Cray Kitchen and Bar

Posted by beipas
September 10, 2012

Once again, we were invited to try out Vaneat.ca‘s new dining package CRAY-VINGS at Cray Kitchen and Bar.

Cray kitchen and bar specializes in Louisiana style seafood, which we don’t have many in Vancouver. The $18.5 dinning package includes 1/2 lb of crawfish, 1/2 lb of shrimp, 3 piece cod nuggets, 2 deep fried oysters and cajun fries.

With the crawfish and shrimp, they are served in plastic bags with your choice of seasoning and spice level. There are 4 seasoning you can choose from, lemon pepper, cajun, garlic butter and cray mix (all of the above). There are also 4 levels of spiciness, with XXX being the spiciest. I decided to get my seafood with cray mix, and just because they labelled “no refunds” besides the XXX label, I intrigued on how spicy it can be, and got to be the 6th person ever to order it.

At the table there were no plates, no cutlery and we were given gloves (they don’t work very well) and bibs (definitely needed), making a mess is A-OK here. The food came really fast, and all together. I started with the cod nuggets, and when I think of nuggets I think of deep fried mushed meat, but these nuggets were actual fish pieces, which were pretty delicious with cajun mayo.

The deep fried oysters were yummy as well. They were warm and had really crispy batter; really juicy inside. I liked these a lot. The cajun fries were crispy, however I did find the cajun seasoning to be a tad salty.

Onto the crawfish and shrimp, this was the first time I had crawfish, and really had no idea how to eat them. The waitress told us we came at a good time because the crawfish now are bigger than normal, but they still look quite tiny. It takes a bit of work to get the meat out of the tail, and I have to admit, it was a bit unsatisfying to do all that work for a tiny piece of seafood. The shrimp on the other hand were much better. We got some pretty big shrimps in the bag and they were pretty great. And for the XXX spice level, it only tingled my tongue for a couple seconds.

Aside from the dining package, my friends and I also ordered 2 lbs of shrimp, 1 lb of clam, another order of the cod nuggets and a pitcher of beer to share. We had to pay extra $3 for corn and potato to be cooked with our shrimp as well. The single order of cod nuggets came with 5 nuggets and cajun fries. The shrimp we ordered in different seasonings, and were just as good, even though there were a couple not so fresh ones. We also ordered a side of rice for $2 that I think was a complete rip off. It was literally a small bowl of steamed rice in a styrofoam cup.

I didn’t think we’d have enough food, but we barely finished our meal. Eating here could get quite expensive, 1 lb of crawfish was $14.99 and 1lb of shrimp was $11.99, and all these little extra dollars for extra sides can add up. I think the Vaneats packages actually gives you the best value to try and experience this style of seafood.

Again, the $18.50 CRAV-INGS package include: