(here is the english menu for locations in Japan)
Jason here. Now I get to review my favorite restaurant from our Japan trip, the yakiniku joint Gyu-Kaku. It took a bit to find, as it was on the third or fourth floor of a building situated off of a side road. By some miracle, a friendly local saw what must have been our obviously lost faces, and came over to give us directions. I’m not sure how, but as soon as we mentioned the restaurant name, he pointed to exactly where it was around the corner, and gave perfect instructions. This was in an area with what must have been 2 or 3 dozen restaurants within a block radius.
At a yakiniku restaurant, you order a variety of meats and vegetables which are brought to your table raw. You then cook these over a grill located at your table.
The restaurant itself utilized every inch of space, with tightly packed booths of customers, and a long bar which also had grills to sit and order food at. Gyu-Kaku was crazy busy, with new customers coming in as soon as some left. We must have arrived at just the right moment, as we were seated immediately. The pace at which customers came, foreshadowed just how good the food was going to be.
The menu had an option for unlimited food and alcohol for a set price, and we made sure to communicate no soy sauce. This is important since some dishes may be marinated in soy sauce when they are brought to the table. Gyu-Kaku has an English menu available, and there was some limited English spoken by our waiter.
We ordered beef tongue, pork, black-haired beef, scallops, shrimp, squid, bacon cubes, basil chicken, and sweet potato.
For an unlimited meal we only had a set amount of time to eat them, so we got right to cooking setting a good variety down on the grill to start.
I loved the ability to cook my own food here, as it meant I could take things off as early or as late as I want. Controlling how raw, or crispy I wanted a particular dish.
The scallops, shrimp, and squid were good, but tasted exactly like you would expect. Like everywhere we went in Japan, the shrimp were served whole so we had to figure out a way to de-shell them. I’m not sure if we followed etiquette and procedure as we did so.
The basil chicken was extremely good. This wasn’t your grocery market packaged chicken that comes out tasting dry. No this was excellently prepared chicken, where each bite bursts with flavor in your mouth. Even after I not so excellently burned a few of the pieces by leaving them on the grill too long. No matter what, these pieces kept their flavor.
The bacon cube, were massive. Easily an inch or more on each side. I left them on the grill for a while to get nice and crisp on the outside, but still juicy on the inside. Even Kayleigh enjoyed these. I’ve never had bacon that thick so it was a great experience.
I definitely recommend you pick up a side order of sweet potato fries. The various meats are delicious, but you will need a pallet cleanser now and again after eating so many foods of the salty variety. You can leave the sweet potatoes on the grill for as long as your heart desires, so you get perfectly crispy fries each time.
By far my favorite of the night was unexpectedly the thinly sliced beef tongue. Even better than the black-haired beef. Only about a millimeter or so thick, these round slices of beef tongue grill up nice and crispy. They tasted like the most succulent steak I had ever had. If I had to pick one meal to live off of the rest of my life, it might be these.
While the meal was expensive, between the unlimited drinks and food, and the absolutely superb taste I can’t recommend Gyu-Kaku enough.
Kayleigh here. While this place was definitely Jason heaven, I thought it was such a novel concept to be allowed to use a hot grill and consume smoking food as you got progressively more intoxicated. Seriously, though, we decided to simplify things by ordering everything at the start, and they brought the dishes out one or two at a time at the same pace we were going through them.
It was a fantastically novel experience to be able to cook your own food, since it brought a fun activity to the table. Especially when we were pulling the sweet potato slices out of their foil bowl and grilling them one by one- then had the waiter quietly let us know we were supposed to just put the bowl onto the grill. We found it embarrassingly funny to have made that faux pas, made all the more funny because we were sure we had been messing up some part of every meal since we flew in and had noone to point it out to us.
Since we ended up ordering a pretty good sampling of them here, now would be a good time to mention the chuhai. Short for Shochu Highball, it's a mixer made from a sweet potato-based alcohol and comes in a variety of fruit flavors. They are refreshing, deceptively alcoholic, and less of a girly drink than the usual wine cooler. We bought them in canned form at convenience stores and mixed at bars and never found any issues with gluten. It was great to have such a tasty beer alternative!
