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The Cajun Experience Restaurant Review

1825 18th St. NW (Swann St. NW) Send to Phone
Washington, DC 20009
202-670-4416 | Make Restaurant Reservations | Menu
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A full-blown Cajun experience, from the décor to the po’ boys.

Cuisine

Open

Lunch & Dinner daily

Features

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Much like its suburban cousin, this version of The Cajun Experience is housed in a quaint dwelling, though this is the downstairs of an old-timey townhouse on the edge of Adams Morgan. The small dining and bar area is cleverly decorated to have a New Orleans feel with posters and music setting the scene. But the real clinchers are the numerous New Orleans dishes with their sassy Cajun roots. Start with a cup of jambalaya or a boudin ball (rice with a seasoned pork filling) before tucking into a big bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo. Po’ boys are hearty, filled to overflowing with such classics as fried oysters or fried shrimp, and even, gasp, fried pot roast. Fried okra balls, hot and crunchy, make good sides, as does an order or two of hush puppies with the accompanying hot dipping sauce. Not worth it: the beignets, tough and chewy. Thirsting for a real Cajun brew? Try some Andygator beer.

User Ratings & Reviews for The Cajun Experience
Average rating    1
Reviews 1 - 1 of 11
BAD
by Geri B on 04/09/2012
 
Arriving to find a the restaurant empty but for 3 or 4 table finishing up early dinners,we ordered the crawfish mac n cheese to share as an appetizer. There wasn't much crawfish in it and there was also no "blend of Cajun spices." In fact it was so bland it tasted like they forgot even the basics, like salt and pepper and it had a huge gob of cheddar cheese on top. My husband had planned on ordering the Crawfish Etouffe as an entree, but changed to the Jambalaya after tasting the appetizer. I had my eye on the "blackened" Rib eye. (which also happened to be the most expensive thing on the menu). The menu describes it: "Steak Dianne blackened ribeye grilled to perfection topped with crawfish etouffee served with grilled asparagus" sounds delish, doesn't it? Blackened means crusted (not sprinkled) with cajun spices and then the spices are seared onto the meat in a super hot black iron skillet. What I got was a barely half inch thick, very fatty (even for a rib eye)steak that had a very mild spice to it and was indeed black....which came not from the spices being seared onto the meat, but from the burning of the steak on each side. There was no Crawfish Etouffe on top, but served on the side (also bland) over rice (the rice I was trying to avoid) and collard greens instead of asparagus. My husband said his Jambalaya tasted a bit like "Chef Boyardee." By the time our waitress came for a check back we were more than halfway done. We did wait a bit for her to come back to see if we could rectify any of this. But by now we had pretty much had decided to write it off and just wanted to leave. A gentleman, not wearing a uniform, came over and cleared our plates. We :) he was a manager and when he asked how everything was, my husband started with, "Well, the steak was really mostly fat...." the manager kind of mumbled and said "Hmmm", finished clearing the plates and walked away.
 
Reviews 1 - 1 of 11



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