Bud’s Louisiana Cafe is a Cajun/Creole restaurant nestled into a little spot in Tierrasanta. From the outside it looks like a hole in the wall joint, but stepping inside you notice how nice the restaurant is on the inside. Well furnished and cozy with the kitchen in plain view and Cajun music playing softly in the background, you feel right at home once you step inside. I received a friendly greeting and was allowed to choose my own seat in the small cafe. I picked a little table by the window while I read my latest book and waited for my food to arrive.
I ordered a cup of the Seafood Gumbo ($4.95) to start. The gumbo at Bud’s features shrimp, crab, crawfish, Andouille pork sausage, and okra, topped off with some rice. The Andouille sausage is peeking up right at me in the photo above so I knew that first bite would be delicious – and it was. I didn’t find too many big pieces of “stuff” except for another piece of shrimp and hints at other seafood, but I was all right with that. It was a small cup but enough to get me started. It was spicy, but not so spicy that it wasn’t edible to me. Me, I tend to like things on the milder side but I’ve found a small appreciation for a little spice in my life, and this gumbo hit the mark. Well flavored and rich and I also dropped a whole bunch of it all over my front shirt. Ahh, wonderful.
I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to order for lunch. Shrimp or catfish? Well, shrimp won the day yet again. I wished there was some sort of combo that let you get catfish and a few pieces of shrimp, but it was not to be. I was a little amused that the Po Boy Shrimp ($8.95) sandwich cost the same as the Fried Shrimp Plate ($8.95) I got, since traditionally a Po Boy is supposed to be cheaper… but whatever works.
The shrimp is coated in a cornmeal batter which I loved – it wasn’t too thick and you still got to really taste the shrimp. Love, love, love. I also got red beans and rice (which from the photo looks a lot like my gumbo, but it’s not!) – I’m not a bean lover but I liked the red beans and rice combo. I only ate about half of it though, since I just simply don’t love beans. But they were good. It also came with a small Caesar salad which I gobbled right up, with thin slices of Parmesan cheese on top, a little crawfish peeking at me from the side. The crawfish was a little hard to eat – as most shellfish seems to be – but the meat I got out of the little tail was divine. If you’re into cracking and fighting to eat your food, they have boiled crawfish for you to try and eat.
Cute little place – I will definitely want to take a few of my friends here who like seafood and cajun food. It’s nice finding little places around town to go to!
Bud’s Louisiana Cafe
10425 Tierrasanta Blvd, #105
(near the Round Table Pizza)
San Diego, CA 92124
858-573-BUDS (858-573-2837)
Lunch
Tuesday through Saturday
11:00 – 2:30
Dinner
Tuesday – Thursday
4:30 – 8:30
Friday & Saturday
4:30 – 9:00
