Score Lunch at Japanese Cuisine by Omae and Help a Good Cause

Takeshi Omae’s story is pretty amazing. The chef behind Japanese Cuisine by Omae started cooking in his home at age 6 when his mother left. He ended up living in an orphanage in Kumamoto, Japan. He dropped out of high school because he wasn’t good at it, then landed in a hospital for 18 months after a motorcycle accident.

From there, Omae got a job in a local tavern, and four years later he worked at a French restaurant before studying at Paris’ Le Cordon Bleu. When he didn’t have enough money to go home, Omae volunteered at a summer camp for orphans, and he rode back to Tokyo with those children.

"If the orphanage house did not give me a ride, I am not writing this email," he says in an email. And he wouldn’t have become a Michelin-starred chef twice, or come to Las Vegas to open his 12-seat restaurant that has been the darling of every food critic out there.

Now he wants to give back. From Thursday through Oct. 31, Omae is holding a fundraiser to help out the orphanage in Akabane, Toyko, Japan, and reopens for lunch with seatings at 11:30 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 1 p.m., 1:45 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. every day except Sundays and Mondays.

Guests can land a miso tonkotsu wok charred ramen and black curry combination for $15. And that’s just this week. From Oct. 1-31, find spicy miso tonkotsu wok charred ramen for $10.

For reservations, head here.

And starting Oct. 1, the restaurant has a $200 omakase menu at two seatings nightly. Details coming on that.