Years ago I created a research document on the best, coolest, newest restaurants and chefs in Las Vegas off the strip for a travel spinoff of Bitchin Kitchen on Food Network US. It aired one season and I didn’t get to travel with the production team, so while I knew everything about where to find meat-and-threes in Nashville and why Detroit has awesome Middle Eastern restaurants and BBQ joints, and I knew the names of half the James Beard Award-winning chefs in the country, I never got to eat at any of the restaurants I’d researched.
Until two months ago when I went back to Vegas with the intention of checking a few places off my list. Obviously Vegas has changed since then, but the Downtown Cocktail Room was just as dark and comfortable as I expected (and the Old Fashioneds were just as classic), First Fridays were just as happening (though the Container Park was a little quieter – you only need to see a giant praying mantis a few times before it gets old, I guess), and all the best Asian places seemed to still be in strip malls. Thank goodness.
And while the soba noodles are I-Naba weren’t 100% buckwheat, they probably never were. The lunch special was still a great deal, with a tonkatsu rice bowl, salad and cold noodles clocking in around a very wallet-friendly $10 USD.
But the first restaurant on my list that made me think I’d done a good job trolling the internet a few years ago was Yonaka Modern Japanese. My notes at the time said to expect beautifully decorated small plates and maki rolls of things like salmon on mandarin oranges with a sweet, citrus sauce; yellowtail tataki with asparagus, yucca chips, tomato-ginger puree and soy pudding; sea urchin, white fish, salmon, octopus, shrimp, red onion cucumber, cherry tomatoes and sweet potatoes; and pork belly with apple, garlic chips, dehydrated fennel, fennel puree, lemon-shiso vinaigrette.
I figured the menu would have changed, and it had, but the kitchen has kept up its game. Here’s what we ate:
First, an amuse-bouche of fresh kiwi, pineapple, honeydew, grilled squid and a circle of yellow hot pepper. Non-gluten free-ers got a different amuse, but I was just amazed that the kitchen could adapt to me. The server even walked me through everything I could eat that wouldn’t require any changes (the menu also indicates gluten free items). A few things came with drizzles of sauce that he said they could put on the side or leave off, but in two cases the items came with the sauce and I did my best to avoid it. In one case he apologized and made me a second dish, no charge).
Then deep-fried Brussels sprouts with crispy rice in a sweet-and-sour sauce. If you don’t like brussel sprouts, you’ll like these. The oil and sauce slips in between all the thin layers, so when you bite into a big piece it’s juicy and flavourful and when you eat an outer, darkened leaf, it’s crispy like a kale chip.
Next, Bluepoint oysters. Two with kimchi, two with a pickled ginger mignonette and two with a ceviche lime sauce. The kimchi destroyed the flavour of the oyster but the ginger and ceviche was light and the ginger was sweet.
Next was a deconstructed sushi pizza type dish with spicy salmon on top of dense fried sushi rice rectangular prisms. But I could eat them because they weren’t breaded! Hurray! This was, unfortunately, the dish the kitchen messed up, adding a sauce I couldn’t eat, but it came back later sauceless, and I dipped it in my own gluten free soy sauce brought from home. The rice was so sweet and chewy, like mochi and the crisp outside was completely addictive. It’s fat-on-fat, with a ton of mayo coating the diced salmon. Those greens aren’t doing anything good for you. But you’re not here to eat light. Case in point:
Sliced raw scallop on a bed of kabocha squash purée with fresh uni, soft wild mushrooms and crispy porcini (I think) mushroom chips, salmon roe and bitter sprouts. This was heaven. If I could eat this every night, I would. All the sweetness, the bitterness, the crunch…The chef took a good ten minutes to make this single plate. I sat at the bar and marveled at how he could afford to spend that much time on a single dish every time someone ordered it. He meticulously placed each piece of herb with tweezers. Actually, watching the open kitchen was like dinner and a show.
Then, nigiri sushi! Maguro tuna, yellowtail, farmed Scottish salmon, sea bream, and a couple others. Each had a little garnish if necessary, and the right amount of wasabi was underneath. The only problem was a couple were pasted with the “right” amount of gluten-containing soy sauce, which for me is none. I couldn’t eat those.
In terms of fish sourcing, the menu says where everything is from, which I love, and it’s super fresh. You can get awesome fish here. It’s Vegas – you can get awesome anything here if you can pay for it. It’s just that if you go off the strip, you pay a little less.
The salmon melted like butter, and so did the yellowtail. Even the maguro was better than normal, with a strong flavour and softer-than-normal texture.
Last but not least, a real California roll! Okay, so I was in Nevada, but it’s all west coast. Real crab (no gluten-containing imitation crab here) with creamy avocado and julienned cucumber.
I didn’t eat this roll because of the tempura and the sauce, but here’s the spider roll in a soy paper wrapper. That’s some pretty appetizing tempura. Pretty, right?
Oh, and there’s supposedly a late-night happy hour, but only on the busier nights of the week. I’d definitely come back to try more of the cocktail list and saké.
Yonaka Modern Japanese
4983 W Flamingo Rd, Las Vegas, NV
Phone: +1 702-685-8358
Hours: Daily 5-11pm, lunch Tues-Sat 11am-2:30pm
How much: ~$50 per person without drinks
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