First time you see it, you gotta blink: The Cajun Crawfish in King Plaza, the little Little Saigon by the Othello station where every other business and nearly every shopper seems to be Vietnamese? The eyes don’t deceive: This is the latest beachhead of a wave that’s rolling from the Gulf Coast to Vietnamese enclaves everywhere (including Crawfish King in the ID and the Crawfish Grill in Kent.)

It all started in the ’70s when thousands of refugees washed up in Lake Charles, Biloxi, and other Gulf ports. Many took up shrimping, a big deal in Vietnam as well. Shellfish, sausage, pepper, and garlic are a universal language; the immigrants took to Cajun cooking, then took it on the road.

The Cajun Crawfish hews to the formula: crawfish, shrimp, crab legs (snow or king), sea snails, clams, or a mix, served by the pound in a heavy plastic bag with steaming sauce (Cajun, butter, lemon-pepper, or a boom bang combination) and optional potatoes, andouille, and corn. No utensils, just plastic bibs, paper towels, and butcher paper covering the table. Wimps may request plastic forks or (more effective) chopsticks. Go with friends who can stand to see you lick your fingers. Or theirs. The Cajun sauce will drive you to it; order “hot” and you will get hot.

The Cajun Crawfish’s only sign of fusion is “boom bang fried rice,” a sort of rice bowl/jambalaya crossover with shrimp, sausage, onion, celery, and (!) pineapple, saturated with filé and sprinkled with nori. It works. Drawl “Asian” and “Cajun” slowly enough and they sound the same.