gracecheung604 | write on time: CRAYving Crawfish!

Sunday, September 09, 2012

CRAYving Crawfish!

the entance Here we go again, another VANEATSca Package! This time, we were going to check out Cray, the restaurant for their latest Dining Pass for $18.50. 

This deal is a limited offer and you can only purchase it via VANEATs.ca. There is also a few chances to win this great package from their site too. The Dining Pass includes the following items: 
  • 1/2 lb of Crawfish, shipped live from Louisana 
  • 1/2 lb of Shrimp, shipped from Thailand/Ecuador 
  • Cod Nuggets, deep fried and crispy (3 pieces) 
  • Deep Fried Oysters, spiced in a Louisana cajun fry batter (2 pieces) 
  • Cajun Fries, cajun spice peppered 
wise words 
Although it looks like you're all good-to-go with this set menu, you still have a few choices to make. Namely what spice do you want and how hot do you want it? They have a three different types of sauces for the boil, a Juicy Cajun aka the Original, the Garlic Butter or a Lemon Pepper. The fourth option is to get ALL of them mixed together, called the Cray Mix. We really wanted to try the Cajun/Original, so that's what we got. But hold on, you're not done yet, now you get to choose how hot you want it, ranging from Mild, Medium, Spicy and then XXX. We were tempted by the XXX, but decided on plain Spicy for our initiation.
1/2 lb Crawfish & Prawns Here is the one pound bag of Crawfish and Shrimp. It's double-bagged for your protection. These babies are sharp! We couldn't really tell what was going on inside the bag, so we decided to swish it around, and things became clearer. 1/2 lb Crawfish & Prawns 2 You can see some of the shrimp, and a lot of the crawfish. The Cajun mix pooled at the bottom wasn't too alarming, I've see a lot worse pools of oil at other places. After giving the bag a good toss to mix everything together again, it was time for the unveiling. 1/2 lb Crawfish & Prawns 3 Inside the bag were lots of little eyes staring back at me. I didn't do an exact count (though in hindsight, I probably should have), but I would say there were about 8 crawfish and a few more than that of the shrimp. We went ahead and grabbed one of each and started to break the shells apart. Some of the crawfish are fairly large, and some are even smaller than the shrimp. What struck me about the shrimp was the paleness of the shell, I guess I'm just used to the shrimp we get here locally. 
how to 
If you've never had crawfish before, don't worry. They have a handy guide to show you the right way to do things. Oh, and they provide each guest with a bib and gloves, so you don't make a complete mess of yourself, and others around you. 
to start 
So, time to get started. Fish out a crawfish and a shrimp and off you go. This were the first two that I would devour. Not all the crawfish are this big and not all the shrimp are this small. 
Cod Nuggets & Fried Oysters 2 Hot on the heels of the Crawfish and Shrimp were the Cod Nuggets, Fried Oysters and Fries. The cod was surprisingly good, given then size of each nugget, I was expecting it to be dry and maybe slightly overcooked. Fortunately for us, these were great, and the breading was nice and light too. The two oysters were a real treat as well, with a juiciness that I again didn't expect. Perhaps because I enjoy sashimi and raw oysters so much, I always think cooking/frying them to be a waste. But I am now realizing that when done right, a light batter and a quick fry can be a good thing for fish and shellfish! Ketchup, Tartar, Spicy Mayo Accompanying the deep fried goodness were these three sauces, a spicy mayo, their tartar sauce as well as some ketchup. We put all these to good use, dunking in various fried foods into each one. And everything you've read up til now is what you get in the Dining Pass. The next item you see is extra. 

We wanted to sample more of what they had to offer, and they do have a selection of seafood such as BC clams, BC Dungeness crab, Alaskan Snow/King Crab legs  and Nova Scotia lobster.  The lobster is market price and was being sold at a 2-pound minimum that night, but I'm not a huge fan of crabs, so lobster it was!  The night we went, lobsters were going for $19.99/lb. 
Lobster 2lb Whoa, even the bag is bigger! We decided to try the Lemon Pepper with the lobster, and kept it at Spicy instead of going for the XXX, although we probably could have, but we didn't want to detract from the sweetness of the lobster meat.  Lobster 2lb 2 Oh, and what a lot of meat there was! Between the claws, tail, head and the legs, we kept diving into the never-ending back of lobster! Once we were finally done, I couldn't resist posing with the head...just a little bit.  
my new friend 
Hey, this isn't so bad, our waitress said she once had a customer put 10 crawfish heads on their fingers and posed that way...this is almost innocent looking, right?
my cray face! 
Okay, I admit, I might have got a bit overboard here with the Cray-zy eyes. :) 

Take note:

  • One Dining Pass probably isn't enough for two people unless you aren't that hungry
  • Some of the crawfish can be a bit muddy, that's the nature of crawfish
  • You'll pierce your gloves on the shells, a few times, just ask the nice waitress for another pair

See the VANEATSca video of this offer here:


Other things you should know:
  • Dates: September 9th - December 6th, 2012 
  • Purchase Limit: 2 passes per person, plus 1 additional as gift 
  • Redeem limit: 2 passes per person, may redeem 1 per visit per 2 people 
  • Not valid for cash back (unless required by law) 
  • Must use in one visit, dine-in only between 4pm - 11pm 
  • Does not cover gratuity 
  • Cannot be combined with other offers
**VANEATs gave me a complimentary pass for the offer, but any extras were paid for by me.**


Cray Kitchen and Bar on Urbanspoon

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