Toridokoro Raku [Las Vegas, NV]

Toridokoro Raku (according to their website “toridokoro” means “chicken bar” in Japanese) is a yakitori / all things chicken focused restaurant and the newest member of the Raku group of restaurants, which includes the original Raku in Chinatown and dessert-y Sweets Raku. I’m a big fan of Raku and was in Vegas for the weekend so made a late reservation at 11pm on a Friday.

They have an omakase dinner available for $75 but I wasn’t super hungry so I just ordered a la carte. Some of the things I wanted to try were out that night - including the chicken oyster (sold out) and the mochi chicken ball w/gravy (some supplier issue if I heard correctly). The chicken lung and kidney skewers were also sold out.

Dinner starts with an interesting free appetizer.

I should have asked some questions about what this was exactly, but according to some reviews on Yelp this is apparently seaweed jelly. One squeezes it through a box that has a square grate on the bottom to create rectangular noodle like things. These fall into a sweet, sour (vinegary) and I think chicken-y cold sauce. A nice cool appetizer. The noodles tasted a bit like mung bean jelly noodles and had a similar texture.

I ordered mostly skewers:

Chicken Wing (Teba) ($4.5)
A grilled chicken wing, partially deboned for ease of eating. Very good. The skin was nice and crisp. As with all of the skewers I tried this had a nice light clean charcoal flavor from the binchotan charcoal they use on the grill.

Chicken Cartilage (Yagen Nankotsu) ($4)
This is the cartilage between the two breasts of the chicken, with also some of the breast meat attached. Very good as well, I don’t think I’ve tried this before. The cartilage is a little crunchy but not tough, and the breast meat around it was tender.

Chicken Liver ($4)
Some perfectly cooked liver with a somewhat creamy interior, with a light coating of sweet and salty tare sauce.

Tsukune (Ground Chicken) ($4.5)
Ground chicken meatball on a stick. Nicely cooked -juicy inside and with a slightly caramelized exterior, with a light coating of tare. I also added a poached egg (+$2) to dip my chicken lollipop in.

Zucchini ($3.5)
Need to get some vegetables. Nicely cooked zucchini with some shaved bonito flakes.

Chicken Tail (Bonjiri) ($5)
Delicious! Along with the oysters one of my favorite parts of the chicken. Chicken butts from a number of chickens. Fatty and juicy and flavorful.

I also was provided as a condiment a jar of “chicken miso” which tasted like a mix of finely ground chicken and red miso to give an extra umami punch.

Aside from skewers I also had a small cup of the
Paitan Soup ($3.5)
Paitan means creamy soup and this is like the chicken equivalent of a tonkotsu broth - long simmered, rich and creamy and packed with stick to your lips collagen. A really nice bowl of soup. They also offer a ramen with this broth and also have a clear broth as well.

And as a finisher I had the
Soboro Don ($8.5)
Which was also delicious. A bowl of rice topped with a seasoned ground chicken topping, some pickled greens (mustard greens?) that provided a nice sour-ish herbal contrast to the sweet and salty chicken bits, and a quail egg yolk on top to add some eggy richness. A really nice donburi.

For dessert I had
Mango Pudding ($5)
Which came with a cup of tea. A date tea if I remember correctly. Nice little bowl of pudding. There were three layers - a creamy bottom layer, some whipped cream I think, and then a mango glaze/jelly layer with a little piece of mango. Light and refreshing with a lot of mango flavor.

I also had a couple glasses of sake from their sake list which is much smaller than Raku’s (which is about the size of a small novel).

A delicious meal, will definitely return to try some more things and maybe even the omakase.

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Answering the age old question, which came first, the chicken lollipop or the egg.

Nice report, but I’m laughing that you said you skipped the omakase because you weren’t that hungry - would it have been any more courses!?!

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HI @Mr_Happy,

Thanks for the great report. :slight_smile: Did you ever make it to Raku in L.A.? Raku closing was another tragedy of 2020. :frowning:

Looks like you had some of the great items at Raku that were also on their L.A. branch menu. Love their Yakitori! :slight_smile:

If you’re back there next time, try their Tendon, Intestines (I’m not even an offal fan but it was amazing!), Foie Gras Kushiyaki, Foie Gras Chawanmushi, Inari (yes, the often overlooked piece of Sushi in a Sushi combo, Raku’s version is amazing! They make the Tofu pouch in-house, have amazing seasoned rice inside with yasai). :slight_smile:

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:joy: may be the case that my eyes were bigger than my stomach, but this was just about the right amount of food. Looking at Yelp reviews it seems that the omakase has some appetizers, the house made tofu, etc.

I didn’t make it to Raku in LA unfortunately. I have been to the original Raku in Vegas several times though.

Note! This is Toridokoro Raku, their new chicken restaurant separate from the original Raku (which is just a few blocks away). They have mostly poultry here, so even though they do have foie gras on the menu it is missing the tendon and non-poultry skewers. I have enjoyed the tendon and the foie and the inari and other dishes at the original though. Have you been to the Vegas Raku? It’s one of my favorites in the city and I somehow manage to find myself eating there almost every trip.

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I can almost taste it all. Mmmmmm… Thanks for the report!

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Hi @Mr_Happy ,

Oh! Sorry about that, it’s a 2nd Raku in Vegas? Good to know. :slight_smile: What’s interesting is that from the looks of your report, this 2nd Raku in Vegas is serving the same Yakitori (minus the Non-Chicken items) as Raku #1 in Vegas?

Just curious what the 2nd Raku’s focus is? (Is it just pure Yakitori skewers mainly, and a different location to cover more neighborhoods?)

Looks delicious regardless. :slight_smile: And, no, I haven’t been to Vegas Raku yet. We don’t make it out there too often, but it’s definitely on my list. Thanks!

Here’s the menus from today off their website:

Raku (original):

Raku Menu (74.1 KB)

Toridokoro Raku:

Toridokoro Raku Menu (110.0 KB)

It looks like the current (original) Raku menu doesn’t have any chicken skewers at all! Interesting. I know they used to have some, maybe a result of the pandemic? Or perhaps they moved all the chicken yakitori to the new restaurant?

Toridokoro looks like its almost all chicken with a bit of duck, lots of different cuts of chicken in the skewers and things like the straw smoked chicken, paitan ramen, etc. They also have Raku’s house made tofu.

Anyway if you’re ever in Vegas, both restaurants are definitely worth checking out!

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Hi @Mr_Happy ,

Thanks, and wow! That’s interesting, but kind of sad. :frowning: As you noted, it looks like OG Raku in Vegas removed all of their Chicken items and put them in Raku #2 (Toridokoro Raku). Darn.

That’s kind of weird, but I get it as well: One restaurant turns into a true Chicken specialist, but what made Raku so good was the combination of getting great Yakitori with Kushiyaki and the other small plates. Oh well, as you said, time to try 2 restaurants in 1 visit. :slight_smile:

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Yep, and if you save some room at Raku you can walk a few doors down and hit up Sweets Raku for some desserts :stuck_out_tongue: :cake:

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Wow. Everything looks so wonderful

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I agree that is very odd. We haven’t been to the OG Raku in 12-18 months but every visit prior there was always chicken yakitori. I still think we would tend to favor the OG Raku since they have the specials menu, sashimi and a more diverse menu. And it doesn’t hurt that Raku Sweets is next door (ok its technically on the next sidewalk).

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