The Boil – New York

So my cousin and her partner (boyfriend, as partner in America means a same sex relationship apparently) have been showing me places to eat in lower Manhattan and they gave me a few options where to have Christmas eve dinner and I decided to try this place The Boil. A southern Cajun style Restaurant that sells seafood. I was interested in going as you get your seafood in a big and you eat with your fingers.

So we decided well actually my cousin and her partner decided to order a, pound of crawl fish and a pound of shrimp with The Boil special sauce, which consisted of garlic butter, O’Bay and keren pepper sauce. For our sides we also ordered some Cajun wings, corn and Mac and cheese. Once you have ordered you get a bib and plastic gloves. The bib kinds of made sense and so did the gloves but was not expecting the blue disposable gloves. Also the table was covered in brown paper. FYI

So the Mac and cheese and Cajun wings arrived and the Mac cheeses had breadcrumbs on top, which was the first time I had seen it in while in America, but I knew some places did it. It gave it a more crunchy texture of course. The flavor was good but not as good as Mac bar but it was stringy, the best I have seen during my travels. The wings were good not spicy (as my cousin’s partner cannot really take the heat) it had a nice Cajun taste but the side sauce made it better. The chicken was cooked well but I wouldn’t necessarily order the wings again.the corn was nice and sweet and had a lot of butter and other stuff in it, tasted nice but was quite messy.

So the seafood arrived in this big plastic bag. It looked so good. Crawl fish are are very similar to fresh water crayfish. They were rather small though and hardly had any meat on them. The prawns and crawl fresh were smothered in the sauce. The sauce tasted very nice and had a bit of a kick, but once you peeled your prawns or crawl fish and dip it in the sauce it was just magical. If you are not a fan of garlic this is not for you. Also in the bag was a potato and a piece of corn that had soaked up the sauce and it tasted so good. There was a lot of sauce left over and I wish we had some bread or rice just to soak up the sauce.

So after all that we were still slightly hungry so we ordered another corn and the crab cakes. This was the first time I have had southern crab cakes and it came with a slaw a piece of lime and a piece of lemon and some sauce. The crab cake was full of crab and with the sauce I was very impressed. When you cut it, it broke up a bit which meant there was not much flour or egg which was nice and was not gloggy. Afterwards we good some hand towels to clean our hands. Overall a very fun and nice experience. It was nice eating with your hands but in a clean way with the gloves. I would come back to this place if I had a chance.

Website; The Boil