Raku Sushi and Asian Bistro

I tried the miso soup, ebi roll, and crunchy roll, and spicy girl. Reasonably priced. Good sushi overall. They were understaffed but food was good.

It’s about time a decent sushi joint opened up in this central west campus location! Thank you sushi gods for sending this wonderful restaurant with a great happy hour as well! My wallet will certainly hate me, but my stomach is already quite happy with the generous fish portions. The staff was very accommodating and welcome as well. My splurge from the happy hour menu consisted of the following:
Rainbow roll– can’t go wrong with this classic roll
Favorite roll– a little too much crunch and fru fru for my taste, but filling
Escolar sashimi– fresh and garlicky tasting, pure excellence
Tuna roll– very very thick cuts of the tuna, I was thoroughly impressed by this roll
Overall, I am so glad I finally got to try Raku after awaiting it’s opening at this convenient location. I think it will do very well despite sushi niichi being so close by. The quality of fish was definitely a differentiating factor here!

Manager needs to be replaced. Kitchen staff needs more training. Food is below average.

Awesome sushi, great service, and a lot of variety in rolls to choose from. I got the spicy tuna and shaggy dog roll and both were great. I’m not sure that it’s $, felt like it was more in the $$ range.

Best sushi un West Campus for sure! I’m very happy it is also walk distance from my home! everything is delicious, the environment is great and the service as well. The menu is very complete and I always leave with a big smile on my face! very happy this place opened! will come back every time I can!

I went here shortly after they opened and absolutely loved their sashimi lunch special. The soup that comes with it was delicious. Overall a great price for good sushi.

Brand new and super delicious. My friend and I split a lunch special where we got 3 of their special rolls (as opposed to a standard) and a bowl of (tasty!) miso soup for a little over $ 20. I was stuffed by the end– it was well worth it. We got the Alaskan roll, the shaggy dog and the crunchy kazi roll. all highly recommended! I really liked that they used real snow crab on the shaggy dog as opposed to fake krab! Staff was super friendly, attentive and knowledgable– and we were done in under an hour to get back to work.

Service was one of the best things about this place — a surprise given all the bad reviews on it. Our server and host were both very friendly and attentive. So, no complaints from me there. I can see where training still needs to be done though. Our server wasn’t 100% knowledgeable on the menu items but I guess that comes with time.
Their menu was impressive — lots of options and very interesting entrée choices (omurice?!? ramen?!? sugoi!).
The sushi, on the other hand, was mediocre at best. I wasn’t impressed with the taste at all. If I had to describe the taste of the fish it would be like water. I have never had sushi taste like this before. My friends and I ordered six rolls total to share and the only rolls I sort of liked were the shaggy dog and the caterpillar (maybe because those were doused in sauce). I had high expectations for the white knight roll since I love escolar, but the only taste I could discern was the garlic. Again, just blah. I hope the entrees are better than the sushi.
Overall, I’m willing to try this place again maybe in a month or so. Hopefully by then the quality of the sushi will improve, or else I’ll just stick to Sushi Niichi for cheap (ish) sushi close to campus.

Place is really damn good. I got a shaggy dog, I think a UT roll and a California roll. They were all fresh and delicious. My friend got calamari and it was so good. Service was meh (my server wasn’t very attentive) but this was after they’d only been open for a few days so it’s understandable.

Not horrible, but not great either. The rolls tasted like they came straight from a fridge and the nigiri didn’t taste fresh.
The calamari was breaded strangely, like beer battered.
If you want good sushi, I can’t say I’d recommend here.

I went for the first time on the restaurant’s 2^nd day when there was a 50% off promotion of all menu items. Naturally, the wait for a table was long (around 45 minutes). When we finally got seated, our server was pretty fast in taking and submitting our orders as well as bringing our waters.
However, 40 minutes passed and there was no sign of food. Our server simply told us that there was a lot of people and the kitchen was a little backed up. After 15 more minutes of waiting, we went to front to find our server. We noticed that there were only two chefs making sushi rolls (By the way, the original sushi chef quit after day 1) and a lot of the waiting staff was just lounging around. A manager (I assume) told us that the reason service is slow is because this is a soft opening and the staff were still being «tested». TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE ANSWER. If you are open for business at all, you should always make sure your staff is adequately trained.
So eventually I had to leave before my food arrived (but my party was still there). Apparently my food arrived around 1.5 hours after we ordered our food.
I would have given this place a one star, but the rolls, even though I ate it 3 hours after it was made, were pretty good. The ingredients were very fresh. Portions were small considering the price though.
tl;dr Ridiculous wait and inadequately trained staff but pretty good food.

Perfect sushi. Amazing service. They offered edamame on the house since the calamari was taking a while. Finally really good Sushi near UT Campus.
Shaggy Dog roll was extremely fresh. Crab was juicy and not dry.
California Roll was simple but fresh.
On the Escolar Roll, the fried garlic on top added a great touch to the fresh fish.
Calamari was well battered and had great flavor.
Presentation was great and well executed. Great first experience.

Mediocre at best. Rice quality is lacking, rolls are small. Price rivals that of Sushi Junai which, although farther from campus/​offers much more in terms of quality. 3 rolls was 23 dollars which at Junai is 2 dollars away from their all you can eat price. 3 rolls wasn’t even enough for 1 person.

Very impressed! I had the spicy tuna roll, tuna nigiri and Ebi nigiri finishing with the rainbow roll. I sat at the bar and talked to the owner and a sushi chef who were very nice. They offer a nice happy hour and I’m excited to eat here all the time!