How the Boiling Crab Transformed Southern California’s Kickin’ Seafood Boil Scene | Eater LA

"On a Friday afternoon outside the Boiling Crab in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, about 20 people line up before the restaurant’s 3 p.m. opening — high schoolers with backpacks, baby-toting families, and couples all eager for the chain’s dripping red, Louisiana Cajun–influenced seafood boils. Inside, weathered nautical decor (ropes around wooden beams, prop sharks, and glowing sports TVs) and butcher-paper–draped expandable tables set a loud, communal tone; servers hand out bibs and gloves so diners can unpack messy plastic bags of piping-hot crawfish, lobster, king crab, and unpeeled shrimp, plus add-ons like corn cobs, smoked pork and beef sausage links, and red potato wedges, all drowned in a bright red, garlicky, spicy sauce. Their method veers from traditional Cajun boils — instead of smothering strained seafood with garlic butter on newspaper, The Boiling Crab coats ingredients in a bag with a garlicky, spicy chile sauce that can reach tremendous heat; sauces are customizable (Rajun Cajun, lemon pepper inspired by the Vietnamese muối tiêu chanh dip, and garlic butter), and most diners opt for “The Whole Sha-Bang,” a blend of all three, with heat levels ranging up to an XXX “I can’t feel my mouth!” intensity. Founded in 2004 in a Garden Grove strip mall by Vietnamese American couple Dada Ngo and Sinh Nguyen — whose love story began after meeting in Seadrift, Texas — the restaurant tripled its original space, expanded into a roughly 30-location chain employing over 2,000 people, and helped spark a wider Viet-Cajun seafood-boil boom while the owners still insist they’re a Louisiana-inspired Cajun boil rather than strictly Viet-Cajun. Beyond the food, the place thrives on a sense of community: long-tenured, enthusiastic staff, devoted regulars who visit hundreds of times, and a messy, show-off, celebratory atmosphere that many say copycat restaurants can’t quite replicate." - Jean Trinh