Water Grill Bellevue Welcomes Crab Week!
Crab week is August 15 - 23!
We're participating in the Bellevue Crab Week! Come down to Lincoln Square and dine with us at to enjoy some of the best the ocean has to offer, including a locally-sourced specialty in Wild Washington Dungeness Crab, or an East Coast favorite like Wild Maryland Soft Shell Crab.
Crab Week marks the perfect occasion to try a new addition to our menu: Soft Shell Crab Curry. Wild Maryland soft shell crab meets the bold flavors of Thailand in a dish that celebrates the crab's sweet, briny and slightly nutty notes.
LEARN MORE ABOUT WILD WASHINGTON DUNGENESS CRAB
When they're in season, Dungeness Crabs are a fixture in our live saltwater tanks. Known for their mildly sweet and firm but delicate texture, these crabs have been commercially harvested since 1848. Although they're named from where they can be found in the Pacific Northwest, these crabs are fished by crab pot all over the west coast of North America--from Alaska's Aleutian Islands down to Santa Barbara, California.
Read more about the Dungeness Crab in our blog!
LEARN MORE ABOUT WILD MARYLAND SOFT SHELL CRAB
As waters in the Chesapeake Bay begin to warm in spring, blue crabs are carefully monitored and plucked out of the water at peak tenderness, just as they molt and their shells have yet to harden. Soft Shell crab is an East Coast delicacy known for its seasonality and unique flavor--sweet and earthy with olive-like notes imparted from the shell.
Wild Santa Barbara Spot Prawn Season
Shrimp are found all over the world. From saltwater to freshwater, wild, farmed and frozen. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. The list goes on.
Prawns are generally found in freshwater environments.
Spot prawns; however, are not prawns. The Spot Prawn (Pandalus platyceros) is found exclusively in the Pacific Ocean, from the Gulf of Alaska down to Northern Baja California. Named after the paired spots located just behind the head, our California Spot Prawns hail from the Southern California Bight (a 430-mile stretch of curved coast from Point Conception, Calif. to Punta Colonet, Baja California Sur, Mexico), with main ports of entry at Santa Barbara, San Pedro and San Diego.
These shrimps are big, too. The largest in the Pacific, in fact. They can grow upwards of 12 inches (30.5 cm) but most are around 4 to 10 inches (12-27 cm) in length.
It’s in California where spot prawns were initially discovered in the 1930s, hanging out in octopus traps off the coast of Monterey. Today, they’re caught in pot traps to ensure careful handling and effective fisheries management (shoutout to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife).
Spot prawns dwell deep, inhabiting depths of 600 feet to 1,500 feet on soft and rocky bottoms.
LIFE CYCLE
The average life span for a spot prawn is around six years. It’s around year four or five when something magical happens: spot prawns start transitioning from male to female. Spot prawns start life as males, then they join the other team after their first spawn as males. They’re a true example of a hermaphrodite in the natural world, a protrandric hermaphrodite, if you want to get the scientific term spot-on.
Spot prawns spawn once a year, with each individual spot prawn mating once as a male and once or twice as a female. This typically occurs from October through January. That’s the reason spot prawn season is closed during that time.
UNBEATABLE FLAVOR
Spot prawns are a rarity and a delicacy. Careful handling is critical, as they must be enjoyed immediately after they decease. (There’s an enzyme in them that instantly begins decomposing the muscular structure, leading to a “mushy” texture when cooked if not handled properly.)
As finding and preparing spot prawns can be a little, well, spotty, it goes without saying that the best way to enjoy them is fresh from the water. At Water Grill, we fill our saltwater tanks with live spot prawns and prepare them to order, where you can get them as a tempura-fried Nigiri or as a Panca Tare-Marinated entrée.
Spot prawns are delicate and delicious. We may refer to them as delicate, but the firm texture makes them sweet and gives a “pop” of flavor every time you take a bite.
AT A GLANCE:
