Hachi Las Vegas, the Best Japanese Spot for Late Night Eats/Drinks

Get off the strip and eat and drink like a Japanese salaryman who never goes home to his family (you can do that at Hachi Las Vegas which is an izakaya).

I am going to assume you are not a local (or a salaryman), and that you are not extremely familiar with what an izakaya (a Japanese pub/tapas bar) or what yakitori (grilled chicken, veggies, and meats on a skewer) is, and you may have just searched for “Hachi Las Vegas.” If so, I will go into the details on the dishes that Hachi serves up.

In Japan, many salarymen, are often obligated to participate in after work drinking parties called nomikai which often result in salarymen passed out in a number of places (check out @ShibuyaMeltdown for a good laugh).

Photo Description: the bar seating at Hachi Las Vegas. Seating surrounds the bar, along with private rooms. — Come solo, with your entourage, or with your coworkers where they can get you drink, and you can express your true feelings about mandatory meetings.

Bar or Table Seating

I love to sit at the bar even if I’m with a buddy or the girlfriend because you can still carry on a conversation, but the upside is that you don’t have to sit directly across from looking at your drunken buddy.

Photo Description: two of the dudes who make it all happen at Hachi Las Vegas. Two of the BOH kitchen staff behind the bar and the grill preparing the food. — There’s a reason why a lot of crappy restaurants don’t do an open kitchen (dirty secrets)

Cooked-to-Order

Many restaurants that want to turn a quick buck will par-cook (partially cook) their food, so when you put in your order, all they have to do is re-heat the food.

That is not the case with Hachi, and you can see all the raw meats, vegetables, to fish in their coolers visible from the bar seating.

Photo Description: at the bar, you can see behind the scenes. In this shot the sauce squeeze bottles, the rice warmer, along with all their plates which are ceramic, glossy, and either black or white. — They don’t open till 5:30, so I can’t do my day drinking here.

Hachi Las Vegas Hours are 5:30pm – 2:30am, 7 days a week

If I am in Vegas, this is the one spot I go for Japanese food all the time, and what makes it the best place to hit up, they open at 5:30pm and close at 2:30am, 7 days a week! You gotta love those hours, unless you want to have lunch here like I have wanted to a couple times while in town.

Photo Description: the light wooden bar table, along with a charcoal like binchotan piece used for the chopstick holder. — That chopstick holder is something I would expect to find on Etsy.

Semi-casual Atmosphere

When it comes to atmosphere, I would say it’s on the casual side, but this is not like a TGI Friday’s where you would feel out of place if you walked in dressed in a suit or a cocktail dress.

Photo Description: The table area are bench seats, and one of the most distinctive elements of Hachi is their glass divider and the bamboo element and rock base. — Panda’s would love it here.

Hachi in Japanese means “8” which is a good luck number not only by the Japanese, but most Asians.

Photo Description: there's a wall enclave with a vase with a seasonal flowers. — You can probably guess which season I was here.

Tips on How to Pronounce the Japanese Menu Items at Izakaya Hachi

Each Japanese (kana) character is like a syllable because the Japanese language is a mora-timed language where each character is pronounced an equal amount of time. So you would say a-(r)i-ga-to-u (“thank you”) or ma-gu-ro (mah-goo-roh, “tuna”) vs. a badly pronounced “ari-gat-ohhh” and “ma’guuuuu-row.”

Typically they have a placard that explains all their different sauces.

What’s Inside the Condiment Bottles

Left Jar (tall black jar)
Hachi’s shoyu (soy sauce), seaweed (konbu), and dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna (katsuobushi flakes).

Middle Jar (short black jar)
Buta Miso: Hachi’s original blend of miso with crispy pork bits.

Right Jar (white)
Togarashi shichimi: seven spice chili powder.

The Beer Menu at Izakaya Hachi

Most Japanese beers are lagers like a lot of the mainstream American beers and the big Japanese brands are: Asahi, Kirin, and Sapporo (my favorite of the three).

