Trung N.
Yelp
Ocean Crawfish is one of those spots where you go to get a real authentic Vietnamese experience. This place suffers from the lack of social media presence and the lack of visits from the younger, more tech-savy generations to push it to the forefront of the Houston food scene. For more context, I grew up in Vietnam and lived there for 15 years, so I have always wanted to relive my memories of eating authentic Vietnamese street food. What most people don't realize is that Vietnamese cuisine is much more than just Pho, different assortments of rice noodles, grilled pork broken rice, and banh mi. The street food scene in Vietnam is just as vibrant, and one of the most crucial components of Vietnamese street food is our snail dishes. Snail/seafood restaurants are virtually everywhere in Sai Gon and are usually go-to destinations for a night-out drinking.
Re-creating that kind of experience in the US is super hard, simply because of the lack of fresh snails. Thus, most Viet snail restaurants that I've been to in Texas usually have outrageous prices due to the scarcity of the ingredients. Ocean Crawfish is not one of them. They serve very reasonably-priced snail and seafood, considering the rate of inflation. Furthermore, if you ask the staff, they are very good and honest with telling you which ingredients they actually have fresh that day and which is just frozen store-bought. We only ordered the snails that were fresh and I was blown away by the quality of ingredients and seasoning. Each dishes usually involves one core ingredient (usually the type of snail, fish, etc.) and you have the choice for it to be prepared in different ways. Again, the staff is really good at telling you which way of cooking/preparing is most suitable for the ingredient of your choice (by the way, this is also how these restaurants are run in Vietnam).
The restaurant itself is also very vibrant with a cozy family meal kind of feeling. It is worth noting the surrounding area may not be the safest but the restaurant owner has hired a security guard service who is always on duty while the restaurant is open.
Overall, I highly recommend this place for anyone who has a penchant for trying authentic eating experiences and for any Vietnamese who misses the nostalgic Vietnam street food scene.