Raku Izakaya
“The spicy tuna hand roll which is made of tuna, cucumber and scallion was tasty The salmon hand roll was good too.”
“The professed wonders of these octopus balls were only relayed to me every single week for the past year and how I've awaited my arrival to Raku.”
“This takoyaki was topped with katsobushi (shavings of dried fish) and brushed with a bit of mayonnaise and takoyaki sauce.”
Raku Izakaya
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
Rate and write a review Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
The slowest customer service I have ever experienced. My friend and I checked this place out on a Friday night – pretty quiet, but really slow. The servers were sweet, but I feel like they were just standing in the corner most of the time… and waving my arms didn't do much since they barely looked in our direction. My friend and I came back from a busy night of shopping, so we were HANGRRRY. We started off with some Japanese pancakes, a sushi roll and edamame, but seeing how long it took for those small orders to come out, we didn't want to order anything else. The ambiance is great – perfect for a date night, but the quality of food and long wait time = 2 stars.
My husband and I came here for date night. We were able to make it for the happy hour, which is great. One of the best deals is the spicy tuna hand roll! We ordered 4 of those and some other dishes from the regular menu.
My issue with Raku is not that their food is bad… everything we had was actually quite good. However, the food was slow to come out of the kitchen and we felt the servers were also pretty lackadaisical in their service. Like, to the point where we questioned if they actually took our orders down!
The waitress was NOWHERE to be found when we were looking for the check – we had to ask the guy at the cash register. Also, we placed an order within the happy hour time frame for 2 spicy tuna happy hour hand rolls and didn't get them until AFTER we got the check. We seriously thought the waitress just forgot about them because it took SO long to come out. I don't think I'd come back here, just because being ignored is NOT on my top list of preferences on date night. A shame b/c food was decent.
Their miso soup is really salty and their service was pretty slow even though there weren't many customers, but the interior design is beautiful and our sushi rolls were pretty good! My dragon maki could've been a little more flavorful, but it satisfied my sushi craving.
They're also open until 2 am, and being open late is always a plus in my book.
This is one of all time goto bars when in mood for some Japanese small plates & sake. Nice service, good food and decent selection of drinks (alcohol) will get your night started. Very easy parking in municipal lot behind the building is always a plus!
Has good selection of sake & Yakitori menu. Also, there are sections in the back for larger crowd. If you are looking for fun times in local area, check out this place.
Raku is one of the most unique places in Fort lee. Right off the bat, they set the ambiance with dim lights and soft lounge music. The service is really good and they have a great happy hour offering. I go there for the hot house sake and the tapas. Must try the tako yaki, tuna tartare and kimchi pancakes. Great place for dates.
The food on the menu was a hit or miss for my boyfriend and I. We were really happy to see our favorites on the menu: Okonomiyaki, takoyaki, yakitori, and chicken katsu. The flavors are there but not enough to justify the price. The Okonomiyaki was huge and floury. There was a thick layer of fish flakes on it which overpowered the flavors of the Okonomiyaki. It was interesting that they had a shrimp option though. The takoyaki are small and the octopuses inside each ball are tiny. The yakitori was only one small skewer. It was really delicious but tiny portion for the high price. According to my boyfriend the chicken katsu was pretty standard.
Overall, we left feeling we haven't really gotten our money's worth in terms of quality and considering how much they priced the dishes.
We originally went to a bar not too far away and the kitchen was closed. We were then advised to come here since it was right around the block.
Unfortunately we just missed the beloved Happy Hour which I hope to catch for the next time. I just ordered the Shumai and a nice warm container of Sake. I have to say this place seemed pretty legit with it's music, I always liked lounge like places, where the music is great and the ambience and chill. The service was great, our glasses were continuously filled. My sister ordered GYOZA and she seemed to like it. Until next time, I will try the happy hour…
Come to this place if you are looking for something quiet, or a date night perhaps?
It doesn't exactly have the homiest welcome due to the dark decor from an outside perspective, but it's a completely different ambiance on the inside. The red neon sign and the dark Windows isn't inviting to those who aren't from the area, but being that I'm familiar with the area, it wasn't a place to turn down…don't judge a book by its cover right?
There's a municipal parking lot right behind the restaurant which is convenient. Just make sure you feed the meter before you come back to a $28 ticket (yes, I got the ticket). Anyway, the restaurant is surprisingly bigger than I thought. Walking through the back hallway towards the front of the restaurant holds the bigger seats for parties. Since there was supposed to be 8 of us, we were seated at the booth in front of the kitchen. The decor of the place is really dim and dark…some would say romantic but it's a bit annoying when the light above you kept turning brighter. It was a little too dim for my taste, but not enough to tamper my experience. The place looked very clean. I thought this was going to be a ratchet hole in the wall where only Asians hang out (not entirely untrue).
Our waitress was very nice when we arrived. She came back a few times without being summoned to check on us and asked us if we were ready to order..she bought our drinks out promptly with a pitcher of water and glasses for everyone. The alcoholic drinks were on point. Our group ordered a pitcher of Sappora and a friend ordered the lychee cocktail which was delicious. Not too strong of a lychee flavor to over sweeten the drink, but not too little alcohol where you'd think this was a mock tail. Anyway, the food came out fairly quickly. Since this is really more of a drinks/tapas place, we ordered a variety of squid balls, chicken wings, Shu Mai, etc.
The food itself was surprisingly tasty. One thing I didn't like was the chicken wings they offered. Having had the double fried wings elsewhere, these overly fried wings just did not cut it. I wouldn't spend the money to orders the wings because there's nothing special about them. Regardless, we were satisfied with the rest of the food we ordered because we ended up racking up a $180 bill! For the amount of food we got (3 pitches of beer, 3 cocktails, and about 10 plates of tapas, I guess I can't really complain!
Do I think I'd come back? Probably not. A lot of the food were overpriced and a $15 pitcher seemed a little insane. If you're looking for a nice place to chill on the weekend or just to have drinks with some friends, you can give his a place a try, but I would probably check out other places that may offers for more less.