Raku

I love Japanese food.  Sadly, I almost never have the opportunity to have this since there are hardly any authentic Japanese restaurants near where I live.  What is amazing is that Las Vegas' Chinatown has a decent amount of these restaurants.  In one particular strip mall, there are 4 Japanese restaurants.

Raku is a small izakaya with a limited but exciting menu.  The small menu contains a variety of cold and hot small dishes along with a plethora of grilled items, an izakaya staple.  They also have a daily menu with sashimi of the freshest and most carefully sourced fish.  Not only are the fish carefully sourced, but so are the other offerings.  You know what that means?  It's gonna be a hella good meal.

Let's begin.

Poached Egg with Uni and Ikura

Farm egg, salmon roe, and sea urchin all in one bowl.  Mix that altogether with the mountain yam, and you got yourself a menage-a-trois of eggs.  

Raku Tofu

This is made in house and served with katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), green onions, and ginger.  Add a dash of the house brewed soy sauce, and there's no way you would ever want to go back to mass produced tofu.  This tofu has a fuller body, meaning a greater mouth feel and creamier taste.

Yes, I said Raku makes their own soy sauce.  This sauce is not as salty and has a fuller bodied taste.  There's a theme going on here.  

Kanpachi

Sashimi of the freshest Japanese amberjack belly and loin.  To cleanse the palate, there are pickled chrysanthemum flowers instead of ginger.  There's not much to say regarding the flavor, as it's a mild white fish.  But, where the quality and dedication comes in is the use of the pickled flowers.  Mild pickles paired with a mild fish; how did I not know that?

And now, some chargrilled skewers.

Kurobuta Pork Cheek

Kurobuta means black pig in Japanese.  These pigs are raised in Kagoshima prefecture in the Western part of the country.

The cheeks here have a very good fat to meat ratio.  The charcoal grill creates a nice crust on the outside, giving the pork a nice bite.

Duck with Balsamic Soy

The dark soy sauce and slightly sweet balsamic make a nice mellow sauce that doesn't overpower the duck.

Salmon with Ikura Oroshi

Despite it's complex name, it's a very simple dish of grilled salmon with grated radish topped with ikura.

To be honest, there isn't a whole to say about some tiny skewers as they are that simple.  But this next dish got me talking.

Juicy Deep Fried Ajitame Chicken

This is the highlight of the night.  Dark meat chicken is laid on a bed of spinach which is sauced with the chicken jus.  When they say juicy, it's more than true.  Never had I had fried chicken that is so succulent and moist.  I can't imagine what is was like when the chef cuts into the batter.  Must have been like a tidal wave of juice coming out of it.  

This meal is among of the greatest that I have had in Vegas.  Flawless ingredients and technique combined with simple end results make this place a true gem.  Compared to most places in Chinatown, this is on the higher end of the spectrum.  Even though I was treating my family, my dad somehow still ended hitting up the curry place next door for what he calls "real food".  He means stuff that fills you up, of course.  But I guess it's just a generational difference here.

Like many of the places in Chinatown, Raku is open late.  Like 2am late.  From what I heard, it's for this reason that it's popular with restaurant employees, especially the chefs.  And for good reason.  Even though, this is the kind of place that would be pretentious and trendy if on the Strip, it's quite casual.  Just look at the food.  It's simple.  The presentation is traditional and minimalistic. It's a great place to get away from all the intensity, complexity, and noise that define the restaurants that dot the Strip.  This is what food should be like in a more perfect world.

5030 Spring Mountain Road
Las Vegas, NV 89146

KJ Kitchen Chinese Cuisine

Despite all the gambling, bright lights, and clubbing going on, Las Vegas is a great food destination.  There are great places on the Strip as well as off the Strip.  Last year, I made my first trip to Chinatown, a series of strip malls located around Spring Mountain Road.

The main attraction here are the unbelievable amount of restaurants around here.  Most of the restaurants serve Chinese food, but there is also Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai available.  Unlike where I live, where each strip mall has maybe 1 Chinese restaurant,  there are multiple eateries in each mall in Vegas.  The strip mall where KJ is located has 4 other restaurants.

On this particular night, my family and I decided to drive out to find a new restaurant.  The best way to gauge it was by whether there was a decent crowd inside.  We noticed that this place was packed, so we decided to give it a try.

After having been to a few restaurants in this area, it's safe to assume that it's customary that pork and dried vegetable soup is always served to start.  But there is an unusual addition in this.  Yes, those are chicken feet in the soup.  It adds a little bit of viscosity to the soup due to the collagen and cartilage.