Jason here. Now I get to review my favorite restaurant from our Japan trip, the yakiniku joint Gyu-Kaku. It took a bit to find, as it was on the third or fourth floor of a building situated off of a side road. By some miracle, a friendly local saw what must have been our obviously lost faces, and came over to give us directions. I’m not sure how, but as soon as we mentioned the restaurant name, he pointed to exactly where it was around the corner, and gave perfect instructions. This was in an area with what must have been 2 or 3 dozen restaurants within a block radius.
At a yakiniku restaurant, you order a variety of meats and vegetables which are brought to your table raw. You then cook these over a grill located at your table.
The restaurant itself utilized every inch of space, with tightly packed booths of customers, and a long bar which also had grills to sit and order food at. Gyu-Kaku was crazy busy, with new customers coming in as soon as some left. We must have arrived at just the right moment, as we were seated immediately. The pace at which customers came, foreshadowed just how good the food was going to be.
The menu had an option for unlimited food and alcohol for a set price, and we made sure to communicate no soy sauce. This is important since some dishes may be marinated in soy sauce when they are brought to the table. Gyu-Kaku has an English menu available, and there was some limited English spoken by our waiter.
We ordered beef tongue, pork, black-haired beef, scallops, shrimp, squid, bacon cubes, basil chicken, and sweet potato.
For an unlimited meal we only had a set amount of time to eat them, so we got right to cooking setting a good variety down on the grill to start.
I loved the ability to cook my own food here, as it meant I could take things off as early or as late as I want. Controlling how raw, or crispy I wanted a particular dish.
The scallops, shrimp, and squid were good, but tasted exactly like you would expect. Like everywhere we went in Japan, the shrimp were served whole so we had to figure out a way to de-shell them. I’m not sure if we followed etiquette and procedure as we did so.
The basil chicken was extremely good. This wasn’t your grocery market packaged chicken that comes out tasting dry. No this was excellently prepared chicken, where each bite bursts with flavor in your mouth. Even after I not so excellently burned a few of the pieces by leaving them on the grill too long. No matter what, these pieces kept their flavor.
The bacon cube, were massive. Easily an inch or more on each side. I left them on the grill for a while to get nice and crisp on the outside, but still juicy on the inside. Even Kayleigh enjoyed these. I’ve never had bacon that thick so it was a great experience.
I definitely recommend you pick up a side order of sweet potato fries. The various meats are delicious, but you will need a pallet cleanser now and again after eating so many foods of the salty variety. You can leave the sweet potatoes on the grill for as long as your heart desires, so you get perfectly crispy fries each time.
By far my favorite of the night was unexpectedly the thinly sliced beef tongue. Even better than the black-haired beef. Only about a millimeter or so thick, these round slices of beef tongue grill up nice and crispy. They tasted like the most succulent steak I had ever had. If I had to pick one meal to live off of the rest of my life, it might be these.
While the meal was expensive, between the unlimited drinks and food, and the absolutely superb taste I can’t recommend Gyu-Kaku enough.
Kayleigh here. While this place was definitely Jason heaven, I thought it was such a novel concept to be allowed to use a hot grill and consume smoking food as you got progressively more intoxicated. Seriously, though, we decided to simplify things by ordering everything at the start, and they brought the dishes out one or two at a time at the same pace we were going through them.
It was a fantastically novel experience to be able to cook your own food, since it brought a fun activity to the table. Especially when we were pulling the sweet potato slices out of their foil bowl and grilling them one by one- then had the waiter quietly let us know we were supposed to just put the bowl onto the grill. We found it embarrassingly funny to have made that faux pas, made all the more funny because we were sure we had been messing up some part of every meal since we flew in and had noone to point it out to us.
Since we ended up ordering a pretty good sampling of them here, now would be a good time to mention the chuhai. Short for Shochu Highball, it's a mixer made from a sweet potato-based alcohol and comes in a variety of fruit flavors. They are refreshing, deceptively alcoholic, and less of a girly drink than the usual wine cooler. We bought them in canned form at convenience stores and mixed at bars and never found any issues with gluten. It was great to have such a tasty beer alternative!
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