Clawing Way To Success?

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Laina Vo and her husband, Tim Nguyen, both grew up eating Southern-style crawfish in their Dallas suburb. But as adults on a trip to Las Vegas, they were surprised to find no crawfish, and they quickly discovered that much of the country hasn’t developed a taste for the crustaceans.

So Vo and Nguyen began opening Hot N’ Juicy Crawfish restaurants around the country, first in Las Vegas and later Washington, D.C.; Orlando, Fla., and Fountain Valley in Orange County. Earlier this month, they opened their first L.A. location in West Hollywood.

“Los Angeles has been one of our goals,” Vo said. “We want to bring our concept to towns and cities that aren’t familiar with crawfish.”

The full-service restaurant serves crawfish and other seafood by the pound with different sauces and varying degrees of spiciness. The crawfish, which are flown in live from Louisiana every morning, are boiled and a plastic bag of them can be dumped on the table to be eaten by hand.

Jillian Sutton, manager of the West Hollywood restaurant, said she had never seen a crawfish when she first interviewed for a job at Hot N’ Juicy in Las Vegas four years ago.

“It’s a very unique restaurant,” said Sutton, a native Las Vegan. “There was nothing like it in Las Vegas. It was the perfect city to bring it to.”

There are a number of restaurants that serve crawfish in the Orange County towns of Garden Grove and Westminster, but the cuisine hasn’t reached Los Angeles.

A handful of Cajun and Creole restaurants here serve up classics such as jambalaya and po’ boy sandwiches, but few have any crawfish dishes.

Vo recognizes that crawfish is an acquired taste, but she hopes that Los Angeles will develop an appetite for the Southern dish over time.

“There’s a lot of health food in this area. We notice that,” she said. “But having a messy, eat-with-your-hands style is something people will want every once in a while.”

– Natalie Jarvey

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