The charming house and garden location of Sha Raku, not to mention the kabuki art and the intimate private tables inside, all promise a hip izakaya, a promise not kept by the kitchen and the staff. Booze aside, the confusing picture menu fails to truly excite, and those expecting extensive sushi and maki lists will be disappointed. The cozy, zonal layout of the restaurant also means that there can often be long minutes when there isn’t a single wait staff to make eye contact with—even though they’re smiling and helpful when they do notice you flailing for attention. Pair this with boring dishes like the assorted tofu (B90)—a tapas-like platter with three piles of tofu topped with three different sauces (including a ginger-sesame one that reminds us of airplane salad dressings)—and things can get pretty depressing. In particular, the overuse of katsuobushi, those brown dancing fish flakes, in this case on top of the daikon salad (B180), is one of the saddest new trends to hit the Asian dining scene lately. Still, after all that, it has to be said that dining at Sha Raku is not really a disaster, especially if you’re ok with the food playing second fiddle to the drinks. There are nice touches like the tuna cutlet amuse bouche and free sake pairings with certain dishes. There’s a long list of sakes, and the house rice wine is a reasonable B220 and can be shared by two people. Their wine list, too, stays firmly below the B1,500 mark and offers helpful tasting notes. Plus, drink-friendly standards like the dragon roll (shrimp tempura, eel and avocado, B390) are fresh and well-done, if a bit pricey. Dishes that aren’t necessarily wow-worthy remain fairly inoffensive and come in decent portions, like the diced steak with wasabi sauce (B320) and the salted and grilled mackerel (B220). Considering the saturation of Japanese restaurants and drinking holes in the city, there is a lot out there that’s way better than this. But if you live in the area and love to drink, you might end up here anyway.