Deer with Ginger and Scallion

What? A Chinese restaurant serving venison?  That's exactly what's going on here.  Cooked in the same way as beef, this is one amazing dish.  Even though the vegetables mask the smell of the meat, the taste is still uniquely venison.  The meat has a deeper and gamier flavor compared to beef.   was so happy to see this on the menu coming back from Utah, a place with so much game available, only very few are available during the winter time.

Frog in Clay Pot

These aren't just frog legs; it's the whole body.  The amphibian is decapitated, gutted, and hacked up before being placed in the clay pot with onions, shiitake mushrooms, Chinese sausage, oyster sauce, and soy sauce.  The Chinese name of this dish comes from the sound it makes while cooking.  There are legs in here but there is also the body on the bone.  This part of the frog contains different portions of the vertebrae, which requires much care when eating.

With this and last year's trip to Vegas, I have still only scratched the surface of this fine Chinatown.  And this is certainly a hidden that I won't forget.  I mean, where would anyone find venison served at a Chinese restaurant?

5960 Spring Mountain Road
Las Vegas, NV 89146

Hong Kong Pearl Seafood Restaurant

I have always known that there were good Chinese restaurants in Northern Virginia.  I personally never went to any of them.  Why?  There are many reasons I guess.  The driving distance is a significant factor.  I don't like to think that I'm too lazy to get down there.  But I think that the biggest reason is that there are similar restaurants near where I live, so there's no need to drive an hour to eat the same thing.

Living near some great restaurants makes it really easy for me to shelter myself within Montgomery County.  There really is no need to venture out as you probably can't get a much better variety that is here.

I ended up here on chance, while driving from Pentagon City to Tyson's Corner.  When I first laid eyes on the area, I was surprised that it is situated near a strip mall complex dedicated to Asian restaurants.  Not only Chinese, but Vietnamese and Korean were there among others.  I was impressed with the variety.  It could certainly give anything in my neck of the woods a run for the money.

This is a very large restaurant, which usually means that it would hold major events on any given day.    It so happened that there was a wedding reception that night, closing the main dining.  Good thing there is an auxiliary room even though it was only half the size.

Dinner here is like any major restaurant serving Cantonese food.  There are several dishes along with pre fixe options.  However, this place includes a late night dim sum menu.  Really unheard as that is strictly a lunch/brunch thing.  I guess there is a really high demand for that stuff.  Being with the family, I get a pre fixe for 4 people along with another dish.

Barbecue Plate

A great and decadent way to start the meal.  An appetizer of the chef's choice of meats.  For this day, there was soy sauce chicken and roast duck.  There were remnants of feathers on the chicken skin, which may sound disgusting, but is actually a good thing.  This means that the restaurant uses freshly slaughtered chickens rather the shrink wrapped stuff that you get at the supermarket.  Quality and freshness means everything.

Crab and Fish Stomach Soup

Soup du jour is very traditional for any Chinese meal.  The fish stomach starts out dried and is rehydrated in the cooking process.  There isn't much flavor in it as it is rubbery.  Overall, there is an modest umami flavor.  It is why people sometimes put red vinegar in it to add some extra flavor.

Salt and Pepper Pork Chops

Chinese style pork chops are like munchies for me.  One, they're fried.  Second, they are very flavorful.  The tough part is choosing which style of preparation do I want: covered in a sweet and savory sauce or sprinkled with salt and pepper.  For this meal, I was craving salt and pepper.  These are also cooked with some hot peppers.

Chinese Broccoli

You can't have a complete meal without vegetables.  Not only are these good for you, they also taste good.  Some water and garlic is all that is needed.  It's that simple.

Fish in XO Sauce

                                     

XO sauce is one of the most important ingredients in Cantonese cooking.  It is made from dried seafood, chilies, and vegetable oil.  It primarily enhances the flavor of the fish by giving it a slight spicy kick and a salt cured taste.  There is also celery and snow peas.

Conch Stir Fry

This was not part of the set dinner, but was still awesome regardless.  There are some exquisite ingredients in this dish, such as dried squid and conch in addition to the celery, bean sprouts, lotus root, leeks, and carrots.  Chinese dried squid, or at least the ones that are in this dish, is an artisanal product.  The salt curing provides the backbone of the flavor in the dish.

It's a shame that not many people come here for dinner as it is quite an amazing experience that is just as good as having dim sum in the afternoon.  Sure, there isn't as much variety, but this is also a great side of Chinese cooking.  It's also a shame that I didn't try this place earlier.

This is one of the reasons why I started this blog in the first place: to start my own personal journey to  discover some great and unique restaurants and other eating experiences where I live and travel.  Northern Virginia can match with anything that I have had before.  Now it's time to dig even further.

