If I was creating the website for the Japanese restaurant Hachi at Red Rock Resort, I would call it ilovehachi.com too, because I love it. And this is after one meal. Love.
I had heard the cuisine of chef Linda Rodriguez was outstanding from several sources, but I was skeptical as I entered the fancy, modern dining room. After all, this is a non-steakhouse in a Station Casino, a setting typically reserved for mediocrity. Still, I have been excited to try it here, especially after we took over the Red Rock for a weekend in December but were unable to pry ourselves away from Cabo Mexican restaurant, T-Bones Steakhouse and the LBS burger joint.
And now I have a new favorite.
It looks and feels cool enough to be in any Strip hotel. I particularly like the warm, soothing colors and wall of Murakami eyeballs in the back of the dining room, which is much larger and comfortable than it appears from the casino entrance. But the setting means nothing compared to the food, which set a new standard for neighborhood dining with each arriving dish. I began with an unnecessary order of edamame and miso and followed it with a signature appetizer, crispy spicy shrimp, which sounds like something you could get anywhere. And you can. But here it actually succeeds in being super crispy, thanks to an invisible layer of tempura, and spicy enough. And there's plenty of shrimp in this $15 dish. The spicy kabocha coconut soup, however, is not spicy, nor does it need to be. It's a perfectly smooth and balanced blend of coconut and the pumpkinish kabocha, punctuated by salty, toasted pumpkin seeds. Speaking of pumpkin, there was a piece of it in the vegetable tempura plate, along with asparagus, broccoli, avocado, zucchini and shiitake mushroom.
Wifey, being anti-fish, chose a special of medallions of beef, tender and largely portioned. I couldn't decide and I didn't want to get full on sushi rolls, so I split between two more small plates and couldn't have been more pleased. Braised short ribs with a roasted apple puree was everything you expect short ribs to be, so soft that the breeze from floating a fork over the top collapsed the dense square of meat into shredded deliciousness. And most impressive of all was the sashimi sampler, four types of fish, each of them reminding me what this is supposed to be about: paper-thin shards of fluke laced with yuzu and topped with a single cilantro leaf and a dot of the most intense sriracha ever; Barely seared salmon belly; yellowtail with jalapeno in chili ponzu; tuna in a warm bacon vinaigrette with actual bacon and onions floating about. Sublime is the word that comes to mind. And we closed it all out with crispy, chewy, green tea and chocolate beignets with a caramel sauce that tasted of strawberries. Wifey: "It tastes like what's left over in your dish after eating a banana split."
Now that I've discovered Hachi, I may help keep Station Casinos from declaring bankruptcy. Only thing is, the food here is a fraction of the cost of the big boys on the Strip. And so far, it's better.
I had heard the cuisine of chef Linda Rodriguez was outstanding from several sources, but I was skeptical as I entered the fancy, modern dining room. After all, this is a non-steakhouse in a Station Casino, a setting typically reserved for mediocrity. Still, I have been excited to try it here, especially after we took over the Red Rock for a weekend in December but were unable to pry ourselves away from Cabo Mexican restaurant, T-Bones Steakhouse and the LBS burger joint.
And now I have a new favorite.
It looks and feels cool enough to be in any Strip hotel. I particularly like the warm, soothing colors and wall of Murakami eyeballs in the back of the dining room, which is much larger and comfortable than it appears from the casino entrance. But the setting means nothing compared to the food, which set a new standard for neighborhood dining with each arriving dish. I began with an unnecessary order of edamame and miso and followed it with a signature appetizer, crispy spicy shrimp, which sounds like something you could get anywhere. And you can. But here it actually succeeds in being super crispy, thanks to an invisible layer of tempura, and spicy enough. And there's plenty of shrimp in this $15 dish. The spicy kabocha coconut soup, however, is not spicy, nor does it need to be. It's a perfectly smooth and balanced blend of coconut and the pumpkinish kabocha, punctuated by salty, toasted pumpkin seeds. Speaking of pumpkin, there was a piece of it in the vegetable tempura plate, along with asparagus, broccoli, avocado, zucchini and shiitake mushroom.
Wifey, being anti-fish, chose a special of medallions of beef, tender and largely portioned. I couldn't decide and I didn't want to get full on sushi rolls, so I split between two more small plates and couldn't have been more pleased. Braised short ribs with a roasted apple puree was everything you expect short ribs to be, so soft that the breeze from floating a fork over the top collapsed the dense square of meat into shredded deliciousness. And most impressive of all was the sashimi sampler, four types of fish, each of them reminding me what this is supposed to be about: paper-thin shards of fluke laced with yuzu and topped with a single cilantro leaf and a dot of the most intense sriracha ever; Barely seared salmon belly; yellowtail with jalapeno in chili ponzu; tuna in a warm bacon vinaigrette with actual bacon and onions floating about. Sublime is the word that comes to mind. And we closed it all out with crispy, chewy, green tea and chocolate beignets with a caramel sauce that tasted of strawberries. Wifey: "It tastes like what's left over in your dish after eating a banana split."
Now that I've discovered Hachi, I may help keep Station Casinos from declaring bankruptcy. Only thing is, the food here is a fraction of the cost of the big boys on the Strip. And so far, it's better.
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