This is a Fun With Eating first...our first a guest blogger! My good friend Allison was in Las Vegas for work and I had lamented how last time I went to Vegas, I didn't get to try Raku, which came highly recommended, so she was totally up for trying it out on my behalf. I didn't actually think she would do a full write up but she did, which was so sweet of her. So without further adieu - please welcome my first guest blog entry from Allison - she did a great job! PS. if anyone else is up for a guest entry, I'm totally open to it. Let me know.
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This review is an homage to Jenny and her food blog. Thanks to Jenny I had a good tip where to have dinner on my evening dining solo in Vegas. I took a cab 10 minutes from the strip and headed out to “China Town”. In Vegas, as you might expect, China Town is less of a bustling neighborhood and more of a series of strip malls with lots of different Asian restaurants and stores. Among one of the non-descript strip malls is Raku, a Japanese Robata restaurant. Since I was dining alone, I requested to sit at the sushi bar. The hostess was happy to seat me at the bar, which already had a few other customers, but she informed me that they didn’t serve sushi (oops).
The restaurant has 5-6 places at the bar, where you can watch food being prepared, and about 40 seats. When I arrived at 6pm shortly after it opened, there were about 10 people total already there and as Jenny would note I was the only non-Asian which would be a good sign. The menu consists of house made tofus, salads, cold items, grilled (robata) items and desserts. I thought I’d sample one of each although I am not as adventurous an eater as Jenny.
I started with a half portion of the Raku Tofu, which was served cold with bonito, scallions and ginger. There are several condiments options the bar including Raku’s green tea salt, soy sauce and custom made mixes of spicy sauce and flakes, which originate in Japan. I was instructed to salt my tofu and use soy sauce if I liked. Oh boy was this tofu good – it melted in your mouth. The menu describes the tofu as “the freshest you will ever taste” which is a big claim but hard to debate after trying it. Next I had the sashimi salad which came with 9 slices of sashimi (3 salmon, 3 tuna, 3 yellowtail) on top of a bed of spinach finished with a soy dressing and a dollop of spicy sauce. It was huge, which is not often something that describes Japanese portions, fresh and delicious. I was excited for what was next although I was already pretty full. I got the yellowtail with glazed soy based sauce. It came from the grill on skewers and with a small ball of shaved daikon. The fish was so light and flaky it was easy to eat off the skewer and was perfectly complimented by the sauce. Also from the robata grill I ordered the flame grilled eggplant, which was a small skinned Japanese eggplant covered in bonito flakes. It was certainly tasty, with the smokiness of the grill but not mind blowing. To top it all off I had the sorbet of the day which was Asian pear. It came in out in a small cup and was the consistency of a snow cone - small chunks of ice covered in pear syrup. It was a perfect surprising, ending for someone like me, who is a huge fan of shave ice, and palate cleansing. The service was quick and friendly, as I asked for recommendations and happily took any suggestions that they had for how to accessorize the items I’d ordered and endlessly refilled my green tea. There was a friendly welcome “irashaimase” and “arigatou gozaimasu” shouted to each person that left the restaurant
I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and was thrilled to leave the Strip with its large, noisy, chain restaurants. Raku is authentic and reasonably priced - 2 words not usually used to describe Las Vegas. I can only hope some day Jenny and I will be back to experience it together.
Total with tax and tip: $48
Photo Credit: Allison Simon
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