Nola

Location: Palo Alto, CA (University St area)
Cuisine type: New Orleans, Cajun
Atmosphere: casual, festive
Meal: lunch
Overall score: 7.3

Nina

Cajun, why not? At the end of a long bike ride to Palo Alto, we decided to stop for a nice, but casual lunch. This place looks and feels like a piece straight from the heart of New Orleans, with a multi-level interior courtyard with garden style seating furniture, a lively atmosphere, and Mardi Gras decorations. They had a decent selection of local, domestic and imported beers, both by the bottle and on tap.
We ordered a half dozen oysters and steak tacos as appetizers. The tacos was quite good, with the steak pretty tender, topped with avocado, pickled red onions and house made chimichurri, which struck a good balance of creamy, sour and savory. However, I was pretty disappointed with the oysters. Even though they were fresh (i wouldn’t expect any less), they were poorly shucked and had shards of shell in each one, making them hard and almost unpleasant to eat.

I ordered something that by name at least sounded very authentic New Orleans - the 4 napkin boudreaux. It was a grilled chicken breast sandwich, topped with crispy bacon, sauteed mushrooms, blue cheese, napa cabbage and red wine vinaigrette. The chicken was tender and bacon was crispy, but I found that there was too much napa cabbage and vinaigrette and too little mushrooms to be a well balanced sandwich. Even so, I enjoyed eating this with my hands, and having it live up to its name :)
We skipped dessert since we eyed this one French bakery down the street with luscious macarons that we couldn’t pass up.

Food	6
Drinks	8
Atmosphere	9
Service	7
Value	7

Ben

Right off of University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto, Nola Restaurant wraps around an inner courtyard with outdoor tables. The outdoor seating is a pleasant, lively area, a great place to hang out with friends for a meal / drinks. The indoor seating has TVs playing sports, seemingly divided into smaller single / double party rooms. The beer selection is a solid list of good microbrews, including many local. We started off with some fresh oysters and steak tacos. The oysters were clean, the cocktail sauce was fresh, and the tacos were tasty with avocado and pickled red onions. I ordered a spicy jambalaya. The jumbalaya had a decent flavor though the meat was a little overcooked. Overall a nice setting, average food (though where else are you going to find cajun food?), good drinks, though somewhat pricy.

Food	7
Drinks	7
Atmosphere	8
Service	9
Value	7

Mr Krab's Seafood Restaurant

Location: San Jose, CA
Cuisine type: Cajun, Seafood
Atmosphere: family style dive, playful themed decoration
Meal: dinner
Price range: ~$10/entree, $1.50-$4/side, more for shareable plates
Overall grade: 7.1

Ben

Most of the restaurant is two rows of tables with a server aisle in between with wooden tables draped with large sheets of paper. It is decorated with some sports memorabilia, Louisiana tributes, and cartoons of crawfish / shrimp. The menu consists of shrimp, crawfish, snow and king lobster. The shrimp and crawfish are boiled with heads and shells on, Louisiana style. We ordered the seafood platter, which came with about 30 crawfish, 15 shrimp, and lobster (we upgraded from snow to king) served in a big pot filled with broth. The broth was delicious, a red color with potatoes, onions, and garlic inside loaded with spicy pepper flavor. Despite a summer and a few trips in the south, we still never saw the huge appeal of crawfish (suck the head and crack through the body for a tiny morsel of meat), but for what it is, they were executed well and had a spicy sweet flavor. The shrimp was perfectly cooked with a soft and fresh flavor, with the drawback for some people (me included) of being cooked with head and shell on is that they are not deveined. The lobster was incredible served in the broth, the only complaint is that at the price we thought we would receive a full king lobster, though we only received about 4 chopped pieces of leg.  The side of sweet potato fries were freshly made and delicious, and the corn-on-the-cob served in a broth was not worth eating, severely overcooked and bland. The atmosphere was pretty fun, the paper table cloths and roll of paper towels on each table calling for food to be enjoyed without worrying about the mess. The drink menu was limited, at the time they weren’t selling beer or wine due to alcohol license issue. The place offers a great taste of cajun style cooking in the bay area, and they have mastered their broths and seafood preparation. The atmosphere is light, fun and informal, filled with groups of friends and couples.

Food           9

Drinks         5

Atmosphere 7

Service        8

Value          7

Nina

We left for Mr Krab's restaurant not sure what to expect. On one hand, so far any restaurant labeled "seafood restaurant" tended to be on the fancy side of the spectrum, especially when lobster is present in any form. On the other hand, the name of the place made me think of a Chuck E Cheese's type setting, which is anything but fancy. The actual place didn't match either expectation - the restaurant was small and unassuming, with a family friendly setting yet with nothing particularly tailored to be children-friendly. The content was also quite surprising - the manu was split between cajun style seafood and asian noodles. Since we came determined to eat seafood, we looked at the former for our choice of dinner.