Seven Corners Center

6286 Arlington Boulevard

Falls Church, VA 22044

Unique Dim Sum Dishes at Royal Seafood Restaurant

Fried Fish Skin

I have eaten dim sum my almost my entire life and not once have I had this, even when I was in Hong Kong.  So, it's a perfect time to seize the moment.  Truthfully, there isn't a whole lot of flavor.  It's really just a fishier and more nutritious style of chips.

Chilies Stuffed with Shrimp

Ok, this isn't the most original dish in the world considering there is just a variation of the more common green bell peppers.  If you're a lover of spicy food, you would definitely want to try this.

Offal Stew

This dish is something that I really miss since moving out of the New York area.  For the uninitiated, it looks like horror movie or shit in a bowl.  But, when done right, this can be the greatest thing in the world.  This comprises of a variety of stewed parts where you can choose which ones you like.  This bowl contains duck feet, beef tripe, abomasum, and spleen among others.

Lobster on Fried Noodles

This isn't really dim sum, but it is something that can be ordered during said meal.  It is traditional at dim sum restaurants to order a large dish at the end of the meal, which usually includes rice or noodles.  Here, there is a one pound Maine lobster fried and sautéed with ginger and scallions served on a bed of fried egg noodles.  The noodles are the key to the dish as they soak up the delicate sauce of and lobster juice.  I will take this over a lobster roll any day.  And not to mention, they cost the same.

Cinnamon Jelly

This is the only restaurant I have seen this being served.  To be honest, I have no idea exactly how this is made.  But I can guess that it is made from agar-agar like many Chinese jelly desserts.  The specs of cinnamon are then placed in the aspic as it is cooking and then it is cooled before eating.

Taipei Cafe

There is an abundance of Chinese restaurants in Rockville serving food from different regions.  So to continue the journey, it's time for Taiwanese food.  Taiwanese food is sort of a mixed bag in some ways.  Many dishes come from other parts of the mainland, primarily the Eastern and Southeastern.

It was said that the Communist takeover in the mainland that caused the Nationalists and many of their supporters from said regions to flee to Taiwan.  But I'm sure this happened afterwards when people realized the hardships of a dictatorship.  However, where politics fail to bring people together, there is food that comes to the rescue.

There is also some overlap with the food as some traditional dishes in one region can be interpreted differently in another.  This can involve variations in the method of cooking or use of ingredients as shown in the some of the dishes that they have at Taipei Cafe.

Stinky Tofu

The name says it all.  This is tofu that has been cured in rotten vegetable matter prior to being fried and served with pickled cabbage and soy sauce.  If you can get over the smell, you realize that it tastes nothing like it smells, a nice dish of dry fried tofu.  In fact, from what I was told, the stink is pretty mild compared to what you can get in Taiwan.  Here, you can smell it from the next table or so.  The real stuff can apparently tear paint off the walls.

Oyster Pancake

This is considered the most popular dish in Taiwan.  It's not so much a pancake as it is an omelette.  The oysters are fried in lard before being coated with egg and potato starch.  The potato starch adds thickness and depth.  Shellfish and eggs really go well together.

Three Cup Chicken

Here's another Taiwanese classic dish.  It gets its name from what the chicken is cooked in: three cups of soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil.  There is also basil, ginger, and garlic in the dish, which give the chicken a nice, bold flavor.  If there are any reservations I have, it's the way the chicken is cut.  It's hacked up very aggressively with a cleaver, causing the bones to shatter near the impact area.  This requires caution when eating as one will chew on said shattered bones.

Fish with Chili in Clay Pot

This is a rift on a classic Sichuan dish.It may seem intimidating with the amount of chilies in the sauce, but its actually not too spicy.  But it's actually quite good.  Flounder and some pickled cabbage is cooked in a soup of chilies and Sichuan peppercorns.  It's not so much about the heat as it is about the taste.

Salt Baked Pork Chops

This is a familiar dish from Southern China.  Where in the south there is a distinct layer of breading, this version has almost no breading.  It's lightly dusted with corn starch along with salt and pepper before frying.  So this version doesn't have a crunch to it.  Personally, I prefer the crunch.

Shaved Ice

For dessert, flavored water.  This dessert many versions which includes a variety of toppings.  This is a traditional version, which includes sugarcane syrup, taro, adzuki beans, and grass jelly.  No, this isn't the grass that grows on your yard.  It's made from the mesona chinesis plant that's a member of the mint family (mint jelly anyone?).  It's great for sharing as you get to pick and choose which toppings you prefer.

Another thing I like about this place is the non pretentious vibe.  There's no frills and no horde of foodies flocking here like in many other places.  And most of the staff came from another Taiwanese restaurant in the area, which gives a better understanding of why that place has gone downhill and this place is on the rise.

802 Hungerford Drive
Rockville, MD 20850