Shannon B.
Yelp
This one is a tough call, and I'm landing on a cautious 3 stars (OK) for now. We had some seriously not good things occur during our visit, yet the staff were trying hard and the crawfish flavor was so fantastic, I'm going back again for more. If you love mudbugs, happen to be in North Austin, aren't in a hurry, and have a foodscale, press your luck at Kasian Boil and you *may* be rewarded with a delicious meal.
THE GOOD
Kasian Boil is a locally-, Black-owned, family-run business in my neighborhood near Mopac & Wells Branch serving Viet-Cajun seafood boils and a limited other menu of rice bowls, eggrolls, and fried seafood. I am rooting for this 1 year-old small business to succeed.
During the pandemic, the number of indoor tables is limited and there are a few outdoor 4-tops on the sidewalk for those who prefer that.
The crawfish right now (March 2021) are SUPERB - fresh, clean, good sized, and seasoned perfectly. The Blasian Butter (that's Black+Asian) has the most perfect spicy, garlicky, salty zing I've ever had in Austin. Everyone in our group of crawfish fanatics were raving about the quality of this boil. Flavor, amazing. Shellfish, fresh & clean. No dead ones in the batch.
THE BAD
Servers/hosts (ranging in assumed age from 12 - 25 on this day) were friendly and eager to please, but seem overwhelmed, disorganized, and lacking service industry skills. There was no pacing to the visits to our table, follow-up orders were forgotten several times, and they had minimal knowledge of the menu or how to help new guests order. This was busy dinner on a Saturday, during prime crawfish season, normally considered the best shift of the week and one in which the A-team would be handling guests; is there no A-team at Kasian? Did the floor manager no-show this time? This crew needs coaching on how to run the front-of-the-house in a busy restaurant, how to manage problems at the table, and to know the full menu (which isn't that big) by heart.
We requested outdoor seating for our group of 6 (COVID precaution), then we had to arrange our own table, carry chairs outside, and request to get paper cover (standard for seafood boils) on the filthy tables. If you offer outdoor seating, the service team needs to know to treat that table just like those indoors: visibly clean between guests, set the table with supplies, return periodically, etc.
Those pretty daiquiris you see on the social posts? Not available. We were told they weren't frozen yet at 5:30p on Saturday. Our waiter didn't know the bar menu and couldn't say if any Louisiana beers (like Abita) were available... at a Cajun restaurant... during crawfish season. Drinks aren't shown on the online-only menu, so if your staff don't know the drinks menu, you aren't going to sell many drinks. Also, no iced tea - blasphemy!
But the worst offense came with the shorting of our crawfish orders. The price per lb here is steep at $12/lb (it's usually around $10/lb in Austin), so most folks are going to look at multi-pound options to get a little break. Our group of 6 went for 4 orders of 3 lbs for $33. The first 3 bowls came out together and we dug in, hungry & not looking closely at the volume. By about 1/2 way through the meal, we all voiced the same thought: there is no way that this is 3lbs of crawfish. Each bowl was less than 1/2 full, with no sausage & 1 corn included. Our waiter never came back until we were done with that round, and she dropped off the 4th bowl that was 3 times as full as what we got the first time, with more veg. At that point, we realized we were charged $99 for $33 worth of crawfish - unacceptable. We brought this up in as non-Karenish a way as we could; the waiter went away for a long while then came back to say that the kitchen may have made a mistake and they would remove 1 of the 3 lightweight orders from our bill.
At the time, our group didn't want to make a fuss and we were just ready to leave, so we accepted the offer. What *should* have happened was that each of the initially served $33 orders would be discounted down to $12, since they were really only 1 lb and didn't even include sausage. You can see my photo comparison of the menu item versus what we got.
Really, any waiter or expediter at a Cajun restaurant serving boils during crawfish season should know exactly what 3 lbs of crawfish looks like, and if the right order is not being delivered to the table, they should take it back to the kitchen & fix it without a word. They also should come back to the table and inquire if there are any straight-tailed crawfish (indicating dead before boil) and replace them - that's a basic standard.
Will I go back? Maybe I'm a masochist, but yep, I bought the Groupon for 30% off $25 and will be trying again for a to-go order this week. Those crawfish are just too good! But I'll be bringing my kitchen scale and I will check weight before I pay this time.
Protip: BYO gloves, shell crackers, & bibs. They don't have those.