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Doraku Sushi Waikiki, a closer look
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Aloha!
11/1/11 - Yup, we're finally back in Hawaii again. It was a fantastic trip, but all roads lead back to the islands, yes?
Today we're checking out a stigmatic restaurant requiring Jedi mind powers and Zen-like discipline to judge with any kind of fairness. Why? Only because it comes pre-packaged with several hurdles some may find difficult getting over. First of all, it's in Waikiki. Right there, you're thinking higher prices, difficult parking, tourist trap, and all the other associated phenomena. Furthermore, it's fusion sushi. And not only fusion sushi, but fusion with a few South American, chimichurri-kind of twists! Bang, bang - the traditionalists and purists are already caught scoffing! Yeah, you! Check yourself honestly!
Aaah, but all things have their place. And Doraku Sushi Waikiki, at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, will always have a place in my heart, if not for one thing, then for another. It may not be the most traditional experience, but when you're in the mood for a stylish, even slightly nightclubbish vibe while pupu'ing on fancy rolls and oil-drizzled sashimi plates, Doraku just may be the place for you!
The place is like the more regular, more accessible man's version of a Nobu's or Morimoto's, coming with lots of bling and flash but without the exorbitant prices, 5-star menus, and resulting clientele of, well... a bunch of rich people! While there is a diverse crowd, there's seemingly always several small to large groups of young, oftentimes rowdy folks partying the night away, and that goes for both locals as well as tourists. But don't worry older folks - they let me in, so you'll be fine, too! Doraku may not quite instill the brevity of an Iron Chef, but Rocky Aoki, founder of Benihana, along with his son Kevin who actually provided the impetus for the restaurant, do contribute in themselves their own brand of star power, as well as lots of restaurant experience to boot!
Upon walking in, a gorgeous sushi bar is immediately there to greet you:
And here's a few more action shots around the multi-compartmentalized restaurant:
View from our table
Booths
Front section of house
Giant Happy Hour table
Bar counter view
More booths
View overlooking Kalakaua Avenue
It really is a cool place to be, that is, if you're looking for this type of place!
Rolls and fancy sashimi plates comprise more space on the menu than anything else, but that's not all there is. There's salads of tofu/spinach, seafood, tuna/avocado, and Maui onion. There's hot dishes like miso eggplant, grilled eringi mushrooms, spicy garlic prawns, Chilean seabass, ume shiso chicken, Japanese-style garlic steak, Churrasco ribeye steak, and a variety of tempura choices. There's Japanese izakaya-like specialties like hiyayakko, maguro natto don, uni ikura don, clam miso soup, and miso butterfish. And there's also a full sushi bar serving all manner of traditional sushi styles. Check out the home page link above and follow the choices for a full pdf menu, including a Happy Hour menu as well.
During our two most recent visits, both within the last week, Doraku seemed to me much-improved over our last few visits several years ago. The knock on a place like this is that their straight nigiri stuff is not as good, or shall I say as traditional, as a real sushi bar (italics on the word emphasized!). Well, over the years, I've heard at least a couple of really terrible comments about this place, but all I know is, at least during our last two visits, even their nigiri was excellent! Didn't do any bellweathers like uni, ama ebi, or ikura, but we did sample all the major fish groups (sorry no pics), as well as hottate (scallop-$5.95) and ika (squid-$4.95) - they were all fresh, well-constructed, and yes, traditional, even! No complaints here! Ok, maybe the slices of fish and seafood on-top were a little large for traditional stuff, as many of Hawaii's sushi restaurants tend to give local-bruddah-sized portions, but I wouldn't actually be complaining about that!
That sake sampler in the background was also excellent, with one ginjo and two daiginjo's:
Anytime the subject is sushi, especially nigiri-zushi, I love a pairing with something deep-fried, whether that be chicken or whole flounder karaage, any kind of katsu, or shrimp tempura. Here at Doraku, not only is there shrimp tempura, but also vegetable, squid, rock shrimp, ahi basil, and lobster tempura, the latter of which you see here ($12.95):
The chunks of lobster inside were cooked perfectly, but some of the batter surrounding it was still mushy. Had the batter been a bit thinner, it would have been a stellar dish! The chili mayo sauce was a great complement, although I'm still wondering... would a more traditional tempura sauce of light soy and daikon suri have been better? The debate rages on...
When it comes to fish kama, or collar, not all fish types work well enough to leave you still salivating the next day. I think the major factor in a good kama is fat, as most fish just don't have enough fat on their bodies. Of course, the standard bearer in this department has to be hamachi, a fish laden with so much fat their flesh turns white. Fortunately, all that fat does carry-over into the collar area, then mixes with all that other good stuff in close proximity, such as bone, cartilage, brain, and eyeball, resulting in some of the best grilled fish on the planet! It also makes sense, then, that a salmon, another highly fatty fish, would also make for great kama:
Oh, and another important factor in a good kama is size - it's gotta be as big as possible! There are pockets of unbelievably soft, unbelievably tasty flesh all throughout the bony plates of the collar, and in a large piece, these pockets seem to get juicier and juicier, like a giant rib roast! It may not look like it, but this salmon kama above was as big as any hamachi I've had anywhere! While I still think hamachi is the holy grail of kama, salmon does offer a really great alternative, with some truly delicious pockets of flesh that were large, tender, and similiar, at least in texture, to hamachi. The kicker here at Doraku is the price - $13.50 for hamachi and $6.75 for salmon!
