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Business & Tech

Au Revoir, Déjà Vu. Bonjour Crawfish!

A popular new restaurant chain that specializes in serving Cajun-style crawfish expects to make its California debut in Fountain Valley within the next week.

Hot and juicy crawfish are coming soon to Fountain Valley, thanks to a popular new restaurant chain called, appropriately enough, Hot N Juicy Crawfish.

The fifth national franchise is expected to open in early March on the northeast corner of Euclid Ave. and Edinger Ave., in place of the Déjà Vu restaurant, which closed in 2011. And manager Andrew Vo said the owners, Laina Vo and Tim Nguyen, are eager to bring their Cajun-style crawfish and seafood to the West Coast.

“We are excited about coming to California and giving people a taste of what we like to eat,” said Andrew Vo. “The food is hot and it’s juicy.”

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The first Hot N Juicy Crawfish was opened in Las Vegas more than two years ago. After getting rave reviews from Adam Richman, star of the hit Travel Channel TV show “Man v. Food,” they opened their next two restaurants in Washington, D.C. and Orlando, Fla. They recently opened a second location in Las Vegas because of the popularity of the restaurant.

Andrew Vo, who is the brother of Laina Vo, said the families are originally from the northern Texas area but have family in Baton Rouge and New Orleans and would travel there all the time.

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The two owners also loved going to Las Vegas. But when they had trouble finding a place that served their favorite food, they decided to open a restaurant on W. Spring Mountain Rd.

“We live off crawfish when the season was in,” Vo said. “We eat 10 to 20 pounds every night. We grew up in Asian communities, and Asians love to eat crawfish.”

The crawfish is flown in fresh from Louisiana, Vo said. They are cooked using the customer’s choice of five different types of seasonings and four different levels of spice, then weighed and served, or “dropped,” Vo said, on the table in a bag.

“You just dig in with you hands, peel the shell, pinch the head off and eat it,” Vo said. “Once you’re done, we wrap the whole thing up and throw it in the trash. Not much utensils. The food tends to be spicy. You want to put some heat in it.”

Hot N Juicy also serves many different types of shellfish: shrimp, king crab, snow crab legs, lobster, clams, and raw oysters in a half-shell.

 

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