Zesty Cajun Style

Horrible food, bizarrely overpriced. Several items were not available at all… we were told that the Chef was on vacation.

Pretty legitimate Cajun seafood restaurant… Kinda like boiling crab, just without the wait. I walk by this place all the time and it’s always dead. None the less, given the decent Unilocal reviews, we have it a shot on a Saturday night. The place was dead.
But the food was pretty good! Although everything was spicy! Even the mild sauces made us sweat. It didn’t bother me cause I like spicy… but buyer beware… The garlic butter was terrific. The original sauce was a tad salty. It was the second week of crab season so everything was fresh. And the waitress was very honest about what was fresh and frozen (apparently the shrimp were frozen cause it wasn’t in season).
So you should eat here! Check it out before the lack of business closed them down

If you’re going to have the cajones to call yourself Zesty Cajun Style, then you better have a loud Zydeco band playing complete with a washboard and accordion. Maybe they play a little «My Toot Toot» or a little «Je Me Fu Mal», but I better be doing a little arm-​swinging polka with a sassy girl named Low Country Lil with a big tattoo of my face on her toot toot. That’s what I would expect when I think of a place with a name like Zesty Cajun Style. But there’s no toe-​tapping music, no beignets like they serve at Brenda’s French Soul, just a cavernous place with tables topped with butcher paper and a cartoon crab on the back of the menu (photo:
). Pretty quiet really with not a whole lotta ambiance (photo:
).
Maybe they could work on that if they plan to compete with their hipster-​centric neighbors like Jamber or Zero Zero. The owners looked like they went to some yard sale in Bodega Bay to decorate this place. Jamie W. and I came here on a lark thinking some étouffée would be nice or some jambalaya. They do serve gumbo, but it isn’t the heavy-​duty Cajun food you’d expect in a French Quarter eatery. Indochine maybe. It’s more standard seafood fare you would find at a New England boil with a few Asian touches like the house noodles. We came ready to slap on those bibs and hoover some food when we got there.
In fact, we started with the $ 6.99 House Noodles which were buttered liberally and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese (photo:
). Meh. Next came the $ 6.99 Chicken Wings, which while big enough for an order of a half-​dozen, were ironically without any Cajun seasoning to kick it up a notch… gee, where have I heard that expression? (photo:
). The main event finally came with the $ 11.99 Shrimp, which came piping hot in a big plastic bag bathing in a seaworthy broth (photo:
). Too hot to unshell at first, it took quite a while to get though the entire bag. There were quite a few, a generous portion for two people, but we managed (photo:
). Somebody get me a washboard.
FOOD — 3 stars… large portions but more meh than wow in the taste department with N’awlins nowhere to be seen
AMBIANCE — 2.5 stars… more boat marina than Baton Rouge
SERVICE — 2.5 stars… more emphatic than friendly
TOTAL — 3 stars… go get your bag o’shrimp but it just ain’t ragin’ Cajun

Saturday night with a empty dinning room!!! Is it a sign of disappointment?!
Since we are going to a lounge near by, friends all agree to have dinner at Zesty.
We called ahead and made a reservation.
When we arrived, we were scared by the empty restaurant. Hesitated for a moment, we decided giving it a shot.
Ordered 2orders of 2 people set dinner which comes a bit of everything.
Can of soda: serve with whole can and a plastic Togo cup.
Oysters on half shelf: okay fresh but nothing special.
Garlic noodle: garlicky but kinda dry. Nothing stunning.
Fried wing and French fries: hairy wings and supermarket frozen fries.
A bag of medium spicy Cajun shrimp+clam+craw fish+corns: medium spicy, but weird Cajun flavor, bit too tangy sour.
A bag of shrimp+clam in mild garlic butter: whooooo, really taste just like garlic and butter and msg…
The seafood quality is not so well. Clams were not open. Crawfish was small, dry, not much too eat. The only thing in the bag was shrimp.
Btw, don’t trust some of the photos on Unilocal.Nothing is in plates but bags. Everything they use is disposable.
One of the most weird moment, server kept providing us those useless plastic knifes, forks… even we kept saying «we don’t need them.»
Party over 6, 18% gratuity will be add on automatically.
It’s our private party for the whole dinner. No other customers come in at all.
Zesty is lack of characteristics and tasty food. The whole interior still looks like a Japanese sushi place.
Boiling crab is far away from SF. But there’s somewhere else better to have Cajun seafood in SF. To be honest, I will never recommend anyone to come here.

