"The main feature of this place would be our seafood, and that's why we named our restaurant after our boiled food," Boiling Cajun owner Richard Choi said. "I think [people] come in here expecting only Cajun and not the Asian part. We're slowly building up to be our own taste. We don't want to be like some other seafood restaurant—we want to be us."
Richard's mother, Wendy, works as a manager at the restaurant, and his father, Michael, serves customers as an award-winning head chef. Prior to venturing into Tomball, the Choi family opened the first Boiling Cajun location along FM 1960 in November 2013 and sold it to focus on the new restaurant about a year later.
The Choi family selected Tomball for the Cajun-Asian fusion concept because of the lack of seafood and Asian restaurants in the area, Richard said. The restaurant's most popular dishes range from $5 and up and include raw oysters, wings with homemade sauces, po'boys, shrimp, fried rice and variations of sushi, which was introduced to the menu in November.
"We serve our seafood in a bag, and there's a bunch of sauce in there and that's to keep all of the flavor inside," Richard said. "It's steamy hot and gets the meat of the seafood really juicy. It's a really unique way [to serve the food]."
Boiling Cajun allows customers to purchase seafood by the pound, such as crawfish, shrimp and lobster, and customize their dishes with flavors, including Thai Spicy, Ragin' Cajun and garlic butter, as well as spices ranging from mild to Fire Hot.
The Choi family is no stranger to the restaurant industry. Michael, now 52, said he began teaching himself at age 14 while living in Hong Kong how to cook and the art of carving vegetables into food sculptures, such as phoenixes and dragons. Michael trained as an executive chef in Mexico and owned a restaurant in Miami before the Choi family moved to Houston for a new start about 10 years ago, Richard said.
Richard said business has been steady, and his family is looking to open another Boiling Cajun location in the Cypress area along Hwy. 290 in about a year.
"We're definitely trying to expand, and we're looking for a location right now," Richard said. "If the opportunity comes, we'll take it. Right now we're trying to make this [restaurant] work and trying to get this to be a hot spot. We're trying to test a few things."