Crawdads (or, as us Brits call them,  Crayfish) shows how J and my tastes both align and dramatically differ. In terms of movies, she has terrible taste, exemplified by her recommending to me the movie “Where the Crawdads Sing” which I found a generic, dull as ditch water, yawnathon.

This led to a disagreement as to what was meant by crawdads singing, with me insisting it was a turn of phrase referencing actual crawdads (as in the crustaceans) and J that it was where certain birds sang (Narrator: It was the former).

In terms of food, our tastes are much more aligned and both of us are more than happy to get down and dirty with our food in terms of eating with our hands (Mrs. SF is much less inclined) and ripping apart crustaceans is right up our street. I still haven’t got her around to the fact that a  crustacean’s head is easily the best tasting bit of any crustacean, but that is a work in progress.

This all brings me to the crayfish boil at Neighbourhood Kitchen in Riverside Cardiff (with the place operating a rolling roster of kitchen takeovers and the Crayfish boil being a regular at these)

The crawdad/crayfish boil is a southern (USA) classic (seemed rather apt on the 4th of July date we went), which combines heavily seasoned (with a heady mix of lemon zest, garlic, salt, cayenne paprika and various herbs) crayfish, veggies (corn and potatoes) and sausage (ideally smoked Cajun andouille) all cooked (to various degrees) in a heady spice laden broth.

With 5 of us, we all had the crayfish boil. I mean, unless you are a veggie or mad (or quite possibly both – is a venn diagram for that I am sure), why would you order the shrimpz (god I hate “shxte” faux meat/fish names, but whatever floats your boat and I suppose shrimp/prawn meat is probably the easiest to fake as cheap real ones taste of bugger all anyways) and decided to go large on the sides.

The boil itself was dumped (as it should be) on the table in keeping with the “get down and dirty” theme.

Loads of it, with the crayfish nicely cooked (the tail meat tender, with the ever present risk of overcooking with a boil avoided) and having taken on the spices from the broth they cooked in. It is quite a lot of effort for not a huge gain, as with a crayfish the quantity of edible material is quite minimal as against its shell on size, but the meat has a nice sweetness to it that works well with spices.

The same applied to the corn, with the juicy sweetness of the kernels operating as a nice counterpoint to the Cajun spice mix.

Chunky pots worked OK, but were a bit floury in texture.

The only disappointing aspect of the boil was the sausage element, which were like chunky frankfurters (rather than andouille) and lacked both smokiness and spice.

For £15 a head, I though the boil element was very good value, with my pile of shells an impressive haul.

We ordered all of the sides,

which raised a eyebrow with our server (said it was a lot – we ate it all)

Pick of the sides were some excellent bottle caps (£5) which had a uber crisp light batter, coating nicely sour (with a touch of heat) jalapeños (could have done with more of the comeback sauce, if I was being picky)

and a very nice piece of fried catfish (£9).

Good spiced coating to this, with the fish cooked on point and topped with a mellow garlic butter.

Cajun fries (£4.50) were nicely crisp,

but probably an unnecessary order with the pots in the boil.

I enjoyed the collated green ( £5 – known as spring greens here in the UK)

but I don’t think they needed the creamy  sauce (which lacked cheesiness).

The mac and cheese (£5),

split the room, with me thinking it was a bit claggy and lacking in cheesiness. Others disagreed and enjoyed the Cajun spices it was imbued with.

The sloppy joe (£9.50), due to one of our party being gluten intolerant (they were very accommodating) we had the bread and mince separate, was a bit on the bland (standard UK bolognese) side.

Seemed oddly (over)priced to me, at £9.50, as against the rest of it.

As indicated, it is a messy affair and not for those they don’t like to get down and dirty with their food.

On the drinks front they have the ubiquitous cocktails

as well as beer, wine, spirits and soft drinks.

One of our party had the zombie,

which she seemed to enjoyed (followed by a Hurricane, which got a similar thumbs up)

Wine wise the list is a bit sparse, with sauv.  blanc and verdejo (known in some circles, unfairly in my opinion, as the Spanish sauv. blanc) in the whites and two (what I would call fairly journeymen) tempranillos in the reds.

I was out voted on the verdejo front, so tempranillo it was.

The El Coto sells retail for £11.50, so the £21.00 price tag here is very fair for the UK), and was perfectly drinkable.

The verdict

We all had a rather jolly evening, with the meal very much a communal affair and everyone just digging in.

For the £15 price per head the crayfish boil was very good value in my opinion (would have been happy to pay more for proper Cajun andouille sausage and more waxy pots i.e idaho reds or something of that ilk).

Sides were more a mixed bag (with some of the prices for these seemingly out of kilter with the price for the boil). I would probably skip the mac n cheese and sloppy joe next time and double up on the very good catfish and bottle caps.

All in all a good night, but not for people who don’t like getting down and dirty with their grub.

Thank the Lord for the rather fetching bibs.

Details

Address: 80 Tudor St, Cardiff, CF11 6AL

Website: https://neighbourhoodkitchen.co.uk/

The boil’s current run at Neighbourhood Kitchen is until the 14th July.