Bangalore's bustling Japanese scene gets another entrant in the form of Kuuraku. About six months old, Kuuraku gives you that typical izakaya (casual Japanese bar serving snacks and drinks) with its compact space. You'll most often hear the next table's conversations whether you like it or not. It adds to the whole vibe and they do try to recreate the vibe from greeting you at the door to then loudly calling out the orders to the kitchen team. Oh, and it's an open kitchen and we love the counter seating around it. We usually pick the spot right by the grill or ramen section just so we can see them make our favourites.
You're coming for the yakitori (grilled bird in Japanese) here but you'll stay for the karaage, the gyozas, and the ramen. From the yakitori section, our favourites are Tori Kushi Course where the chef picks out five different chicken skewers with chicken thigh with garlic sauce, negima (chicken and green onion), tsukune (meatballs) and tebasaki (wings) our favourites. You can order these a la carte as well. From the pork yaki, we love the pork belly one—the butabar stamina. The chicken gyozas (they come with a skirt) are juicy and that gyoza sauce is umami bomb! We even dip sushi into it. The karaage and aburi chashu (tori pork belly) is another bar snack that gets our thumbs up.
For something more substantial, the writer's go-to is always ramen with the tantanmen ramen and iekei ramen being the favourites. For drinks, we spotted vodka cocktails, hi-balls, Japanese vodka and whisky, and beer. Oh and Yakult too.
