Raku Grill/China Town/Vegas Adventure

I need to fess up to my ignorance of China Town in Las Vegas. Living a huge chunk of my life near Vegas, and all the times I have taken road trips to visit, I just never realized China Town was there, or how amazing it is. Maybe I was just too dazzled by the strip and never took the measly 5 minute drive away from traffic and crowds to check it out. Or maybe my head was too full of ridiculous notions about how sinful and evil Vegas is to dare explore and, the gal, enjoy my time there. I would like to believe that China Town just wasn’t really there, or as pronounced, but let’s be truthful, the blame for missing out on some amazing food is entirely at my feet. Fortunately, getting to tag along as my partner presented research and won awards at a medical conference meant I had time to explore, and have one of the best meals of my life.

Spending time on the strip and in the casinos of Las Vegas can net you some great meals. But too long there and you notice that most places are designed for high volume, and fast table turns. While the quality usually maintains, you always run the risk of getting a bland and under seasoned burger at one of Gordon Ramsey’s giant, Union Jack encrusted, new ventures. And you never feel like you can just linger and enjoy your meal. The visible line of anxious tourists waiting for your table adds to the feeling you should probably eat and GTFO. Once in China Town, the restaurants there present a stark contrast. Most places are fairly small, 40 - 60 seats on average. And as for sitting and enjoying your meal, it feels like that is what they are there for.

On our next to last night, my partner was already bragging about the Icelandic chef, ingredients, and authentic cuisine that one of the medical suppliers had flown in for conference goers interested in their product. The product is made from Icelandic fish skins; see what they did there? But as with most of these meals, significant others were not invited. Left up to my own devices, I went through the list of places I wanted to try. Michael Mina has his new Bardot Brasserie in the Aria, but nothing on the menu was hitting me right then. There is Jose Andres’ Bazaar Meat at the SLS. But to get the full experience there, I would want to go tasting menu and that option seemed limited last minute on a Friday night. Having already had a great couple of meals in China Town this trip, I decided to try a place I had been hearing lots about, Raku Grill.

Raku Grill is a tiny 48 seat place at the very end of a strip mall. Their specialty is authentic Japanese food with a focus on traditional charcoal grilling. When I pulled into the small shared parking lot, it was crammed full of cars and a huge line of people were standing next to the Raku sign. I foolishly hadn’t made a reservation and definitely didn’t calculate how busy things could get to be. After circling for a parking space, I cautiously made my way to the restaurant debating how long of a wait time I was willing to work with. 30 min? An hour? I have nothing else going on and a smart phone. I could murder an hour easy. But much to my surprise, when I got up to the door I realized the large groups of waiting people were actually there for the all you can eat Chinese buffet next door. I’ll have to try that place at some point, because everyone wanted in there. My wait would still be about 30 minutes for a place at the bar, but I was more than happy to tackle that after already deciding I could wait an hour. Plus, this gave me a chance to listen in on some truly awkward conversations in the large groups waiting outside. I felt really bad for the Chinese girl introducing her caucasian boyfriend to her parents. After her telling her mom 4 times to speak English and the dad asking the boyfriend why he hadn’t thought about medical school in 3 different variations on the same question, she said they were going on a walk around the parking lot to, “Stretch” and my seat got called.

The big question about a place like Raku, is what exactly do you order. Their menu is primarily robata dishes, small portions cooked over charcoal or served raw. Since most things start at about $3, you can really just go to town on anything that sounds good. But I wanted an experience, I wanted to try the stuff the chef loved to serve. Fortunately, they offer an Omakase; a number of courses chosen by the chef. It definitely skirts toward the expensive side of things, but if my partner was having specially flown in Icelandic food, I was going to go big as well. Side note, I later found out she only got some tiny samplers and ended up having steak at another company’s dinner and presentation. So my attempts to balance some sort of good food scale didn’t really play out. If anything, I unbalanced it in my direction. With green tea at the go, I started on what ended up being one of the 5 best meals I’ve ever had.

