Raku Las Vegas (More Than Just Sushi)
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See what it’s like to dine at Raku Las Vegas. It’s one of the best Japanese restaurants in Las Vegas.
We celebrated our eighth anniversary at Raku in Las Vegas. The dinner had it all. The romance, the atmosphere, the food…
The strip mall !?
The shuffling and bustling of cars on a meandering search for parking spaces on a Friday evening at Seoul Plaza greeted us as we arrived at our anniversary dinner. We wondered if we had allowed ourselves enough time to find a space and still arrive on time for our 8:00 reservation.
A moment of panic set in. Could we find a parking spot at all? Would we miss our coveted reservation at the small but popular restaurant? An air of nervousness filled our rental car.
You see, despite its Korean name and suburban atmosphere, this strip mall two miles off the strip features one of the best Japanese restaurants in the country – Raku.
Dinner at Raku Las Vegas
Helmed by Chef Mitsuo Endo, Raku Las Vegas is a Robatayaki restaurant featuring meats and vegetables grilled with precision. The centuries-old cooking method involves a large stone grill made popular on Japanese fishing boats on the northern island of Hokkaido. In recent years, the style has grown more popular throughout Japan.
However, Raku’s menu features more than just grilled food.
How much more? We’re talking 10+ small courses served over three hours. And then there’s the extensive wine and sake list. We opted for a nice bottle of sake since it was our anniversary after all.
Our marathon of a meal started with a soft, silky dome of house-made tofu with a texture that evoked fresh ricotta from Italy. We were encouraged to cut the tofu by hand and sprinkle special Japanese green sea salt on the delicate curds before eating every luxurious mouthful.
The tofu course was followed by one of the most formidable plates of sashimi we’ve eaten on this side of the Pacific Ocean. While many high-end Japanese eateries import their fish from Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji Market, Raku goes the extra mile to import fish from smaller purveyors in Southern Japan.
Hey, it was our anniversary, so we splurged and ordered off the higher-priced omakase menu which allowed us to sample a unique cornucopia of fresh fish including bluefin tuna, kampachi amberjack and shima aji striped jack. As an added touch, fresh chrysanthemum acted as a colorful palette cleaner.
Pro Tip
Raku offers two levels of omakase menus. With a difference of just $25 between the two at the time of our anniversary dinner, we recommend the higher priced option since it features the restaurant’s freshest, most creative dishes.
The wonder of great Japanese cuisine is in the precision. Grill chefs in Japan cook with the skill of microsurgeons serving up a number of successive courses cooked to perfection.
And perfection followed. We loved the amazing, melt in your mouth Maryland soft shell crabs sourced from Baltimore.
We marveled over the grilled tomatoes that somehow managed to remain plump and juicy despite their browned bacon wrapping. And we pretty much inhaled the jarringly rich, melt in your mouth, slowly grilled beef tendon.
The courses kept coming in rapid succession: Crunchy flash-fried snapper with delicate flesh and crunchy edible bones, lightly salted langoustines from Scotland that had no need for butter, skewers of duck and Kobe beef and a finale of grilled foie gras. Confession: the delicate, creamy foie may have been the weakest course – a testament to how good Raku’s food is.
Pro Tip
Make sure you visit the restroom at Raku. The high-tech, multi-function toilets, are one of the things that we loved about Tokyo and shouldn’t be missed.
As we savored each small plate in our small private room, we toasted our eight years (!) of marriage as each course arrived, a tradition that we started at Volvér in Philadelphia and plan to continue in the future.
Raku is located at 5030 W Spring Mountain Rd #2, Las Vegas, NV 89146, United States.
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