The entrees were basically all either deep fried or seafood boils, all you had to do was choose the type of seafood, spice levels and sides. We went for a combo platter, since it was shareable and would give us an opportunity to try out most of their menu offerings in one dish; spice level - medium, since I decided to play it safe (this was cajun style, after all); finally, we didn't order any sides until later when we saw corn on the cob being presented to a nearby table and felt a tinge of melancholy for this Midwest staple. It was pretty disappointing that their advertised drink menu was reduced to only water and soda, since they had not renewed their liquor license and had no estimated date when they would get it again.

Our platter came with a lot of crawfish (which I always find difficult to eat, certainly too much labor put in for too small of a reward), quite a bit of whole shrimp, clams and king crab legs, all in a spicy broth whose flavor penetrated all of the components. I was certainly glad we ordered the medium spiciness, it had enough of a kick to make the food more exciting, while not overwhelming the delicate flavor of seafood to the point where all you could taste was spice. For how expensive of an addition the crab legs were, we didn't get too much of that on our plate, so that was a little disappointing, though in flavor they really shined. The corn on the cob was disappointing, to soggy, not sweet enough, and didn't taste too fresh either. It was a good thing that the sweet potato fries were crispy and delicious to make up for it.

Overall, this place doesn't stand out in particular, though it offers good flavorful seafood boil. I would think that crawfish fans might enjoy this place much more than me, I have yet to find good reason to pick these over shrimp or crab legs.

Food             8

Drinks          4
Atmosphere  6
Service          7
Value            7

Roux

UPDATE (5/22/12): Looks like this place might be closing, sorry to see them go but looking forward to see what takes their place in the cool food scene of Santana Row

Location: San Jose, CA

Cuisine type: Cajun
Atmosphere: casual, lounge/bar
Meal: lunch
Price range: $15

Overall grade: 8.1

Ben

A fun cajun-style bar/restaurant in the fashionable Santana Row shopping center in San Jose. Inside seating looked like a respectable sportsbar, but we ate outside in their seating in the plaza for lunch. Upon sitting, warm, delicious individual loaves of cornbread were offered to each of us in true southern style, and second portions were offered upon finishing. It may have been that we ate a late lunch, but the service was very prompt and very nice. We both ordered Po-boys, a main lunch selection. Contrary to normal, we actually ordered the same order - a pepper blacked catfish Po-boy served topped with lettuce, tomato, and a chipotle mayonnaise remoulade on a large bun.

The Po-boy matched our expectations and the outdoor atmosphere in the busy plaza was pleasant. The menu had a large selection of drinks and southern sandwiches / entrees. The price was a little higher than expected for the classic ultra-cheap southern sandwich (~$12-$15).

Food 8

Drinks 8

Atmosphere 8

Service 10

Value 5

Nina

During our search for a second car (for Ben's commute), we stopped by the Santana Row Shopping Center in San Jose. It seemed like a promising destination, with many restaurants from typical chain to small, locally-owned. We decided to eat at Roux, a cajun restaurant, in part because we don't usually see this type of cuisine. The other reason was that from their stylish rendition of their name it looked like they were called Poux (read Poo), which grabbed our attention from afar. The place looked like a lounge/bar on the inside, with comfortable seating and a vast selection of alcoholic drinks. We chose a table outside, where the weather was perfect as always and the air was fresh.

After inspecting the menu for a good 10 minutes, something not entirely unusual happened - Ben and I both chose the exact same dish from their wide selection spread over 4 pages: Cat Fish Po' Boy. To make things even more exciting, we had both thought of getting the blackened filet (as opposed to deep fried or plain grilled). Since there is no rule against ordering the same food, we decided to follow our instinct and have the Po' Boy. The only difference was that mine was off the bun and served with sweet potato fries, while Ben's was served on the bun with a side of cajun fries.

Moving on to the actual food.. Before our meal came in we were served warm over-fresh corn bread with honey butter - melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness, it took all the will power I could muster to not order seconds, and thirds etc. The catfish was perfectly done, juicy and tender and deliciously spiced. It came with lettuce and tomato (which would have gone on the sandwich), with a chipotle sauce and chili remoulade on the side. These sauces ended up being the perfect replacement for ketchup for dipping fries, so they didn't go unused. In all, this place served its role of a light lunch well, though there certainly wasn't a shortage of deef-fried foods on the menu either.

Food 8

Drinks 9

Atmosphere 8

Service 10

Value 7

Nina's dessert bonus:

Kara's Cupcakes was a small shop on the same plaza as Roux, so I couldn't resist going in to check it out. After all, it's dessert and I've been particularly interested in getting in on the cupcake craze that's been taking over large cities. They had about a dozen types of cupcakes, all looking pretty in the various colors of their icing (naturally derived from added ingredients - fruit, spices, chocolate etc). The best part was their added selection on mini-cupcakes, of the same types as the larger ones. After much gawking, I finally settled on a chocolate mini with an organic blackberry (homemade) jam as filling and a blackberry buttercream icing on top. Pure delight!