The atmosphere in Raku is incredible. From the bar seats you can look through the pass through window and see the chefs work the grill, while in front of you the three chefs working the sashimi and cold dishes prep intricate and beautiful plates like a flawless machine. The fresh fish is displayed behind them on ice and actual wasabi root is stacked, ready to be ground to each order on shark skin. The wait staff is, in all respects, incredible. I sometimes worry I’m going to get the short end of the service stick when I roll into a place with a Batman T-shirt, jeans, and Catwoman chucks. But if there was a better service tier at Raku, I can’t imagine what it is. Each dish was explained to me in amazing detail, and I was even given suggestions on how to eat each course. I’m usually not a big fan of being told how to eat my food. It so often just feels condescending to me. As though I am too ignorant to eat food. But at Raku, it never felt that way. The wait staff presented each suggestion not as, you have to eat it this way or you screw it up, but instead as, you do you, but if you want to really try something awesome, forget that soy sauce and just sprinkle some green tea salt on that one.

After a starting amuse bouche salad of cooked spinach, mushrooms, and katsuobushi, the second course of in-house made tofu came with a few suggestions from the staff that added immensely to the experience of the dish. I’ve had my fair share of tofu. I’ve had it in soups, fried, sautéed, marinated, you name it, but I don’t think I’ve had really fresh tofu, nor have I ever had any as good as the stuff I was served here. I’ve heard people talk about the creamy texture of tofu, or using it to make something taste creamy in a vegetarian or vegan recipe. Not until I cut off my first taste of this stuff did I realize what creamy tofu actually was. At the suggestion of the staff I tried it first plain, then with some of the aforementioned green tea salt. Then with bonito and a fourth time with just finally chopped chives. Each addition brought out a different facet of the tofu. Some making it richer, other’s deeper. With the bonito, the tofu worked to bring forward the slightly briney, subtly smokey nature of the flakes that you usually only find after bonito becomes dashi.

My third course was a trio of sashimi. Yellow tail that was fresh and melted in the mouth after a small dip into the provided saucer of mirin and soy sauce mix. Then flying fish already seasoned with pickled ginger and chives. I was surprised at how firm the flying fish was in comparison to the yellow tail, and how perfectly just a couple of chives and some ginger seasoned each bite. Finally, there was the marinated and seared tune that I was informed, needed no seasoning at all. And they were right. Tuna has always been a favorite sashimi of mine, but like many, I tend to dunk it in soy sauce or a murky paste of soy sauce and wasabi. Even though there was soy sauce right next to the salt if I wanted it, I had committed myself to putting my dining experience into the hands of the chef and servers, so I hadn’t touched it once. And yeah, I was feeling very snobby about it all.

As I was working through my sixth course, a perfectly grilled, crispy skinned, mackerel, the couple that had recently sat next to me at the bar were getting their first order, interrupting their conversation about the guys ex-girlfriend getting engaged to his dad. The plate was six delicate pieces of grouper sashimi, each piece topped with either a small dab of green or orange. The waitress let them know that the green was wasabi and ginger, and the orange was orange zest and spicy daikon. I really hoped I would get that at some point. Before the waitress could leave them to eat, the guy was drowning one of the pieces in soy sauce straight from the bottle as his date(?) demanded more wasabi. The waitress politely informed them that since wasabi here was ground to the dish, they didn’t have extra. She was polite about it, the date seemed upset, and I had to stop myself from grabbing the plate away from the two heathens BECAUSE THEY DON’T DESERVE FOOD THIS GOOD! I shouldn’t be harsh to judge. The guy’s dad is marrying his ex-girlfriend. That kind of weirdness probably trickles down.

