Raa? More Like Blah!

If it wasn't for the voucher and the fact that it was uptown I would never have bothered with this place. I can't believe the guy talked so much sh*t. If I didn't know any better I would have believed every word of it.

Raa recently opened at Yonge and Sheppard.

Despite the bad reviews I still went with hopes that it wouldn't be so bad. Once again should've listened to the people. I didn't leave smiling like this statue. I was fuming.

Once we entered we heard some loud raucus at the back of the restaurant. When I looked down I realized it was the staff greeting us just like the people at Guu. The setup is much more different than Guu though. At Guu once you enter you can see the entire place but here it was long and narrow so you couldn't see the chefs behind the sushi bar until you walk further down.

Just a warning here all the pictures came out really bad since it was dim lighting. Hate it when restaurants do that.

After flipping through the menu my eyes went straight to the snow crab croquettes. Unfortunately, it wasn't available that nite. Then we asked for the grilled tongue and that wasn't available either. WTH!!! It was 7pm on a Friday night and the 2 items that I was excited to try wasn't available at all. Not a great start so far.

Here was the complimentary appetizer. Some sort of marinated octopus over bean sprouts and okra I think. It tasted ok nothing extraordinary here.

My boyfriend ordered the 20 piece sashimi platter. It was decent. It wasn't spectacular but it wasn't horrible.

$17.50 for this huge plate of rice and sauce oh sorry, Katsu curry. The pork was dry and the sauce was watery and so bland that I had to complain to the waitress. The owner came over to ask what was wrong with the dish. He claimed he just ate it before I got my dish. He agreed that the pork was a "lil" dry but the sauce was great. Apparently it's one of their bestsellers. He even said that he has 4 chefs who just came off the plane from Japan the week before. I honestly question the taste buds of these "chefs who just came from Japan". My boyfriend's curry dish taste a hundred times better than this and he uses the package curry mix. (By the way, I got charged full price for this dish. See how there's six tiny slices of meat well I only ate one piece. They didn't even bother to either remove it from my bill or provide me with another dish...some customer satisfaction there).

This was their house special, the Raa deluxe with lobster, king crab and caviar. By the way, there was no meat under that shell it was for display only. Unless the meat was used in the sushi roll but believe me I couldn't taste the lobster or crab meat at all.

All I tasted was rice. Also I don't think that was king crab it was IMITATION CRAB. $16 for this. I got ripped off here. The owner actually told me himself that they use real crab meat. This without a doubt was not king crab. I know how crab taste and that certainly was not it. When I told him that I didn't like his sushi roll he asked me where do I go to eat sushi so he can imitate it. It was a pretty interesting conversation we had. I will just leave it at that. (Maybe that's why he still charged me full price for the curry dish?).

It's funny we received our entrees before the tapas dishes. These last 2 dishes didn't arrive till another half hour later after we were done our entree. (well I was done earlier since I didn't eat the curry dish nor did I order anything else).

Here was the marinated black cod. The sauce was just too sweet.

I can't remember the name of this dish. The waitress recommended it since we couldn't get the grilled tongue. It's almost similar to bulgogi but a much more sweeter taste to it.

If you do want to give this place a try make sure to talk to the owner. He is easy to spot. Let's just say he doesn't look Japanese or even Asian at all. He can sure talk a load of crap and can probably convince you his food is one of the best authentic Japanese cuisine since he has chefs who just "got off the plane from Japan".

TOTAL BILL $82...ONCE IS ENOUGH!!!

Raa Uptown Japanese

4848 Yonge Street

(Yonge & Sheppard)

416-224-0075