Rukasu

i really hope they can turn this around. the decor really is great. maybe they need another year or so to work out the kinx in service and get better suppliers. keep your fingers crossed.

Pros: none

Cons: food and service

Posted 06/21/09

The other reviewers have only 1 thing right: the atmosphere. Its great! Rukasu does a great job of setting a romantic mood for a sushi date, but the compliments end there. Beginning with the staff: The hostess didn?t even greet us or cracka smile when we approached. Seemed very bothered. Our waiter was very nice, when he was there. 3 of our sushi orders took 30 minutes to bring out. 30 minutes for 2 pieces of sushi? Come on! And this was around 6pm; the restaurant had opened at 5. It's not like they were busy, it was Friday night and It was EMPTY! Completely ridiculous. We were literally there for 2 hours and had eaten 5 orders of sushi. We had to cancel our last order for taking so long. We were pretty patient the whole time. Without complaining the manager came out and confirmed that it had been 26minutes since we placed our order and agreed it was unacceptable. Gave us 15% off our $120 bill. Woop?

Now the food. Miso soup was probably the worst I?ve ever had. Had a very fishy taste, pretty gross actually. The quality of the fish was sub par. Came out very dry and cracked. We ordered nothing but ?premium? sushi too. I?d hate to see what the regular tuna comes out like. This is the chef from Koi?? He didn?t do a dam thing to the fish. If I were Koi Restaurant, I?d make the guy to take our name off of this place. Nothing but crappy fish on crappy rice. Not to mention their website claims to also be a sake bar. Lies! All Lies!! Denny?s has a better sake menu! (Asian pear sake was the highlight) OH actually, 1 item on their specialty sushi was pretty good. I don?t recall what it was called, but it was a sashimi dish. It had Jalapenos. Good stuff.

I get the impression that Rukasu spent 99% of their budget on an interior designer and forgot to save some cash for menu design or to buy some decent fish. It?s clear that people give good ratings to a restaurant just because there?s nice cars parked out front (emperor?s new clothes syndrome). On that note, we did see Dawson walking in, which my fianc? thought was exciting. No sign of creek.

Pros: Great atmosphere

Cons: Food, service, quality, sake

Posted 06/08/09

Every dish we ordered was yummy. The snowcrab avocado salad very craveable. Rolls perfect but a little small. eggplant dish fantastic! Wide range of meat and fish items on the menu.
Staff friendly and helpful. A little pricey but not
outrageous. Fun, clean atmosphere. Wish it had added tofu and noodle dishes.
Good place to go with friends for a special occasion.

Pros: Walking distance lots of nearby parking(metered) til 12pm

Cons: Serving sizes could be a little bigger. Music too loud.

Posted 04/27/09

Rukasu is destined to be my new go-to sushi place. The restaurant itself is beautifully decorated with plenty of seating both inside and out . While we had our pick of any table we wanted, we chose to sit at the sushi bar, which was a lot of fun. We had the cream caterpillar, 818 (not on the menu) and baked scalloped rolls and the tartar special. Each dish was interesting and delicious. The entire staff was extremely friendly, especially our server, who gave us some great off the menu suggestions. We paired our meal with a bottle of Midnight Moon sake and some Asahi. I can't wait to go back.

Posted 04/26/09

I came here with my boyfriend when they first opened and was pleasantly surprised. Finally the "over the hill" feel I was looking for but down the street in Studio City. The ambiance is so beautiful and zen, very romantic but I can also see it great for a group of friends. The crab hand roll was great and the spicy tuna on crispy rice and robata skewers delicious. I'll be back!

Pros: Sushi, ambiance, patio

Posted 04/22/09