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| - I decided to give Yonaka a try, even though I'm not a huge fan of raw fish. Lucky for me, there are plenty of options on the menu for the sashimi-averse, and the raw fish offerings I did try were so different and delicious that I might just end up a convert.
First, the ambience. The interior design is smart and contemporary, without overdoing it. A loop of music plays constantly, but not so loudly that it interferes with dining. There are some really nice touches, like the wood-block wall, that give the dining room a casual elegance.
I sat at the sushi bar and asked the staff what were the dishes that a lot of people seem to like, especially the Happy Hour items since the prices are so gosh darn reasonable. The first recommendation was the crispy brussel sprouts, oft-mentioned in other reviews. Yes, they are every bit as good as everyone reports, and this coming from someone who used to hate brussel sprouts. I also tried the sake orenji, salmon w/oranges - fresh, clean, and delicious. Executive Chef Ramir DeCastro has an uncanny knack for putting together flavors and ingredients that you would never think of combining, yet blend together for unique and delicious dishes. At HH prices of $5 for the sprouts and $7 for the sake orenji, the Yonaka HH menu is some of the best bang-for-the-foodie-buck in Las Vegas.
From the regular menu, a crazy-but-it-works (and how!) combination is the beef berry: medium-rare beef medallions with strawberries, trumpet mushrooms, caramelized enoki mushrooms, and fennel. Uh, fresh strawberries with beef?? But as nutty as it all might sound, the dish works! In my three Yonaka visits, other knockout tapas were the beef tongue sliders, the uni (raw sea urchin, amazing freshness), and the ishiyaki (wagyu beef you cook yourself on a hot stone). The only item I wasn't crazy about was the eel tempura with sweet potato chips. The fried eel didn't have much flavor, and even seemed a bit dry (how does anything tempura end up dry?). But the $6 cost of the dish was well worth it just for the sweet potato chips: the thinnest, crunchiest, and crispiest I've ever had. My favorite from the specials menu was the foie gras sushi. At this point, words fail me. You simply have to try this exercise in decadent self-indulgence for yourself. Just trust me when I say the foie gras melting on your tongue sparks an involuntary response of your eyeballs rolling back into your head.
I also tried a couple of desserts, chokoreto and the ringo lico. As much as I'm not a chocolate fan, I tried the chokoreto (lime, avocado, chocolate ganache, chocolate crumbles) just because by that point I was so blown away by Ramir DeCastro's inventive combinations that I was adventurous enough to try anything. I loved everything, especially the chocolate ganache, except the chocolate crumbles, which were far too dry and bitter for me. The ringo lico is more up my alley: granny smith apple sorbet, grapefruit panna cotta, candied kumquats (only ingredient I don't like, but I just push them to the side), sugar-dried fennel, grapefruit supreme (grapefruit segments with the membrane removed), pistachios and pistachio butter. How they sell it for $7 and still manage a profit is beyond me. I'd pay $7 just for the little cube of grapefruit panna cotta.
The staff gets an A+ for effort. A lot of workplaces like to describe their staff as a team, which usually makes my eyes roll because it all seems a little too Self-Help Meets Fortune 500. But at Yonaka, the staff really does work as a team. They're putting in a heckuva lot of hours, far above and beyond, but they know that's what it will take to make a new restaurant a success. I did find that sometimes the service can get a bit too casual, however, like when I saw on more than one occasion the server punching in an order a good 5+ minutes after taking it. I was in no rush since I loved chatting with the staff at the sushi bar, but diners at the tables might get annoyed.
Yonaka is smart, hip, contemporary, and all while avoiding pretentiousness or even a hint of attitude. The menu is creative, the ingredients are first-rate, and everything they serve is done with passion and dedication. There are countless restaurants in Las Vegas. It's a tough to pick just one, but I think Yonaka just became my favorite.
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