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We were running around town one day and decided to swing by Shiawase in Allen. We rarely make it to that part of town since it's quite far. But I've heard nothing but good things about this place.
Shiawase
2540 N. Watters Rd. #100
Allen, TX 75013
(214) 383-4462
http://shiawaserestaurant.com/
Price: $$-$$$
Apparently the original owners of Densetsu in Plano, which is one of our favorite sushi spots, so we had high hopes. We got there pretty late (after 1pm) and the place was pretty empty. It's way bigger than Densetsu.
We were seated immediately but took a while for someone to come and take our drink orders... Keeping in mind that they have gigantic sushi rolls like Densetsu, we tried to keep the order small. hehe.
Hiyayako (organic Japanese tofu served with green onion, seaweed, fish flake, and ponzu sauce) $6.25~ Pretty good. The tofu was silky and soft. Nothing super amazing though. I do still prefer the fried Agedashi tofu in general. hehe.
House Green Salad (spring mix salad with tomato, cucumber, carrot; served with house dressing) $4.50~ I always like to have some veggies with every meal. I liked their dressing a lot.
Shooting Star (ahi tuna, salmon, yellowtail, crab meat, avocado inside; topped with smelt egg; served with Japanese mustard sauce) $14.95~
These rolls were ginormous!! Definitely a 3-4 biter. Wow... and LOADED with sashimi. Everything was fresh, they definitely didn't skimp on the seafood. Deeelicious. I liked the added flavor of the mustard sauce as well.
Fashion Show (California roll topped with ahi tuna, salmon, yellowtail, albacore, shrimp, smelt egg, spicy tuna, spicy scallop; served with yuzu and sweet eel sauce) $15.95~
This is probably one of the prettiest rolls I've ever seen in my life. Each of the rolls is topped with a different kind of fish (or seafood). It's just so beautiful! And it's about 2 whole pieces of sashimi on top of EACH roll. OMG! Soooo worth the money. Goodbye Rainbow Roll, this is now my favorite. haha.
It was a great lunch. Shiawase definitely delivered on the food. And I don't believe Densetsu has some of these rolls so we'll definitely have to come back. And we were stuffed! NOMS!
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We recently found out about a new Japanese restaurant that opened up in Rockwall. There's not too many interesting places to eat in Rockwall (and we've been to all the good spots) so it was nice to have something new! Looking at the online reviews, the place seems like it has a lot of potential! Great reviews, nice looking food pics, so we decided to go check it out.
Okawa Japanese Cuisine
2927 Ridge Rd Ste 105
Rockwall, TX 75032
(972) 722-2888
www.okawajapanesecuisine.com
Price: $
It's located in the same shopping center in Kroger (just around the corner from it). There was only 1 other table when we got there, it was pretty slow on a Sunday night. It's a small place, not much on the decor side. The front of house was an Asian lady. There didn't seem to be that many people working there. My guess is 1 person in the front and 2 in the kitchen? She was pretty friendly but I could tell immediately that her English was somewhat limited.
We ordered some hot teas since it was freezing that week. And she took our order.
Crunchy Beancurd (deep fried tofu with special sauce) $6.95~
I ordered this purely based on the picture from yelp. It looked pretty awesome and different from other fried tofu at Japanese places I've seen. However, it was exactly like all the other places -___- haha. Basically Agedashi tofu, the name usually used on Japanese menus. It was piping hot. The tofu was soft on the inside and lightly fried on the outside. I thought it was a little light on the flavor but I was ok with that. So... it was good, but pretty standard.
Okawa Salad (mixed greens with house dressing) $7.95~
I also wanted to try this because of the picture cuz it had sprouts in it! I love sprouts. We were wondering why this salad is more expensive than the others. It is topped with white wood ear mushrooms. I'm guess that's the reason. The ginger dressing is light. The salad is pretty good, but I wish it was bigger in portion.
Unagi Don (grilled eel with eel sauce over rice) $9.95~
It's rare to find Unagi Don for under $10 so we each ordered one. However, the waitress only put in order for 1 even after my fiance double checked with her that we ordered 2. I think it was language barrier there. So we waited around for them to bring the 2nd one and it never came. Finally I asked her and she thought we only ordered 1 the entire time. However, while eating, I overheard her talking to the kitchen. She was Chinese, so I started speaking Chinese to her and she seemed like she relaxed a little. She quickly put in another order and I got my own unagi. :) It's a good portion. The dish came with ginger and some pickled vegetables. The unagi had good flavor, but the skin on the bottom was quite tough. And there were some bones so watch out. I'd say it was ok. Not sure if I would order it again. But I took half of it to-go for my lunch the next day! We also reserved some of the sprouts from the salad and mixed in with our rice.
