Mount Pleasant/Main Street

Cray Kitchen + Bar: Cray-vings Dining Package

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Foodology Disclaimer: VANEATS.ca approached me to try out their “Cray-vings” dining package and write a review about it. I got a complementary dining package for myself and I brought along CandiedZen to keep the review as unbiased as I could.


Cray Kitchen + Bar on Main street near Broadway serves Louisiana Style Crawfish and  seafood. If you’ve ever heard of Crab Pot in Seattle, it’s like that but with plastic bags and lots of aromatic sauce. I came here with CandiedZen to check this place out.

Vaneats.ca currently has a dining package called “Cray-vings”, which you can get the following for only $18.50 for a limited time.

  • 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

The interior was nice and has a good amount of seating. It’s good for large groups too, unfortunately, they don’t take reservations on Fridays and Saturdays.

The menu

When you order the Cajun Seafood Boil, your table will be lined with a large parchment paper and come with a bucket with bibs, paper towels, and gloves. Eating this type of seafood is messy and you don’t want to get any of your clothes dirty.

The first basket of goodies that arrive are 3 piece of cod nuggets, 2 deep-fried oyster, and a bed of cajun fries.

The Cod Nuggets are very very delicious! The outer batter is crispy and thin, so you can taste the amazing light and moist texture of the cod. I would highly recommend this!

Deep Fried Oyster were very large and plump. When I bit into them, it was very moist and flavourful! Even a bit of juice started running down my fingers. Highly recommend these as well!

Cajun Fries were crispy on the outside and seasoned with cajun spice. I thought it was ok, nothing too impressive.

You also get 3 dips to go along with your item – Tartar sauce, ketchup and spicy mayo.

As we waited for the 1/2 lb shrimp and 1/2 lb crayfish to arrive, we prepared ourselves by reading instruction and putting on our bibs. We didn’t bother with putting on gloves since we wanted to get down and dirty with our meal.

Our Cajun Seafood Boil came with choices of seasoning and spicy level. We chose the Mild Cray Mix ( Juicy Cajun +Garlic Butter +Lemon Pepper). It arrives on your table in a plastic bag.

The Crawfish were very tiny and it was just like a mini lobster. All of their Crawfish is shipped from Louisiana. You can acquire meat from this creature from its tail and claws. This wasn’t our favorite item since it takes a bit of effort to get a little bit of meat. Another problem, the meat had very little flavour from the sauce, so you need to dunk it into the sauce to add more favour to it.

Most of the crawfish is our bag was fresh, but there was one that was completely black on the inside. I’m not sure what happened here, but we decided not to eat it and discard it. If you come across one that looks like that…its probably best not to eat it.

The shrimps are from Ecuador and very massive. It’s almost the size of a spot prawn. It had a lovely sweet flavour to it. I would highly recommend the shrimp!

Our table definitely got messy. After eating everything that was part of the package, we were still hungry and craving more items, so we ordred more.

I saw that they had Sapporo on tap, so I got a pint of it to enjoy more of the meal! It’s one of my favorite beers. It was about $7 or $8 for a pint.

1lb of Clams ($11.99) in a mild garlic butter sauce. The clams tasted great in the sauce, but I felt the clams were a tad bit small. We ate these pretty fast since the bag is mostly the shells.

1 lb of Shrimp ($10.99) in a medium Cray mix sauce. I did enjoy the sauce more when you increase the spiciness of it. It definitely adds a lot more flavour.

Overall, the concept of getting messy with your food is very fun! I would definitely come here again, but I would not order the crawfish. I would order the cod nuggets, deep-fried oysters and the shrimp. Parking was a bit difficult since it was on a major street, so I parked a few blocks down in a residential area. Service was ok, but we felt it was a bit awkward at times.

You won’t get full by just having the amount of items included in the dining pass. you probably want to add an extra appetizer or a few extra pounds of seafood like what we did. Nonetheless, if you haven’t experienced getting down and dirty with your meal, I think the dining pass is a good opportunity to do that and try new types of food. You can get the dining pass at Vaneats.ca for $18.50.

 Words of Wisdom:

  • Best to make reservations just in case it gets busy
  • Shrimps are massive and so are the deep fried oysters and cod nuggets
  • Metered parking a long the streets
  • Don’t wear white

We Rate Cray Kitchen + Bar

Address:
2470 Main Street
Vancouver, BC

Website:
http://www.getcray.com/

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Diana started Foodology in 2010 because she just eats out everyday! She started a food blog to share her love of food with the world! She lives in Vancouver, BC and adores the diversity of food around her. She will go crazy for churros and lattes.

5 Comments

  1. Tried this place out, not only is it a ripoff it is nowhere near authentic.

      • DesignGirl Reply

        I’ve never has this type of cuisine since I haven’t traveled to the south yet. Feel free to chip into the conversation!

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