But moving-on to the stuff Doraku is really known for, check this out:
It's called red snapper tiridito ($17.95), and is described as thin ribbons of local red snapper marinated in yuzu juice and soy while slightly cooked with super-heated olive oil and garnished with ginger, garlic, jalapeno, chili oil, sweet miso and crispy garlic chips. Phew! Quite the mouthful there! Dishes like these are the reason I love Doraku so much - how can you go wrong with something like this?!
By red snapper, I'm guessing they mean onaga, but it was fresh and surrounded with so many great flavors, it would probably have been great with any type of fresh fish! We topped each ribbon with green onion, shiso, garlic chips, and all the other perfectly-matched ingredients, then rolled it all up, swished it thoroughly in the sauce, and let it all leisurely converge in our mouths, all those incredible layers of flavor being savored as slowly as possible. Yes, fresh, raw fish Spartanly-covered with soy and wasabi is a beautiful thing, but fancy drizzles and elaborate adornments do have their place, as well!
If you do get a chance to check out the menu, through the website link provided above, you'll see that there's a blue "D" before certain items, identifying their most recommended dishes, and an orange "D" for locally-caught recommended items. Besides our tiridito, there are three others with an orange "D," including poke, toro avocado tartar, and Japanese-style shiso carpaccio of snapper. I'm sure all three are great, but with such dishes found in similiar fashion elsewhere (at least according to the menu explanations also provided), the tiridito was an easy choice!
On the roll side, there's also no shortage:
For the life of me, I can't remember what this roll was called, and I can't find a description on the menu that quite matches the ingredients contained. It may have been a new item not yet listed on the internet, or it may be that they were ad-libbing contents! Not sure which. It was like a combination of an Emperor's Roll ($13.75) or the most expensive by far, a Golden Buddha Roll ($18), with an absolutely packed list of pricey-sounding items, including crab, scallop, ahi, salmon, tobiko, shiso, some type of aioli, and an interesting wrap of what I believe was either yuba or some type of rice paper. With no actual grains of rice whatsoever, it was a luxuriously intense roll. And yes, it was super-onolicious!
Sorry 'bout the yellow tinge in the next few shots - it was back-lit by a candle with a yellow-glassed encasement, producing a radioactive glow:
Called a new-style Doraku roll ($12.95), it came with crab and avocado inside and was topped with seared ahi, daikon, shiso, and crisped garlic in a wasabi yuzu citrus sauce. Once again, it was as beautiful as it was delicious, and was full of a certain meticulousness in presentation, as well as a depth of ingredients that made the whole deal super-impressive.
Our final roll was also as gorgeous and absolutely delicious, a kagu-tsuchi "Goddess of Fire" roll ($12.75):
This particular roll had one thing the others couldn't compete with - heat! And lots of it! The spicy ahi and cucumber inside was topped with more ahi, jabanero tobiko, real slices of jalapeno, and a spicy garlic aioli. Since each piece went down the hatch whole, I don't know if the heat came from the spicy ahi, spicy aioli, or sliced jalapeno, but this wasn't one of those dishes that promised fireworks and brought sparklers. This one definitely had some heat, and it made the dish all the more memorable and enjoyable for us. Hana hou on this one!
One thing I haven't mentioned yet was the quality of the rice. I don't know if it was a better chef or a better grain, but it was much better than our visits years ago. Of course, I didn't get to sample too many pieces of nigiri, where you can more easily taste the better qualities (or lack thereof), but in all our rolls, I didn't see any problems whatsoever with the rice. They were plump grains, had decent sheen, wasn't dry, and wasn't mushy, either. In fact, even the freshness of their raw fish and seafoods, which I remember not being the best a while back, was on-point this time, and that goes for their nigiri, as well (according to mom and Kumi, who ate most of them!).
I realize that there are the purists out there. This place will never please them. If I wanted traditional sushi, I'd hit Sasabune, Imanas tei, Gaku, Mitch's, Kin-chan, and so many others, but if I were looking for fusion sushi and sashimi in a modern, Miami Beach-like atmosphere, then I'd say Doraku is an excellent way to go.
Hey, hope you're all having a wonderful week, and had a great Halloween time last night! Hit Just Tacos for some Happy Hour (2-5pm) Pacifico, then Outback for Happy Hour (5-7pm) Fosters, calamari, and wings, then home to pass out candies, sip on Port, and hibachi more ono-kine chicken! I'm still recovering!
Take care, and Aloha till next time!
Aku
Doraku Sushi Waikiki
2233 Kalakaua Avenue, 3rd Floor, Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center
922-3323
Open daily from 12pm, closing Sunday-Thursday 10:30pm; Friday 11:30pm; Saturday 12am
Happy Hour 5pm-7pm daily
Validated Parking 1st hour free, every hour thereafter $1 up to 4 hours
