rachael's café

a few weeks ago my husband and i decided to try out rachael’s cafe. i have never had lunch there, but we thought of this place on this particular friday. my husband and i make it a priority to have a date night or day date at least once a week.  . rachael’s cafe has been around for a long time. a family owned, cajun inspired cafe. rachael’s has daily plate lunch specials as well as a full menu including dishes like gumbo,seafooddishes, sandwiches, salads, etc.

amazing food. had the scallop starter, real scallops perfectly cooked (fried).
wife and i both had the grilledseafoodplatter.
presentation was poor, but oh my god was the food good. fish was lightly seasoned but tasty. stuffed shrimp was simply amazing. jambalya was unique and delicious, not overly spiced. crab claws had excellent flavor as did the shrimp. the best stuffed crab i've ever eaten, lot of crab meat, light and fluffy. most places cook a heavy and oily stuffing.
went at 5 o'clock, very busy so service was a bit slow but staff was friendly. excellent value at this small (10 table) café, highly recommend.total price of the meal was 47$ (including tip), worth every penny.

tasty food. myseafoodwas cooked well and tasted fresh. i had a grilledseafoodplatter with a sweet potato. the shrimp were a little overcooked, but everything else was done well. i also had a bite of my husband's hamburger steak. it was incredibly flavorful. the chicken sausage gumbo was a bit watery and oily. the roux was dark, but it wasn't a very thick broth. could have tasted richer. i would like to come back and try more to get a feel for the menu.

their stuffed crab was buttery... but not enough to make you feel sick or oily in your mouth.

the service was what you'd expect of a tiny place run by a small staff. i don't like hovering, so it suits me fine.

one bad thing. rachael's needs more space!


-----18 aug, 2012-----

and it's tasty too. mostly it's good old cajun home cooking. tried theseafoodstuff bell peppers but instead of oven baked, it came deep fried with a thin crispy crust. the crab au gratin; good and a sizable portion. the atmosphere is not for haute cuisine types. it can be a little noisy, it's small, but you can sit outside. definitely a good place to experience the fry-a-lator arts. pooyie, dat's tre bon!

great for plate lunches. dinner is questionable.. i'm torn about this place. i've eaten here countless times and tried most of the menu mainly because it's very close to were i live so it's easy to pick up after a long day. they're plate lunches are very good. you get a lot for only 9 bucks. the chicken fried steak plate lunch is literally the best i've ever had, i just wish they would put it on the dinner menu! the crawfish bisque is to die for! but there are some things that disappointed me. theseafoodboudin balls is not even boudin, it's just theirseafoodjambalaya fried. also, if your looking to eat good and normal jambalaya, don't order it. the flavor is not like jambalaya at all. all of the friedseafoodis mediocre, decent but lacks flavor. there are a lot of "stuffed" items there but they're all the same stuffing that goes into a stuffed crab. the stuffing has sweet taste to it, which isn't bad but also not really the flavor you want. the au gratin dishes are way too thick for my liking, have zero flavor, and is more filling than seafood. do not waste your money on it! the stuffed shrimp isn't a shrimp coated in stuffing. it's just stuffing with a couple nickel sized shrimp inside. if you get any gumbo with shrimp in it, the shrimp will immediately turn into mush as soon as bite into it. also if you order to go you apparently have to ask for things like tartar sauce or fixings for your baked potato or they won't give it to you, which i find very careless. as for everything else i haven't mentioned, it's all pretty good. all in all, with as many places so similar to this in lafayette they will never make it unless they stop cutting corners and being lazy with their food. i can pay the same prices at so many more cajun restaurants in the area for a much better quality meal!

excellent food. i went to rachael's cafe' two different times while i was on a business trip. the first time i got a grilledseafoodplatter and bread pudding, and the second time i ordered a grilled shrimp po-boy, duck gumbo, and bread pudding. both times i went the food was excellent (i never go to the same place while on a trip so this really says a lot about the food). i would defiantly recommend this place if you are anywhere close.

soop's ii theseafoodgumbo.... soop's ii
theseafoodgumbo had been frozen and then microwaved. i could tell because some of the shrimp were dark from soaking in the roux and one shrimp was pink, which means they used old frozen stock and added a little fresh ingredients. the fried fish was greasy and tasteless, everything lacked seasoning. the stuffed crab had a strange vanilla taste, i wonder if they mixed up the breads from the bread pudding? i was hoping the service would have been better than soop's, which is famous for horrible service, i'm disappointed to say it was only slightly better. this place can't survive long on only friends as customers. maybe their other specials are good, i only tried theseafoodplatter, but i'll never know, because i'm not going back. is it too much to ask for freshseafoodgumbo?

rachael's is located on republic avenue where eurobreads use to be. the location is a little tough to get to depending on the time of day but it's worth the journey. there are daily plate lunch specials as well as hamburgers and poboys served nightly at a pretty reasonable price. the menu is mostlyseafoodand ranges in price for $12-16 bucks. there were lots of dishes i wanted to try including the fried rabbit, but i was there for the dish from my childhood, liver and onions.

my dad and i read the reviews on urbanspoon and decided to give it a try. we were not disappointed! to quote dad, "mmmmm...good". i had the grilledseafoodplatter (the crab claws were my favorite) and dad had the stuffed catfish, which was also very good. we topped it off with bread pudding.....the sauce was heavenly! wish i lived in lafayette, so i could come back!!!

will be regulars!. great little place! great food! started with a cup ofseafoodgumbo, loaded with fresh shrimp and crabmeat, seasoned just right, it was such a large cup that i shared it with my husband!. we decided on the special which was shrimp poboys. for $5 we weren't expecting much, well were we surprised, we got large poboys overloaded with fresh shrimp, fried perfectly. the bread had a soft middle with a light crispy outside that made it so easy to eat, which we did devour all of our poboys. we shared an order of fries which were the best fries i have eaten at a restaurant. then the owner who was our waitress, gave us a complementary bread pudding to try. it was shaped like a mini bundt cake in a delicious sauce. i have eaten bread pudding at a lot of places and this is my favorite. it was not heavy or overly sweet and it didn't have raisins, which i don't like in bread pudding," a+".can't wait to go back and try other things on the menu. this was an excellent meal at a great price.