Evangeline Cafe

09/03/11

Excellent Cajun Cuisine

by Les888 at Citysearch

I visited Evangeline's Cafe for the first time on Friday night.

I immediately got the sense of a comfortable neighborhood establishment, where the local residents enjoy meeting together for a relaxed evening and a great meal at a reasonable price. The Louisiana Abita beer I ordered was delicious. I love shrimp, and I ordered the Gold Band Creole shrimp dish. It was just superb! The golden fried shrimp were huge, and the fettuccine pasta under the shrimp was perfectly cooked. The pasta had a spicy creole sauce that was devine, with just the right spicy kick. I ended my meal with the pecan praline pisolette. The fried pisolette was rich, decadent, and had a wonderful creamy caramel sauce. Pure heaven! The service was also attentive and friendly. I will definitely be coming back, and highly recommend this restaurant. I hope they will open another Evangeline's cafe up in north Austin.

11/12/10

Cajun? Maybe so, Maybe no

by DDogie at Citysearch

First thing I do is I look at the menu online and am turned off by the café for using the BP oil spill to raise their prices. I am sure the shrimp is farm raised just as the catfish and crawfish the café uses in their meals. The restaurant is tucked away in a small strip center along Brodie lane with plenty of parking and a handful of tables on the sidewalk out front. The inside has its version of Louisiana flare with photos and drawings, mounted fish, beads, banners, and flags most in LSUs famous colors. I do have to question the need for 2 TVs in such a small café and why they are even there in the first place. You have 2 TVs and Cajun music competing against each other while you eat. The iced tea that is very good, so good that I would recommend larger glasses or dedicate wait staff to just topping of glasses during busy hours. I feel it is easy to put a price on anything, I may try a dish that is really good but if it costs 3-4 times what I think it is worth I will still enjoy the taste, but will question the value.

Some of their signature items like Crawfish Evangeline – sounds great on the menu, at the table it is just plain bland cream sauce plopped on a bowl of noodles. Why can they not stir the cream sauce and crawfish tails in with the noodles? We all know what happens to bare noodles when they sit under a heat lamp for even a minute or two.

The house salads are ok, nothing special, I have had better and worse. I do have to question the $8.99 price tag on a salad. The red beans and rice are always good but once again I have to question the $7.99 tag on a bowl of beans same with the gumbo, very good taste but $14.99 for a bowl.

If you order the catfish I recommend getting it fried, a number of times I ordered it grilled (nothing more than fried in a pan with no batter to the cooks in back) and it was delivered to me stringy and raw in the middle. It is obviously farm raised as you get that occasional skunky farmed raised taste when you bite into it.

Evangelines Café is what it is, to me it is just a another gimmick to serve Cajun style food at hefty prices. The Café is not much more than a cluttered Popeyes Chicken Diner except at Popeyes you get flavor, better portions and they have cleaner restrooms.

06/13/10

Best Cajun food

by italianfoodie at Citysearch

We cannot get enough of Evangeline! Great food and decent prices.

Excellent lunch specials and the po-boys are to die for! My favorite is the veggie and my husband loves the roast beef.

What we like most about this place is that the food is consistently good, never a hit or miss.

• Pros: atmosphere, great food every time
• Cons: service is better in the evening

12/23/09

Awesome Cajun Food in Austin, TX

by MPeevey at Citysearch

Evangeline Cafe is the next best thing to living and eating right in the heart of Louisiana. Curtis Clarke is doing an awesome job with his little restaurant nestled in the heart of South Austin. Would love to see more locations.

• Pros: crawfish pistolletes
• Cons: none that I can think of

07/15/09

Great Entrees and dessert

by JoanneG at Citysearch

My husband and I are originally from the Lake Charles, LA area and have finally found a little piece of Lake Charles heaven here in Austin. The food was superb - our first visit to Evangeline Cafe. We live in Hutto, TX but it was worth the hour or so drive. Don't skip the pecan praline pistolette - it is divine!!! Owner, Curtis Clarke, took some time to visit with us and our waiter, Sam (I believe that's his name - from Mississippi) was great too. Thanks Curtis and staff for a wonderful evening - we'll definitely be back for more!