Decided to try this place since its fairly new to my hood. My friend and I did the special for two people for $ 48. This included: 4 raw oysters, 4 chicken wings over fries, 2 lbs of shrimp/​clams/​mussels in cajun sauce, house noodles, and 2 beverages! The sauce was delicious and the seafood was very fresh. This place was empty at 7pm on a Thursday but I am expecting more people to find out about it soon. For the price and service, it is definitely worth it and better than Boiling Crab.
The one downside is that it is not wheelchair accessible.

As a Chinese person myself, I’m so proud of how the Chinese are masters of counterfeit. We can take anything from anywhere and churn out an exact replica that would take a professional to distinguish the difference. Tonight, I discovered one exception: Crawfish boil restaurants.
There are so many things wrong with Zesty Cajun Style that I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s start with the misnomer of a name: Zesty Cajun Style is neither zesty (no limes, no lemons, and completely lacking any sourness in the sauce) nor cajun (the only thing «cajun» about their Cajun Sauce is the name). There’s also no style: the owners made NO attempt to change the restaurant’s ambiance at all — it looks like the same sushi restaurant (the sushi bar is still there) slash Chinese karaōke bar, with a few nets awkwardly draped across one wall in hopes of tricking you into thinking that it’s Boiling Crab. Now it just looks like the restaurant suffers from a horrible multiple personality disorder.
Zesty Cajun Style is the complete rebranding of the deserted phở restaurant that it used to be. Same owner and everything. I figure he realized that he couldn’t do phở very well, so why not try the recently booming-​in-​popularity Boiling Crab-​esque crawfish boil restaurant? Problem here is that those who love Boiling Crab (or the arguably superior Rockin’ Crawfish) will find nothing but a pathetic imitation attempt, with strange Chinese-​infused flavors that can be instantly noticed upon the first bite. The «Cajun» sauce tastes more like an overly-​garlicky clumpy soup base used for Chinese noodles (MSG and all) and the fried anything (oysters, chicken wings) use the same doughy breading that is used for cheap Chinese fast food (sweet & sour pork, fried popcorn chicken). Everything just didn’t taste right.
Sidenote: who serves KETCHUP (instead of buffalo sauce) with chicken wings? Anyway…
Honestly, I would’ve given it more points if they called themselves Zesty Chinese Style, because it’d be more accurate to what it actually tastes like. Unfortunately, they try to brand themselves like a Boiling Crab, and they fail horribly.
Another reason why I was disappointed: It tastes like they just pre-​boil the seafood in water and then just coat it with whatever sauce minutes before serving. What happens here is that none of the «Cajun» (I have to keep quoting this word, because it really is not Cajun) flavors are infused into the crawfish or shrimp — it just tastes like bland seafood that is mixed into an extra potent mush of sauce. Crawfish boils should have the flavors infused into every pore of the crawfish because the crawfish should be boiled into the sauce. Zesty Cajun Style just doesn’t understand that. Also, the crawfish and shrimp were way overcooked, so even the texture was off.
I REALLY wanted to love this restaurant. I live a couple of blocks away and I’m sick and tired of always driving to the Richmond District or the Sunset for crawfish. I was even willing to accept that even if it wasn’t as good as Rockin’ Crawfish, Swamp, or Craw Station, maybe it’s good enough to meet a bare minimum threshold that would save me the trouble of having to drive. WHY?! WHY COULDN’T YOU EVEN MEET THAT THRESHOLD?!! Now I have to continue driving out to the damn Richmond.
Here’s an idea to the Chinese owner, my brother, my peoples: if Zesty Cajun Style ends up failing (and I say «if» because I really do hope you improve your restaurant and eventually succeed), why don’t you take a stab at Chinese food next?

