Evangeline Cafe

I don't understand why this place is getting such good reviews. The food is extremely bland. These guys really need to invest in some seasonings. Some garlic powder, onion salt....just something! Come on people, you can't just slather some gator in mayo and call it Cajun. Very disappointed. But if you want to listen to cool music, eat tasteless food and visit with trashy waitresses in short shorts then go for it. more

Straight outta NOLA. Abita, oysters contraband, crawfish étouffée and praline pistolette for dessert. You'll thank me. Curtis knows Cajun! more

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

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. \r 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.\r 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. \r 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.\r 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.\r more

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 more

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 more

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! more

I am originally from Austin, and I used to visit Evangeline's just about any chance I could throughout the week. The food is great, atmosphere is great. When I moved away in 2005 to go to school, every time I came to visit my parents I would always tell them I wanted to go eat at Cafe Evangelines. I am now officially back, living in my home town, and I'm still remaining faithful to my favorite restaurant. \r \r I would recommend this to any and everyone. They do have live music, so if you do not like a particularly loud atmosphere, then visit them during the day, or on fridays before 10pm when they dont have live music going on.\r \r My favorite thing on their menu??? Stuffed Pistolettes!!! They melt in your mouth, with an exploding center filled with your choice of meat and the perfect amount of spice. more

Just wanted to say that we like the food and service here and have always enjoyed coming. My wife is from Louisiana and she says the food is just like being home - so we end up here a lot! Pros: Good Cajun more

I LOVE the fried shrimp po-boy and it's the best when dressed with Evangeline Sauce. There is always a lively atmosphere and the service is relaxed...a great way to spend time enjoying the meal instead of feeling rushed. I have HIGHLY recommended this ""hidden gem"" a number of times. Laissez les bon temps roulet! Pros: Food, Atmosphere Cons: Parking more

I'm very rarely in south Austin but I happened to drive by around lunchtime and saw this little place off of Brodie Lane today. I am originally from Texas but I lived in New Orleans for four years many years ago and developed a love of good cajun food. I was craving a good shrimp po boy and they did not disappoint me. It was as good as any I have ever had in Louisiana. I also tried the gumbo, which was excellent. For desert I ordered Miranda's Pecan Praline Pistolette, a delicious extremely rich concoction that I have never seen anywhere before. Anyone who says this place has bland food needs to go to the doctor and get their taste buds checked. Although, I admit that I did put some Louisiana hot sauce on my po boy because that's what you are supposed to do. What I'm trying to say here is I highly recommend this place for great cajun food and I will be making a regular trip from my far north Austin home to eat there again. I actually can't wait to go back and try their seafood platter and wash it down with an Abita beer. Now that's livin'. Pros: Wonderful atmosphere Cons: Kinda small (but that's OK) more

My fiance and I went here for dinner. I had the ""seafood platter"" for $17 - maybe the most expensive thing on the menu. She had the fried shrimp basket. We both found our meals to be excrutiatingly bland, even though much of it was fried. The ""platter"" was also more like a ""plate."" I.e. it was surprisingly small, consisting of 3 fried shrimp, 3 fried oysters, a stuffed crab, and a small fried catfish fillet, with a piece of lame bread, and possibly the least exciting ""dirty rice"" I've ever tasted. If it weren't for the passable service, I would have given this restaurant one star. more

Many people already covered whats wrong with this place, I just want to point out that the owner is asking for cash only cover charge from customers at 10 pm. i am pretty sure there is a reason its unadvertised and is cash only. IRS come lokey here for some underreported revenues. more

We were told about Evangeline's by two different people and I doubt I'll listen to either of them again. What a terrible experience. Two of us at the table ordered their ""house specialty"" Crawfish Evangeline. It was supposed to have a cream sauce that wasn't creamy. There was NO FLAVOR. The pasta was cold and wafer thin, I added a ton of the Evangeline hot sauce, and I'm a total wimp when it comes to hot & spicy, that seemed to at least add some flavor but no heat, then I had to add salt too. We actually added salt to the onion rings! And forget about the fried pickles, they're awful. I love fried pickles, I get them often but I have never seen fried hamburger slices for a reason, it's a bad idea Eva! The music was great, if a bit loud for dinner time but I wouldn't recommend it and I won't be back. Pros: Band, Servers Cons: Drunk dancing cook, painful chairs, terrible food more

