Spotted! Spot Prawns at Ki!

On last Friday, after the launch of Spot Prawn season, I was desperately craving some. I had heard that Ki was doing Spot Prawn two-ways and included them in my June column for Vancouver View. So off we went in search of these seasonal delicacies.   

 

Once we were seated and ordered, we were offered an amuse bouche from Chef Yoshi. I cannot remember the Japanese name (and if you know, please leave a comment below), but it is a fried halibut fish ball, in a fresh citrusy broth. It really served to whet your appetite. 
The first item to arrive was the Sashimi Salad, with 4 different types of fish and some fresh greens. The spicy dressing and some wakame are served in cups made with a crispy wonton skin. The waiter actually suggested that we just crush the cups and let the dressing and wakame spill over and make the salad nice and crunchy too! Great idea, but we just couldn't bar to do that with such pretty presentation!  

And the star of the show, the beloved Spot Prawns....can you see their spots? Served on a bed of ice with a big of diakon, this was elegant, simple and exquisite.   To give you a sense of how big these prawns are, check them out next to the sashimi salad!     One of the best things about Spot Prawns are their heads. Here at Ki, they take the heads, trim them and then put the on the grill. This is better than simply deep frying the heads, since it still stays moist and tasty.   Speaking of the grill, we also got some items from the kushiyaki menu. We tried their Seven Spice Chicken Drummettes with a custom Ki barbecue sauce. You get eight drummettes per order and these babies have a great grilled flavour to them. The outside is a little charred and burnt, but the inside stays moist. You can really taste the spices and the BBQ sauce doesn't overwhelm at all.    Another yummy kushiyaki is the Pancetta Wrapped Unagi. It sort of goes along the lines of bacon goes with everything. The unagi is grilled after being marinated in their signature sauce. The flavour is very sweet, borderlining on overly so. However, after adding some daikon and then being wrapped in pancetta with a grilled green onion garnish, the whole thing becomes a delectable dish. It's a great blend of sweet and salty. It's one of my must-haves whenever I come.  After we polished off the salad, here is the rest of my meal.  They presented us with lovely truffles to round off our meal, the one on the left is a "plain" truffle and the green one on the right is a matcha flavoured one. Both were rich, decadent and not expected of a Japanese restaurant.  We really enjoyed the entire meal and loved the Spot Prawns the best. I'm so glad we came here instead of staying at our original planned destination of Tableau Bistro, which had been pumping their Spot Prawn Festival BIG TIME on twitter. The dates were May 17-20, so since was the 18th, we thought we'd be safe. Their platter looked good and we thought sharing that and a French Onion Soup would be perfect for lunch. When we arrived and were seated, the first thing the waiter said was that they were out of the French Onion Soup. He proceeded to go through the day's specials and then when we asked about the Spot Prawn Platter, he said they were out of spot prawns! Good thing we left and came here instead!