It's a Celebration Meal!

Ok folks, let's face it, I have been very erratic with my posts! No schedule or regularity and I truly apologize.  With nursing school coming to a close my priorities have been elsewhere but at the cost of my beloved blog!  I plan on creating more regular posts, so hopefully not too many of you have moved on!  On that note, thank you to loyal readers.  Also, just so you all know, this sacrifice was not wasted.  In the past month I passed my exit exam for school, graduated, studied my booty off for state boards and am now a legitimate license holding Registered Nurse!  It's only natural I have a celebratory meal and this post is definitely a doozy, so sit back, relax and take a peek at the meal that literally ranks as the best I've ever had!

Despite my deep love affair with food, I rarely find myself in a fine dining situation, not only where fancy food exists but often the most innovative.  I pride myself in finding the small spots, the local favorites where innovation and taste meet for a friendly budget.  This night definitely was no regular night for me, and I mean that in the best of ways.

This brings us to Aburiya Raku, found in the corner of a strip mall center in Chinatown, soo inconspicuous you could miss it if you weren't looking for it.  Despite it's low key appearance, Raku has been considered a top restaurant in the city of Las Vegas, often recognized as a semi-finalist for the national James Beard award.  Their specialty revolves around traditional Japanese charcoal grilling, using Binchotan charcoal.  Binchotan charcoal is shipped straight from Japan, the only place it is found, and offers a unique flavor found with no other charcoal.  All their dishes are classic, some with modern gourmet twists, each prepared with their own special sauces and rich flavors.  The restaurant itself is very small and intimate, offering up their dishes in small well thought out presentations.






Raku's menu consists of a plethora of small plates and soups and of course various grill offerings.  Before you can really browse the menu, you're presented with a chalkboard of daily specials mainly consisting of seafood and a few grill items.  We ordered one of each and moved on to the regular menu, afterall what's a fine dining experience without a few daily specials(do be careful though, they don't have prices, and you know what that means!). 

Before we get to any food, I realized what played a major role in the meal was the offering of condiments on the table, each with a unique description which we should go over first.  From the top there is the sea-salt blended with dried shiitake, seaweed powder and matcha green tea powder.  Next is shichimi, a blend of 7 different kinds of Japanese chili.  Below that is Koregesu, chili peppers marinating in distilled rice wine  found on the island of Okinawa.  Last but not least, something everyone is familiar with, Raku's soy sauce.  A blend of soy sauces reduced with Japanese plum.  Each unique, each with great flavor.

 

The first to arrive was cold tofu, made in house with a side of bonito fish flakes, scallions and grated ginger.  The tofu is made in house and is extraordinarily creamy, although alone the flavor profile is simply tofu.  Break up the tofu and mix in a little bonito, scallion and ginger and the flavors just blend together.  You add a little of the shichimi for spice, blended sea salt and soy sauce for flavor and each bite is like heaven.  Creamy with a little dried fish flavor, bite of ginger and fresh scallion all enhanced by the salt dimension of the blended sea salt and soy kicked up by spice at the end.  The best experience I've ever had with a cold tofu.

Next to arrive was the Oden, items stewed over a long period of time in a light soy-dashi(fish,) broth.  Although seemingly simple and light, there is a depth of flavor that comes from the stew which has developed over an extended cooking time.  As for the items in the broth, they are chosen from a list and today we chose a fishcake, daikon radish and deep fried bean curd with mochi inside.  The fishcake was the least exciting, absorbing little broth with an average fishcake taste and texture.  The daikon on the other hand had definitely kept a firm profile despite being boiled in broth for a period of time, and taking a bit into the radish you get the broth spilling out, where the line between radish and broth become blurred and you get a cohesive all in one flavor.  The real winner of the dish was the bean curd wrapped around mochi.  This one was highly recommended by Jenny of Great Bao, eloquently describing a little money sack bursting with flavor.  This did not disappoint.  As much as the daikon had flavor, the amount of broth absorbed by the bean curd was incredible, exploding with broth as the chewy mochi inside slowly came through.

Earlier I mentioned ordering their daily seafood special and here is part 1 of that.  I ordered the Hirame(Halibut,) with the options of sashimi or fried, we opted for both.  The sashimi preparation was as fresh as fish can get, with the fish very tender and sliced at an almost transparent level.  The freshness definitely being the winning factor.  A portion of the sashimi is slightly burned for a little crust adding a little depth of flavor in a few pieces.  Served with a little side of ponzu, a great pairing is apparent which is good because the halibut is very mild and really benefited from that citrus kick.