My friends and I were craving for some shrimp and crawfish where Jane N. suggested coming here which is conveniently located in SOMA. Generally, most «Boiling Crab» esque restaurants are located from inner Richmond to outer Sunset.
It turns out Zesty Cajun is right next door to Zero Zero which also scrumdidiliumptious. Zesty Cajun Style was previously a desolate Phở restaurant. Not sure if it is the same owners taking the business in a new direction or not, but I prefer this change for the better! The venue is quite spacious as most of these seafood theme restaurants tend to be cluttered with fish nets, steering wheels from ships, and so on.

We were promptly seated and our orders were taken shortly. I am a crawfish type of girl, so I ordered the usual one pound, with medium spiciness, and whatever the equivalent of «the-​whole-​sha-​bang.» Here on the other hand, they do not offer that option of mixing all flavors together. Nonetheless, I ordered House Cajun which did not fail my expectations. For a pound, it was roughly twelve dollars.
The House Cajun sauce is more on the thicker and saltier mix. The flavors were transparent and bold with garlic. The crawfishes itself were extremely fresh. You can tell how easy it is to peel by how the meat detaches from the shell.
We also ordered clams in the lemon pepper sauce. YUMmy! It was a nice variety to have aside from the clams.
Service was good. They took a kodak picture of us as a memorabilia for their wall near the windows. Cute!
A must try!

Wow! The spicy… is SO SPICY! In love!!! crawfish! Crab! Yumm!!!

Probably the worst meal I’ve ever purchased. I wanted gumbo but they had no rice (!), so I ordered chicken wings, shrimp, noodles and sausage:
— The chicken wings… just don’t. Ever. Soggy batter and tasteless, probably just thawed frozen wings.
— The shrimp had a reasonable sauce, but came complete with heads, legs and shell and I literally could not peel the shell off any of the shrimp. (I won’t blame the restaurant for this – maybe that’s cajun style to serve the whole thing in tact, but there has to be a better way to get the shell off. I ordered a pound, struggled to get the meat out of one shrimp and had to give up).
— Pasta was just noodles in garlic and oil.
— Sausage. Would love to comment but I didn’t receive it in my takeout order.
The employees were very nice but I get the sense that good cajun food is not a venture they care about deeply. I sincerely hope that others have a better experience than I did.

This restaurant is fairly new, and I wish I had a better review, since they seem to be trying hard and I’d like for them to succeed. There’s certainly not a ton of places that serve Cajun food in SF.
I went on a weeknight at around 8 pm with another friend and it was pretty empty inside. We ordered the house noodles ($ 6.75) and 1 pound of crawfish ($ 9.99) with medium Cajun sauce.
The noodles were a great complement to the seafood and good with the sauce from the crawfish mixed into it. It was a little on the drier side, but maybe that was intentional so that you could mix the sauce from the seafood into it. As a stand alone dish, it was not as flavorful as garlic noodles I’ve had at PPQ.
Maybe it was my mistake ordering crawfish (it was my first time), but it was difficult to eat. Maybe I needed something to help open them since they were steaming hot, but there wasn’t much meat in them for all the work you had to do. The sauce was pretty good, not too spicy and not too salty. I’m curious to check out other crawfish places to see how they compare.
Make sure you get the plastic bib because it’s messy, and they currently offer 10% off your bill if you check into Unilocal.All in all, a decent meal but nothing I’m craving a repeat visit for. Price is reasonable; with the 10% discount it was $ 18 for 2 people (pre tip).

I haven’t eaten at many cajun seafood places so I’m not a connoisseur but I really enjoyed this place.
This place is located next to Zero Zero off of folsom. We ordered shrimp and crawfish in the house cajun sauce (the spiciest level) and clams in the garlic butter sauce. Everything was very tasty, especially the sausages that were added in. The house cajun sauce was pretty spicy which I thoroughly enjoyed. We also ordered the cajun fries which were surprisingly spicy… or maybe it was because my tongue was already on fire. Either way, I love spicy foods so if i’m sweating then you’ve done a good job.
Must haves:
Shrimp in cajun sauce (spicy)
Clams in any sauce

It was my first time in SF Zesty Cajun. I ordered spicy butter garlic shrimp, claims, and mussels. Taste is very good and so spicy. But if more color will be great. Also I like the live oyster so fresh, and small. I love it with lemon and hot sauce.
Overall is very yummy, I love seafood. I just need more water. Even is operated by Asians serving Cajun style,

