Greek crawfish vs Louisiana crawfish

They are not the same animal

Louisiana crawfish are the red swamp species that the Gulf boil tradition is built around. The European crawfish sold here as Greek crawfish run larger, with more meat in the tail and a sweeter, cleaner flavour. Neither is better in the abstract. They are different enough that someone who grew up on one will notice immediately when handed the other.

Size is the difference you notice first

Tail meat is the whole point of a crawfish, and the Greek ones give you more of it per animal. That changes how a boil eats — fewer shells for the same dinner, and less of the peel-twenty-to-get-a-mouthful rhythm that a Louisiana boil is famous for. Whether that is an improvement depends entirely on which rhythm you came for.

Why Los Angeles asks for the European one

The demand here is not nostalgia for the Gulf. Los Angeles has the largest Armenian community in the United States and a large Russian-speaking one alongside it, and in both of those kitchens crawfish is an established dish with its own way of being cooked. That is who asks for these by name, and it is why the menu carries them.

Seasonal, and we say so

Greek crawfish are seasonal. When they are out, they are out — the product page says so and the four seafood sets built around them go out of stock with them rather than arriving short. If you have found this page and the crawfish are unavailable, calling the kitchen is faster than checking back.