Chicken Yakisoba (stir fried noodle) $6.50~
We also ordered this so we'd both have leftovers for lunch the next day. I thought this was tasty. I liked all the veggies in there. I think because we also ordered this, she thought we only got 1 Unagi.
I had some small talk with the lady. She seems really nice. They'd only been open for about 2 months at that point... so maybe almost 3 months now. The food is decent. For the price point we'll probably go back. There's some other stuff on the menu I'd like to try still. I've heard that's not the greatest location, so I hope their business picks up!
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From my previous post, we just had an awesome 3 course dessert. Now it's time for dinner at the sister restaurant, Aburiya Raku. This came highly recommended by a friend, and he was right, it's totally worth going. It was a really difficult reservation process... They don't have a voicemail system and would only take reservations through the phone. I think every time I've tried to call them, I get the automated message telling me to call back at least 5 times before I can get through. XP And if you make a reservation for more than 6 people, I believe everyone has to get the Omakase (chef's choice menu) priced at $75-100 a person. Luckily we only had 5 people. I called weeks in advance and got a reservation for 7:30PM but after learning that Sweets Raku didn't take reservations, I had to move Aburiya Raku to later in the night. About 10 attempts later... I finally got thru and got a reservation for 9:30PM. Yay!
Aburiya Raku
5030 W Spring Mountain Rd #2
Las Vegas, NV 89146
(702) 367-3511
http://www.raku-grill.com/
Price: $-$$
Aburiya Raku means "Charcoal Grill House Enjoyment", it's basically like a yakitori (food on skewers) and izakaya (Japanese drinking establishment) place. The majority of their menu are different types of skewered meat. There are also some seafood, noodles, etc.
We finished at Sweets Raku around 9PM so we walked over to see if they can maybe seat us earlier. They said the table isn't available yet but we can wait in the waiting area (small bar with 5 seats). My friend proceeded to order some sake. They bring out a tray full of different types of sake cups and you get to choose your own. I thought that was pretty interesting!
But lucky us, there was a cancellation and we got seated before he even got his sake. The place is pretty small... dark lighting, very much like a late night eating/drinking place. hehe. Oh yea, make sure you check out their bathroom, there's a pretty awesome fish tank in the wall. I forgot to mention that Sweets Raku also had a killer bathroom with a really unique sink. :P
We wanted to try everything... And since everything is priced individually we only ordered 2 things to share and everything else we ordered on our own.
We started with an order of Raku's Tofu (bonito flakes, chives, ginger) Whole $5.50~
The waiter told us to pour a little of Raku's Soy Sauce (blends of Japanese Daiginjo soy sauce infused with Japanese plum) and sprinkle a dash of Raku's Green Tea Salt (Hokkaido sea salt, maccha green tea, shiitake and seaweed powder) on top of the tofu along with the other toppings.
They make all their tofu in house and it is fantastic. The texture of the tofu was silky and soft. It was served slightly cool/room-temp. With the toppings and soy sauce and salt, it was amazing. It was light, yet had so much flavor, and you can really taste the tofu itself. It was a really good contrast with all the meats we ordered too. We loved it. Ended up ordering 3 of these. I probably ate a whole one myself! A must have if you go here.
We also got a Juicy Deep Fried Chicken $11~ to share.
This was also soooo good. We don't know how they got the inside to be so freaking juicy yet the outside skin so crispy. And there are no bones in this. It was lightly sauced and made the spinach so yummy. We ended up getting 3 of these over the course of dinner too. haha. So far so good!
Yellowtail Carpaccio $12~ One friend ordered this. I didn't get to try it, but I tried the sauce which was very interesting. Slightly sweet with a hint of spicy? It looked really fresh.
Next we move on to the Robata Grill: Price is for each skewer. We all just ordered what we wanted and shared (or not share) some. haha. I've included the quantity we ordered in front of the item names. :P
(4) Jidori Chicken Thigh $3~ My friend ended up getting 4 orders of this on his own. The chicken was tender and juicy.
