Walking up to the window at Shiny Gumbo with a hankering for some Cajun-style red beans and rice or a hot bowl of crawfish etouffee becomes something almost akin to strolling up to the Spencer family’s kitchen window itself and rapping on the pane for a taste of what’s cooking. And within the appropriately burnished and gleaming metal confines of this mobile gumbo galley, one’s as apt to find proprietors Patrick or Leigh smiling back as they are to find one of their bright-eyed children, all of whom serve important roles in the new family business—serving up homemade Cajun cuisine from the rear window of the food truck they all helped build. Gumbo, jambalaya, etouffee: everything comes homemade from family recipes crafted over the last 20 years and perfected through massive impromptu taste tests that saw the Spencers feeding neighbors up and down the whole street. The jambalaya comes rich and smoky, with Andouille sausage and shrimp leading a jazzy parade across the taste buds and leaving a slow burn that immediately invites the next bite. The titular gumbo earns its vaunted place with a dark butter roux swimming with sausage, chicken, onions, green pepper and celery, each added individually and given time to simmer so that the flavors mingle, but do not overpower each other. Customers are invited to mix and match, with the “gumbo-laya” already becoming a fast favorite. “Part of the Cajun attitude is that you gotta go with the flow,” says Leigh. “Just fill up the bowl.”