One of the foods that Houston is known for is their asian crawfish boils. There are numerous restaurants serving it, but what can beat homemade crawfish boils from a local who was born and grew up there? My cousins promised a crawfish boil when we visited this past Memorial Day weekend, but what is truly the cherry on top is not the food itself, but WHO would be making it. It was my beloved cousin Anh Dat, who did not originally make that promise (it was other cousins), but a home chef who loves to cook and eat food. Not only that, but he was ambitious and even started up his own pho restaurant in Houston that became too successful and busy for him to keep up with himself + wife. I get to eat crawfish by Anh Dat?! What can beat that!!

It was a Sunday afternoon after our typical familial church in the morning followed by a visit to Grandpa and Grandma’s graves (Ong Ba Ngoai). I miss them so much.. I really didn’t mind visiting them every morning that weekend. I wish I could stay longer by myself honestly but time and occasion did not give me the opportunity to. So this is Anh Dat’s Single Sack Crawfish Boiler.. I mean how much more legit can it get?? If you’re going to host a crawfish boiler, you gotta do it right and have the right tools for it.

How many pounds did my cousin get?! No picture can really portray how MUCH crawfish there were because of depth and size perceptions. But it was 50lb of crab and 72lb of crawfish! It was just sooo much! Each cooler of crawfish and crab can fit a whole human in easily.. Trying to paint a picture of how much food there were.

And how much blue crab?! We are a big Vietnamese family and our parents LOVE their crab..

Here is most, if not at least half, of the seasonings and condiments that Anh Dat used. Of course when I asked him how much of each he would put in, he didn’t give me concrete numbers. He doesn’t even know himself! He literally just soul cooks and tastes as he goes.

Here is the boil brewing!

The sunlight makes the crawfish look so good.. I believe this is almost golden hour time by the time we got to this stage..

Meet Anh Dat! We originally all stopped by a few hours early to help him but we ended up just chit chatting while watching Anh Dat cook. He said he didn’t need any.. And his wonderful wife, Mimi, did most of the mis en place already!

The crawfish boiler even has a built in strainer to dump out the crawfish and stuff and put in another batch..

I’m sure you can’t help but notice that there are other unusual condiments in here that one wouldn’t be used to. For example, there are mushrooms!! I’ve never had a boil with mushrooms.. He added other weird vegetables in it too but hey it works! And you eat a tad bit healthier too.

AHHHHHH we were in love when dinner was finally served!! It was honestly so much food. We kept eating and eating and eating. All chit chatter stopped and the air was filled with claws cracking, mouths slurping and yummy noises. I think we ate for at least 2 hours until we were stuffed. We still had loads of crawfish and even more blue crab left.. The crawfish heads were so juicy. The meat was perfectly cooked and seasoned. The potatoes had a lot of flavor. The sausages were also stuffed with cheese! What a pleasant surprise! I can’t wait to eat more of Anh Dat’s cooking next year. I wish he lived closer but then I’m sure I would get fat..

The best part was also the location of his parents’ house. It was a huge house with a big backyard that opened up into an artificial lake with ducks. It was scenic. The weather was a cool breeze. The kids were running around feeding ducks. We were eating. The parents were reminiscing about the past. I loved every minute of it! To see my mom try so hard to get a big family picture with the kids was a rare moment. Food really brings people together. Anh Dat’s food brought our family together and it’s been years! We vowed to make it a yearly thing to visit 🙂 Which can only be a good thing.

Thank you for the priceless meal Anh Dat! <3