Drinks/Cocktails

Highball / ハイボール
Japanese love high balls, and you need to give one a try which is basically a Scotch although Japanese whisky is often used and mixed with soda (soda water, Coke, to Ginger Ale).

XXXXX-Hai
Shōchū is an alcoholic drink distilled from rice (kome), barley (mugi), sweet potatoes (satsuma-imo), buckwheat (soba), or brown sugar (kokutō).
Shōchū and carbonated water (chūhai).
Shōchū and oolong tea (oolong-hai).

Grilled meat, veggies, and fried food go great with a lager.

Not Strictly Your Soup, Salad, and Entree Type of Joint

This is an “izakaya” which you can think of being like a pub where you eat and drink.

The difference is with a Japanese izakaya, you do small tapas style plates to snack on and eat as you drink.

You can share these items, or order a plate for each one of your party, but either way, you’re not locked into any one dish (no big commitments here, those only come along when you get way too drunk and marry the person you just met in Vegas).

This is hilarious, on their website they have ” Deep fried breaded Tsukune ground dork with house tonkatsu sauce.” Don’t be a dork, otherwise you’ll end up fried and on a plate.

Deep-fried foods

If you go to any pub in the U.S., typically most of the deep-fried foods are frozen foods because they’re really easy to cook up in a matter of seconds which is why they are appetizers.

At Hachi, the vast majority of the deep-fried items are deep fried from a raw item and batter and are not straight out of a bag.

If fries aren’t doing it for you, try a mountain yam fry that has the same slime that an okra has (it’s good).

Yamaimo Chips $3.00
Japanese mountain yam with with the skin on fried Isobe “beach” (the use of seaweed in the batter) style.

I can’t remember what these were, and I highly croquettes but most likely deep-fried oysters?

Grilled Chicken/Beef (Yakitori)

Not all yakitoriya use it, but Hachi uses the coveted bincho-tan charcoals which are the sought after charcoals in Japan for their ability produce an even heat.

Premium Beef Tongue$3.75
I love beef tongue (in Japanese, gyutan). It is seasoned with salt and with a squeeze of lemon, it’s perfect.

What is beef tongue like: If you never had beef tongue, it’s a very tender cut unlike ground round which is the ass end of the cow (very tough and lean, it’s one reason why it’s typically ground).

Tsukune can look like a turd, but I assure you it’s a must order (especially if you love meatballs of any sorts).

Tsukune$2.75
“Specially hand mixed, unlike ordinary tsukune, ground pork is used for our Tsukune. It’s so juicy. You will see the difference.”

Hachi offers multiple types of tsukune (pork meatballs) which are tsukune with oroshi (grated daikon/radish) ponzu (citrus soy sauce) $3.60 and ume (brined plum/apricot) shiso (perilla leaf) tsukune $3.60.

Sweet Corn$ 2.00

Yuzu kosho is so good with chicken and pork.

Enoki Mushroom Wrapped with Bacon $2.50
Everything is better with bacon, isn’t it? Well this mushroom, bacon wrapped and grilled skewer was da’rish-us.

Cold Foods

I don’t remember the specifics of this dish, but I will say it is nasu (eggplant) in a dashi (soy/fish broth) and bonito flakes.

Green Salad $3.00

Raw Foods (Fish to Oysters)

Raw oysters

Makizushi (sushi roll): negihama (negi/green onion and hamachi/yellowtail)

You like tuna, well, I’ve got two shots of it for you.

Maguro Sashimi, 5 pcs, $12.98
The lean cuts (akami) of bluefin tuna.

More vegetables here than the typical American diet.

Beef Tataki $7.35
Seared beef carpaccio topped with red onion and chive. Splashed with garlic ponzu.

This is tame compared to drawing a penis on his forehead.

The Salaryman Look

Like any restaurant or bar, don’t get too cozy and pass out here otherwise a black shoed staff member will come on over to you to ask that your buddy wake up.