The only dish that gave me pause was the fourth course. The waitress brought out a flat, black piece of slate with three bright orange crabs in formation, marching along. Deep fried Japanese river crabs. They looked like a perfect moment frozen in time, a claw still reaching up for a moment here, standing on their own legs there. I was informed that because of how small they were, I could just eat them shell and all. I assumed, popping the first one into my mouth, that it would be like soft shell crab. It was not. That first big crunch took me by surprise. One of my great eating fears, is getting fish bones. I grew up eating a fair amount of lake trout. We caught them, my dad cleaned them and cooked them. He never went to much length to get out the pin bones. So those campfire dinners were a constant fear of choking on a bone, having one jab me in the cheek, all kinds of horrors. That first crunch of crab brought all that fear back to me. The flavor though saved me from my panic. A hint of garlic, a slight punch of rice vinegar for acid, and then that little nugget of sweet crab flavor. I quickly crunched down the other two, only getting one more slight twinge of panic when a claw grazed past my tooth.

Courses 5, 7, and 8 were where the grill part of the evening really got rolling. While the mackerel showed off cooking with the grill to achieve a solid dish, these 3 courses were just about being vehicles for the smoke and char that the stone grills in the back could

do for you and your taste buds. I should state up front I am not a big fan of tomatoes. I’ll take them in sauces, sure, but trying to eat one on a sandwich, or as part of a salad? Screw that. This distaste for the little red guys has become enough of an issue, 2017 has been my year of liking tomatoes. I’ve been forcing myself to eat and enjoy them. Well, if all tomatoes tasted like these four little guys, it wouldn’t have taken me a year. The sweetness of the tomato is preserved, as is the perfect level of acid, but the touch of salt and the lingering taste of smoke and grilling balance against those flavors to make something great. I would try this at home more, but I don’t have anything that could impart the natural, clean, smokey flavors that their grills and traditional coals are producing.

The kobe steak and teriyaki chicken skewers on the surface are really basic dishes. Aside from how expensive buying your own kobe may be, both you could probably whip up at home, no problem. But these dishes brought home how skilled and unique what Raku Grill is doing. The steak was cooked to a perfect rare, juicy, and bursting with flavor. The smokiness and grill flavor works to wrap up the umami flavors and lets them linger well past the last bite. With the front of your mouth a bit tingly from the wasabi, the umami bomb of the steak sits at the back waiting for you to take the first bite of chicken, that, honestly, is one of the single best, simple bites of chicken I have had.

At this point in the meal, I wasn’t sure what more they could bring out. I was told that

my final course was coming up, and I was curious if they would end with a diminuendo or if I had been moving towards the chef’s final crescendo. When the bowl of tuna belly tartar, marinated seaweed, and rice came, I knew we were going out with a bang. I was told that as long as I take a bite with all three components in it, “It should be properly seasoned. But feel free to add as much soy sauce as you like.” At this point, they hadn’t led me wrong once, so I was on board. Perfectly seasoned, each grain of rice perfectly cooked, and the seaweed between the layer of fish and the layer of rice brought both together with just a hint of brine to make the natural fatty flavors of the tuna pop out. Each bite was as wonderfully unctuous as the last.
Growing up, my parents had a number of fruit trees in their back yard. One of my

favorite was a small plum tree. My dad would often dry the excess plums at the end of the season, but I was more into eating them just as they came off the tree. Eventually, one year, the tree got diseased, rotted, and fell over. We never did replace it. In fact, I hadn’t thought about that tree or those plums until I took the first bite of the plum sorbet dessert. Atop a small dash of condensed milk, I’m sure the goal was to recreate some of the popular shaved ice and condensed milk desserts found in Japan, Korea, and China. But what clean, direct, simple, and well executed flavors can also do is drag up a random moment, a memory you haven’t thought about in years. You aren’t just tasting what is in front of you, it suddenly seems like you can smell the ailanthus trees, or hear the handmade watering system sputter and gurgle. Great food does that. It engages the memory to not only make you remember, but to implant new memories of tofu and teriyaki chicken.