Review – Raku Restaurant Las Vegas

My friend Jessica suggested Raku as a place to go off the strip in Vegas. Raku is a very authentic Japanese yakitori located on Spring Mountain Road in the “Chinatown” area of Vegas.  The restaurant itself  is pretty small, consisting of two small rooms with perhaps 10 tables and 40 diners max, so reservations are a must as doing a walk in might not yield you a table.  Only open for dinner from 6pm, but open late until 2 or 3am, so definitely a place to grab a late night bite to eat. We got a reservation at 9:30pm and were told we had to be finished by 11:30. While this seems strange to me at first because 2 hours is more than enough time for a meal, after I dined there I understood, as the food comes out slowly and you are encouraged to enjoy each course rather than just wolf it down like at a Vegas buffet.

Fish and dinner specials are written on a chalk board located near the hostess stand, and that changes daily depending on what they get that day.

Tofu 2 Ways

We ordered half a tofu fresh and half agadashi style.  The fresh tofu came garnished with bonito flakes, sliced green onion and freshly grated ginger.   The waitress suggested we use the home made condiments on our table, which were the green tea salt and their home brewed plum infused soy sauce,  The soy sauce had a great plum fragrance and complimented the freshly made tofu very well.  The green tea flavor in the salt was subtle, letting the salt part season the tofu, but finish with a hint of tea and seaweed flavor.

Agadashi Tofu – Used the same homemade tofu, and while tasty, was probably nothing special compared to other food we had that night.  I prefer the fresh tofu over this.

Fish 2 Ways

Fresh fish can prepared in three ways: sashimi, grilled, and fried.   You can choose one, two, or all three ways.  We did sashimi  and grilled. If you choose all three, I  believe they filet both sides of the fish and the fried part is the bones and head, allowing you to eat it whole. That is the default in traditional yakitori restaurants.  After perusing the chalkboard and consulting with our waitress, we chose the  itoyori (threadfin bream), which happened to be the last one of the night.  Sashimi was very well prepared and sliced, and the grilled portion had the requisite salty and slightly charred exterior. Something to note about the garnish for the sashimi dishes. In place of the normal shredded daikon, Raku uses glassy noodles made of seaweed agar, pickled chrysanthemum instead of ginger, and freshly ground wasabi root as opposed to powder. The last one of which can be very potent. The fish was very fresh, not really needing any extra soy or salt.

Sashimi

Shiokko (amberjack) – clean with a bit of fatty texture, medium firm texture, clean flavor

Bluefin tuna sashimi – rich and fatty, almost  but not quite as rich as toro (fatty tuna) with a soft, pillowy mouth feel.  This plate came courtesy of Antonio Esfandiari, who happened to be at the table next to us. (story in another blog post)

 Yakitori

Kobe/beef skewer with wasabi – rich and fatty as you might expect. Cooked medium and topped with a wasabi sauce. Wasabi was subtle, not overpowering, a Japanese version of western steak and horseradish.

Grilled beef tendon – By far the best thing we had out of the cooked dishes. It had the texture of silky tofy with a melt in your mouth quality when you bit into it. Not chewy at all, and can best be described as chewing creamy beef flavored mousse coated in a rich beefy au jus type of reduction.

Small plates – From the top, grilled asparagus with bacon, Salmon with daikon and ikura garnish, and enoki wrapped in bacon.  Bacon was crisp, not too crunchy and not over salty, a perfect compliment for the grilled veggies.  Salmon was just average, although not dried out like some skewers I have had in the past.

TIps

– You could take a cab, but chances are the round trip fare would cost about the same as a single day for a rental car, so rent a car. Most casinos on the Strip have a rental car counter within the resort.  And you can always drive your car to the airport and drop it off there,  saving even more cab fare.

– Raku is open late, so you can do an after-show dinner here.  Just make sure you have reservations. Bear in mind that the later you go, the fewer chalkboard selections will remain. We got the last itoyori, and as we left there were a couple other line items missing.

–  Prices are about what you would expect for Japanese sashimi, but always ask the pricing before ordering off the chalkboard because prices are not posted. You don’t want to be caught by surprise when you find out what the “market price” for that sashimi platter is .

Conclusion

A great overall dining experience and a good break from the flashy, celebrity chef, and steak restaurants and buffet de casino’s on the Vegas Strip.  Authentic and very well executed.  Definitely worth a trip out.