Mostly good Japanese fare at Raku, Las Vegas.

Raku gets high praise on Yelp and on several foodie blogs I regularly follow, so it was a no-brainer to make a trek off the strip for dinner at this critically acclaimed Japanese restaurant. The first thing you'll notice about Raku is that fact that you might not even notice it -- it's a well hidden hole-in-the-wall establishment with maybe 8 tables and a small bar. We went on a Tuesday night and it was packed; reservations are a must at this place and I had certainly made mine during the previous week. Raku serves cold dishes, hot (robata) dishes from the grill, and a very good selection of sake.

I ordered a flight of sake to start the night:

I don't remember the names of each one, but they were all very good, with the unfiltered one on the right being my favorite.

Our server whipped out the portable chalkboard with about a dozen or so specials. Just about everything looked appealing, but we went for the pork belly, squid two-ways, and the house-made agedashi tofu.

Pork belly was sublime; the balance of sauce and pork was textbook.

Squid two ways:

Sashimi style. The taste and texture is similar to fresh octopus; actually there's not much taste to this. It's more about the texture - a bit chewy but not as so much as octopus.

A close-up picture.

Robata style. This was very good and I felt the grilling method really brought out the freshness of the squid.

I don't have a picture of the tofu -- I think we were quite entertained (distracted) by a first-date going on at the bar between a middle-aged poorly-dressed gentlemen and a younger lady dressed in her finest funeral-black attire. I won't deter too much here, but let's just say the man had the "it's all about me" attitude and at one point, made a loud cell phone call to some "A-lister,", all this while the lady clearly showed no interest.

Back to the food. We ordered two more dishes -- grilled yellow tail and grilled eggplant.

The yellow tail was a bit dry, even with the sauce.

The eggplant was absolutely tasteless and not even worthy of space on my SD card. Sorry.

Our bill for two with sake, beer, and 5 dishes came out to just over $100 with tax and tip. It was decent but we both prefer Ichiza, which is just down the street.