 Keeping with the sashimi theme, we also ordered the yellowtail carpaccio.  Served in a star presentation this was definitely appealing to the eyes.  Again the winning factor for this dish is the freshness of the fish, although I did expect carpaccio to be served much thinner, who am I to complain about thicker sashimi slices?  Served with a slightly spicy ponzu and a few sprigs of a bitter greens the yellowtail is better than what you'd normally get in any good sushi restaurant.  If you look closely theres a small green condiment on the top of the picture, very potent in a bitter citrus flavor and paired great with the yellowtail, if only I could figure out what it was!

After the refreshing raw fish we were brought the Sea Urchin seaweed soup.  At first i thought the soup was a simple dashi(fish broth,) but after a few bites I got a an increasing flavor of seawater.  This was great, as the uni was creamy with a great nutty finish, the broth added that salty contrast, only enhanced by the strong flavor of seaweed.  The seaweed lent that needed texture of bite to the dish.  Seemingly simple combination that blended very well together unlike anything I've ever tasted.

This dish was attempt to order something very familiar to see how Raku would execute.  We ordered the Juicy Deep Fried Chicken, and we were not disappointed.  I'm not completely sure but it seemed to be chicken marinated in a soy based marinade wrapped in skin and deep fried.  The product is then cut into circles over a bed of spinach drizzled with a miso style dressing.  The chicken did not only live up to it's juicy name but had a very tender texture, probably from it's marinade.  The skin was probably the tenderizing barrier during the frying process and took on a really crisp texture that was a great contrast to the juicy chicken which was enhanced with the dressing topped bed of spinach.  Familiar flavors with an asian twist which Raku executed well.

This little guy is a butter sauteed scallop with soy sauce served on the shell.  The scallop was large and cooked perfectly tender, and the first flavor you get is the butter saute.  After a few chews you get hints of the charcoal from the grill which is then rounded out by the deep soy sauce flavor on the bottom.  Although you may be a little shy, I highly recommend picking up the shell and finishing off the sauce with the scallop.  There's no better way to get a perfect mix of the butter and soy flavors on that last bite of scallop than getting your hands a bit dirty.

Remember that Halibut special?  Well here's the other half!  The rest of the fish meat was fried along with the skeleton, with a light breading.  It was all reconstructed and immersed into a tempura sauce broth.  The fish pieces are tender and flaky matching perfectly with the broth.  Once you get through the tempura pieces the skeleton is left behind which was like another dish all together.  The fish head had soft meat, already flavored from being immersed in the broth and the ribs were fried soo crispy they were like fish chips, also soaked from the broth making a delicious unexpected bonus.

Ahh and finally we get to some pig parts!  The top dish is grilled pork ears.  This had very little cartilage and a lot of fatty meat, which was actually great with the cartilage since it had that chewy/bony texture.  I found that the chili pepper marinated in distilled rice wine was best for these little pieces adding great spice and an almost vinegar like flavor.  I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from grilled pig ears, but I loved the mix of meat and cartilage which I will definitely order more if given the chance.
The skewers on the bottom are grilled pork cheeks.  With a small amount of white meat and a lot of fat attached these were basted with a sweet soy sauce and served straight up.  The taste of the binchotan charcoal was strong on the pork and created a great blend of flavors, the waiter claimed this as a very popular order and I can see why, this is a must order for you pork lovers.

These were the apple marinated lamb chops.  The apple aspect made this dish a bit sweeter although the glaze was very similar to that of the pork cheek.  The lamb itself was very tender and grilled perfectly pink.  The binchotan charcoal created a nice crust on the lamb and in the end these lollipop-sized chops had very little gaminess that you usually find in charcoal cooked lamb.  Another dish proclaimed as popular I have to agree with, having texture and flavor unique to the binchotan grilling process.



I'm a huge fan of tsukune chicken,  ground chicken mixed with scallion, miso and sesame.  What makes Raku's tsukune different from the others is that they mix in mitsuba, a Japanese style parsley with a mint-like finish.  The mitsuba is very strong and makes for a unique tsukune.  Because of the binchotan grilling, the meat is still juicy although this time the mitsuba masks the flavors of the charcoal, especially with the miso flavored sauce over top.  Definitely different and worth trying if you're interested in skewered chicken meatballs.