I agree with the other reviews... I dont see why this place is so popular/so well reviewed??? I went there w/ high hopes being new to Austin & being Creole... Yet... I was soooo let down... I ordered Shrimp Etouffee... all it was onion (3 kinds) in a light brown cream gravy... it was served w/ dry cornbread w/ no flavor! Seriously Where was the flavor in that??? While waiting for my togo food I talked w/ the friendly staff & it seemed like they knew what they were talking about. After getting home... & being deeply disappointed I added some Tony's & a cajun style stewed tomatoes... Sadly I think it comes down to this... They need some REAL CREOLES in the KITCHEN! Pros: Staff... Cons: The food... more

I've enjoyed cajun and creole food up and down the Gulf Coast, and I have to say this isn't the best. The rice seemed par-boiled and the entrees (fried, etouffee, et cetera) are all kind of bland. Evangeline's is a better neighborhood bar than a restaurant, in my opinion - but it IS a nice place to stop in for a beer/margarita and an appetizer. If you're more interested in the food, try the Cypress Grill on William Cannon just West of MoPac instead. Pros: A nice watering hole, decent fried appetizers, parking is easy Cons: Food's not great, music can sometimes be overly loud more

I live within earshot of Evangeline and have tried it several times. Each time I have been rather disappointed. The first time I went, I entered with high hopes. I am from Mississippi originally and grew up around good Creole and Cajun cuisine. I was repeatedly told by friends how this place was the real deal, and in some respects it is. The vibe in the place reminds me a lot of some of my favorite cajun places in Slidell. Honestly, if you walk into a joint serving this food that isn't seriously relaxed with a touch of dirt, you should just leave. Tidy and prompt isn't what Louisiana cuisine is about. The place feels like south Louisiana or Mississippi, and I thought that was quite cool.\r \r The problem is, the food is not particularly good. The first time I went, I had the shrimp creole and a cup of gumbo. The gumbo was pretty good, not the best I've ever had but certainly worth having again, but the shrimp creole was terrible. It essentially tasted like frozen shrimp on old minute rice with a squirt of ketchup on top. For ten bucks, I felt seriously ripped off. My friend had the fried catfish, which was very average as well. On a later visit, I decided to give the po-boys a go, picking the oyster po-boy to go with my LSU/Florida football game. It was essentially a fried oyster sub. The bread had none of the light, chewy characteristics a real po-boy should have, but was instead heavy and dense. The whole thing just dripped grease. True, the sandwich has fried food on it, but a good oyster po-boy is packed full of light, crispy oysters. This sandwich was more like refried frozen oysters (which I don't actually think they were mind you) on a hoagie. \r \r At a level, Cajun cooking is dirt simple. It is all about nailing the basics and knowing the flavors. This place just doesn't get there. The vibe is 100% authentic, and in a way, the food is as well. But being authentically Louisianan does not equal being authentically GOOD Creole or Cajun. Pros: Authentic feel Cons: The food doesn't match the vibe. more

We went here for a birthday and it was great. The music was really great, it's cozy and the service was good. The food was a little bland for a couple of us. I really would have like for them to blacken my catfish but they do not blacken which I was disappointed in. The fried pickles were great! more

Service was great, the staff was friendly and informative. I was new to cajun food, but now an expert. My boyfriend and I dedcided to try the cafe out on a Friday night. The place was packed, but the wait was not long, and our food came out pretty quickly. From a cup of red beans and rice to a desert pistolette we had at the end, everything was wonderful. We ended up hearing a great band and staying all night.\r \r pros: friendly welcoming enviroment\r cons: we didnt know there was a cash cover after 10:00pm more

I went to college at Tulane in New Orleans, and am always on the lookout for that great taste in Austin. I have found it at Evangeline!! After many disappointing meals elsewhere, I happened upon Evangeline, and it has become one of my favorite restaurants. My alumni association has dinners there, I eat there with my fiance, I've brought my mom, I tell all my friends. The food is second to none, and Curtis, the owner, is wonderful. Even after being absent for a while, he remembers me and my fiance when we come in. Although he is an LSU alum, he has put a Tulane T-shirt up to represent. Run, don't walk to eat there. Be sure to try the seafood gumbo, and don't forget extra pistolettes. To those of you that think some of the prices are a little high, remember, all of the food is fresh, not frozen or prepackaged. The freshenss is front and center... oysters are flavorful and never rubbery, pistolesttes crunchy and chewy, the food is never too spicy, but always flavorful, one flavor never overpowering another. I love this restaurant and this man's food!! more