We stumbled upon Zesty Cajun when Zero Zero was having major seating problems (too long a story for this review) and I’m SO happy that we did! The chalk sign outside promised 10% off all orders and I convinced the bf we should try it when I saw the 4.5 stars on Unilocal ( Unilocal saved the day again!). Here are my top 10 tips for eating at Zesty Cajun Style:
1) Order a variety of seafood — variety is fun and we enjoyed our mussels, shrimp, and crawfish. The mussels were our slight favorite even though we didn’t expect that they would be.
2) Take off your rings, watches, and bracelets before digging in — they will get messy! If you don’t let getting your hands messy or touching food, this is not the restaurant for you!
3) Order the medium or crazy spicy cajun sauce — we had both and they were great — the crazy spicy was actually pretty spicy!
4) Check what wine they are serving before you order the «house wine» — I was planning to get wine but turned down their two-​buck Chuck they had as the only option!
5) Accept the bib — this will likely help save your clothes especially if you choose the red cajun sauce.
6) Order rice to soak up the yummy sauces!
7) Order corn — it’s $.75 and goes great in the sauces!
8) Ask for the price of «market price» options before you order them — some of the crab can be pricy!
9) Take photos of your food — your friends will be jealous and want to come with you next time.
10) Happily take a polaroid photo for them to post on their wall! Instant fame! ;)

YAYAYAY! So happy that Zesty Cajun opened up in SoMa. Was super excited to try this place out since I was craving Cajun Seafood anyway.
We ordered crawfish, shrimp, and clams, and cajun. Everything was in the House Cajun sauce except for the clams that we got in the Garlic Butter. Everything was very good and the seafood was fresh (clams and shrimp peeled off easily). I think I’m a lightweight when it comes to spice because the medium had me on fire. Definitely a good idea to get bread and/​or rice to eat with the sauce. The sausage was good as expected and I’m not sure why people are griping about the «small» corn because it’s about the same size that other places like this provide also. Not sure if they were expecting a whole one or something.
It was pretty empty when we went but that’s because it had only been open for 2 weeks when we went. Pretty big space and the service was great to us. Zesty has definitely become my go-​to for Cajun Seafood in the city!

I’m hoping this day never comes…
The day where my future kid comes running to me saying, «Mommy, mommy… I wanna be on American Idol when I grow up» and belts out the most atrocious, ear bleeding tune.
«YOU SUCK» is what I may be thinking but what parent would shatter their kid’s dream like that?
This is how I felt about Zesty Cajun Style. Saying the food sucked is very harsh, so I’ll just say that it needs a lot of work. The staff was super warm and nice, but when they asked us how the food was, I just bit my tongue, smiled, and said it was good. Besides, good ol’ child memories of the feather duster prevented me from telling the truth.
Opening three weeks ago, Zesty Cajun is located between a string of trendy restaurant/​lounges like Oola, Zero Zero, Jamber, and Restaurant Lulu. Some may find it odd that a Cajun joint is owned by Asians but it’s very common in SoCal and the South Bay thanks to the wildly popular The Boiling Crab (Viet owned) that started the trend (see article:
). Now, all the Cajun places in SF are Viet/​Chinesey owned: Red Crawfish, Rockin’ Crawfish, Crawstation and Cajun House.
Zesty Cajun took over the Vietnamese restaurant, Zesty Restaurant (
) space but I think it may be the same owners who decided to start fresh with a new concept and semi-​new name. Other than the flat screen TVs, the décor is pretty sparse. There’s 12 – 14 four tops tables and counter seating.
The menu is similar to all the other Cajun restaurants in the SF Bay Area with similar pricing:
.
Seeing that I’ve been placed on a budget (courtesy of my better half), we opted for the off the menu Seafood Platter Special for Two. For $ 32.99, you get half a crab, and half a pound each of crawfish, mussels, clams, and shrimp. AWESOME DEAL. From the three sauce options, we went with the Garlic Butter — Medium Spicy. We decided to «splurge» a bit and also ordered a side of Chicken Wings ($ 6.99), Corn ($.75 ea.) and Sausage ($ 1.99 for 6 pieces). Why not, when they’re offering a 10% off your bill during their grand opening?
The Seafood Platter Special was the feast for the eyes but unfortunately didn’t taste as good:
. The garlic butter sauce was an odd brown color and looked like a gumbo roux with minced garlic thrown in:
. It had a very funky, gloppy texture and was insanely salty. It pretty much masked the taste of the crustaceans. The crab and the shrimp were perfectly cooked and sweetly tender. I found the crawfish to be a bit undercooked as the meat was not fully opaque. The mussels and clams weren’t very fresh and were mad tiny.
Ironically, the Chicken Wings were the best thing we had that night:
. They were deliciously crisp, well-​seasoned, and very juicy.
The staff is obviously very green and lacked any training. When I asked what wine they had, one guy said he was going to check and never came back. I ended up ordering a glass from another waitress but she didn’t know wine existed in reds and whites. :X We also got our appetizer the same time as our entrée. Also, no lime wedges with salt and pepper were provided as they usually are with Cajun joints. No real plating or utensils were given either; paper trays and plastic forks were provided.
Considering, they’re still in their infancy stage, a very generous 3 stars for Zesty Cajun in hopes that they work out all their kinks.
However, I can’t get over HOW funky that garlic butter sauce was. Perhaps, they should of asked family and friends for constructive criticism before opening their doors to the public. Then again, I’m sure they have fond memories of the gai mo so too…