(1) Kobe Beef Filet with Wasabi $12~ The beef was very tender and I really liked the wasabi, I wish there was more on top. Another friend thought the wasabi was too strong though.
(3) Kobe Beef Outside Skirt with Garlic $7.50~ It looked good with the garlic chip on top. I didn't try it. My friend said it's not as tender as the kobe beef with wasabi but the garlic addition was very good.
(1) Kobe Beef Silver Skin $3~ I saw a picture of this on yelp so I thought it would be interesting to try. Normally I think chefs remove the silver skin from the meat since it can be tough. This was not tough at all. A little chewy, a little soft. Reminded me of intestine a little bit but not as good. I'm glad I tried it, but wasn't spectacular or anything.
(1) Kobe Beef Liver $4.50~ Not a fan of liver, so I didn't try it.
(7) Kurobuta Pork Cheek $4.25~ This was my favorite skewer of the night, by far. We did 2 rounds of this. The pork was fatty, but wasn't like just chewing bits of fat. It was super juicy and tons of flavor. I loved the texture of it. I had 2 skewers myself!
(1) Iberico Pork $10~ Pretty good. I tried a bite after I ate the pork cheek.. which was a mistake, because this one didn't live up to the pork cheek. haha.
(4) Pork Intestine $2.50~ I love me some pork intestine! And this was done well! Not too chewy, lots of flavor, and not too expensive! :)
(3) Duck with Balsamic Soy Sauce $4.50~ Really really good duck. So tender. The balsamic was mild so you can taste the duck itself.
(1) Salmon with Ikura Oroshi $6~ The salmon was ok, I would've preferred it cooked a little less. But I liked the combo with the daikon radish and fish eggs.
(1) Enoki Mushroom Wrapped with Bacon $3~ This is a standard for me whenever I have yakitori. I just love enoki mushrooms and everything's better with bacon! Tiny little skewers but totally yummy!
(1) Portabella stuffed with Jidori Ground Chicken $5~ I got this one because it sounded interesting. Definitely looked yummy, but the chicken was quite dry. Probably my least favorite of the night.
(3) Hot House Sake $13~ Only 1 of my friends drank. He got 3 bottles of sake throughout the night. If only I liked sake, all the food would've been so good with it.
So we had an awesome dessert experience followed by another delicious dinner. I was soooo full afterwards. I highly recommend this place. Just have to be patient and call them a million times to get a reservation. haha. Thanks to my friend for the rec. I will definitely revisit next time in Vegas. :)
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Last Friday we went for dinner at Koung Thai in Rockwall. It's my bf's favorite Thai place and he LOVES their Thai tea. He's taken me there once before but we got the food to-go.
Koung Thai
2006 S. Goliad St. #218
Rockwall, TX 75087
(972) 722-1761
http://www.koungthairestaurant.com/
Price: $$
I wasn't planning on blogging about this so I only took a picture of my own dish. But it was so yummy I decided to write about it anyways. :P
The place was pretty packed. I think a lot of people there are regulars (like my bf) because the waiter seemed to know them and was very friendly and casual with everyone. He also made the rounds to each table pretty frequently. With such a small staff, I was impressed with the service.
I wanted to try something new... I always seem to get the same 4 dishes when I have Thai food so this time I ordered something else! The waiter said it was a very good choice!
Pad Woon Sen (stir fried glass noodle with egg, fresh mushroom, carrot, baby corn, snow pea pod, scallion, chinese cabbage, woodear mushroom) Tofu & Vegetable $9.95~
I asked for no carrots (since I don't like them) and they accommodated without question. :) It looked delicious and tasted great! I'd say I've got a new favorite Thai dish! I ordered it at a level 2 spicy. They have 1-5 (5 being the spiciest). Normally I can eat pretty spicy but their spice level is LEGIT! Be careful here!! Level 2 was perfect. Just enough spicy without killing my tongue. I think 3 would've been ok, but pushing it. The tofu had great texture. There were lots of veggies and flavors were bold. Totally enjoyed it.
The bf's food was good too, as was the Thai tea. hehe. This is in my top 5 best Thai places in the Dallas area now. Needless to say, we'll be back. Maybe I'll venture out and try something else new next time. :)
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