And the grilled items continue!  The top skewer is grilled Kobe skirt with garlic.  Tender meat with a sweet glaze and hard garlic chips posessing a classic flavor profile with the charcoal adding that smoky flavor unique to Raku.  The skewer below that however is not so classic, being Kobe beef filet with wasabi.  The filet was more tender than the skirt but shared the same sweet glaze as the skirt, what really made this dish was how the spicy/smokiness of the wasabi enhanced the binchotan charcoal flavor, 10 fold even, which made the meat/charcoal profile very intense.  This was probably the best skewer of the night.  The skewer on the bottom is the grilled duck with more of a balsamic reduction style glaze and covered in scallions.  Although this was good duck with a great hint of charcoal flavor, this kind of got lost at the wayside, especially compared to the intense flavors of the Kobe Beef.  It might've been a better skewer to start with, then working up to the stronger flavors.

The skewer between the duck and wasabi Kobe beef is the Iberico pork skewer.  This was one of the daily specials, pork from Spain, raised for a more marbled content of meat on a diet of thyme, rosemary, mushrooms and acorns.  This is possibly one of the most incredible pigs I've ever tasted.  The meat really did have a perfect blend of meat and fat content with flavors that were very reflective of it's diet, I am definitely more used to pork's white meat needing flavor from marinade or sauce, this time not the case.  On top of it's unique flavor, the binchotan charcoal really came through on the meat finishing well with a sweet glaze.  If this is a special and you can handle the $10 cost, ORDER IT!

The next dish that came was the grilled eggplant topped with a little bit of grated ginger and a nice coating of bonito fish flake.  Out of all the grilled items, the eggplant really excelled on taking on the flavor of the binchotan charcoals.  Along with the sharp flavor of ginger and the salt of the fish flake, any fan of eggplant will love this dish.  Add on a little of Raku's soy sauce and you really get a depth of flavor from the eggplant that ranks with the best dishes of the night.  Seemingly simple, the charcoal flavor makes this dish.

As we get to the end of the meal we have saboro-don(minced chicken rice bowl,) on the left.  The meat was very similar to the tsukune, even flavored with the strong mitsuba flavor.  What made this dish unique was how the strong flavored minced chicken contrasted with the sauteed bitter greens around the bowl creating great elements completed by rice in every bite.

On the right is the steamed Foie Gras(duck liver) egg custard topped with a slice of grilled duck.  The custard was extremely creamy, rivaled only by the texture of the cold tofu at the beginning of the meal.  The egg custard took on the flavor of duck liver and just had an incredibly rich flavor enhanced by the light soy broth.  The duck slice had a perfect division of skin/fat/meat and along with the egg custard created an amazing profile of duck flavors, a very indulgent flavored dish.

It was only fitting that we began the meal with tofu and ended with tofu.  See when I ordered the tofu, there was an option to receive it in two preparations, the first being a cold tofu style.  The end of the meal brought upon agedashi style, a deep fried version.  The tofu is deep fried and submerged in a dashi/soy broth with bit of grated daikon, shredded seaweed and salmon eggs over top.  In the broth were tiny little Japanese mushrooms.  The Tofu was still very creamy/tender but had a nice fried layer to absorb the broth.  This time no additions were needed as all the flavor was in the fried crust and the broth.  Although this was one of the best agedashi-tofu dishes I've ever had, I think I had become impartial to the cold style.  Definitely get the half and half to judge for yourself, neither will be disappointing.

This truly was a great celebratory dinner, the best ever even.  Each dish prepared well with an emphasis on quality and presentation.  On top of that, each dish that came out to split was accompanied by it's own setting of bowls and soup spoons.  Each skewer was served for one but most dishes were shareable.  Although the cost of majority of the dishes ran $2-10, the halibut special was $30 and a few of the other special dishes ran $10-20.  You can see how this can add up.  Admittedly we went a little overboard and were wayyy too full at the end, spending close to $190.  In the end we dubbed the food and experience very worth it and for a meal I consider pretty fancy, the cost really is not bad at all(especially compared to the strip).  This is food prepared at another level with flavors that are familiar but unique in it's own right.  You can't forget how recognized Raku is in the culinary world, and with that I definitely found myself a new craving to nurse.

P.S. I highly recommend reservations as this place is small and popular, filling up very fast on a nightly basis.

Aburiya Raku
5030 W.Spring Mountain Rd #2
,Las Vegas, NV 89146
TEL 702-367-3511
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