It was a last minute decision for me and my husband to head out for a dinner date. We recently moved here from New Jersey. Stopped by here because it was close to our office after work. It first caught me by surprised as I walked in, because this restaurant is operated by asians — serving cajun style! I sat down with hesitance.
My jaw dropped with extreme surprises of how good all the food tasted here (never judge a book by it’s cover)!! We ordered lemon pepper clams, fried oysters, chicken wings, cajun crawfish (crazy spicy flavor), and house noodles. My husband and I almost had to carry our bellies out. We had an awesome time enjoying our dinner here last night.
Service was good. Price is really reasonable comparing to other restaurants down the block. It was heart warming when the waitress walked up to us at the end of our dinner and asked to take a picture of me and my husband to post on their wall. I would definitely come here again.
**recommendations: casual wear is suggested. with all the good finger food here, you’d definitely want to dress down for the night.**

This place just opened in late June. They had good Cajun seafood but the other things they serve aren’t great. I ordered the clams, which is boiled and served in a bag at the table. One side of corn is just a small 2 inch piece, also boiled and served in the bag, which was good. The starters aren’t good though, they are all fried things and not done well.
My boyfriend is from the south and thought this place wasn’t very good, except for the seafood. He said the atmosphere is weird partly because of the food but also because it’s run by Asians. He said that he gives the place 6 months tops to stay open.
It would have been better if it had true southern sides like biscuits, mash potatoes, greens, baked beans, and they need sweet tea.

This place is Awesome!!! Me, My bf, and my roommate came here for dinner on Tuesday night and we loved it!!! We had 2 lbs of garlic butter shrimp, dungeness crab, corn, sausages, and 1DZ of oyster. Everything was flavorful! We were sooooo satisfied. We shared everything and still had leftovers because they were just so filling~~~
We will definitely be returning there^^because everything tasted great, service was good, and you can totally tell the differences in the taste between all the other cajun style food places.
We highly recommend you getting crawfish or shrimp in the house special cajun seasoning, and the garlic butter sauce in medium spicy. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

I am glad that I found this grand open Cajun style seafood restaurants. I loved Zesty Cajun Style. I’m a seafood enthusiast, it’s kind of a home away from home for us. And after trying a few places around the Bay Area for Cajun/​Creole/​New Orleans style cooking, I think I’ve found the one.
The owner James is very attentive and generous despite busy crowds. If you like cajun style crawfish and seafood, this has been the only place that gets it right. Perfect. Highly recommend. Easy to get location and spacious dinning area. I say relax and go to town ordering a variety of choices.
Well done Zesty Cajun Style!

I like this kind of style food, every time i would go bolling crab, but now I don’t need to go that far anymore, this place can satisfied all i need, and i think its better than bolling crab