown our disappointment with copious amounts of water & iced tea. 

Cajun étouffée is one of my favorite dishes; sometimes I enjoy the Creole version too. I have had both many, many times over the years. Sometimes I make it at home, if I have time. I have eaten it in restaurants in Texas & in Louisiana. I have eaten it at potlucks. Never out of all those times, have I ever seen yellow étouffée. I did an extensive internet search and I never found any that had even a hint of freakin yellow. I don't know where they got the idea that it is yellow. 

It's pretty much a universal thing, like with other famous (or infamous) dishes. Étouffée has a certain flavor profile. People who order it are expecting that. I don't know how much of this stuff they sell, because people who have had the real thing before are only going to order that crap one time. 

I had high hopes for the restaurant itself, so it was a disappointment. We have been back since then. Once. This time we experienced woefully undercooked shrimp & some pretty terrible coleslaw. I had catfish & shrimp that day. The catfish was passable, but again, hardly any spices at all. If you're going to serve Cajun, DO IT. Especially if it is listed as Cajun. The best thing out of the second meal? French fries. 

I don't order fried food very often, so I was doubly disappointed on our second visit. And that coleslaw...UGH. We had better coleslaw at a chicken joint I worked at in my youth. (Finely shredded, fresh ingredients, good recipe.) This one...well...the salad itself was slightly discolored, but there was no bad odor, so I ate mine. The cabbage had a strange cut, and the coleslaw had a lot of the thicker leaf stems in it, which would have been fine if the cabbage had been shredded properly, but as it was...no. 

So at this point, we don't really want to go back again. They call themselves a steak & seafood joint,  but after all of that, I'm afraid to order the steak, or even a burger. 

It's too bad. They pretty much cornered the market on seafood here. Aside from them, there's a fast food seafood joint that's independently owned. Other than that, we have about 42 Tex-Mex restaurants 😆, and some other offerings unrelated to seafood. Oh yeah, and too many fast food joints. 

We'll either enjoy seafood when we go out of town or we'll prepare it at home. I am not planning to go back there again. Oh, it could happen, but it is less & less likely the more I think about it. 

Mainly because they just don't seem to care. They open this restaurant, knowing that they have an advantage opening one here. Then they serve subpar food. I'll bet a lot of it is pre-made too. It's a damn shame. 

My scathing(?) review will not affect their business. I am not an "influencer" on Instagram or on any other platforms. But I decided to speak up about it anyway. Bottom line is, don't waste your money. Unless fried food is your thing, but they even screwed that up as far as the shrimp were concerned. I can't speak about the steak, but if the seafood is any indication, then the steaks aren't much better. They might be like the ones people used to sell door to door. Yeah, I bought some of those. Once. Decades ago. 😆 I don't know if anyone does that now, but don't buy any if they do. 😄