Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ

It was happy hour all day but I was definitely not happy. Let me start off by saying how I had the worst experience today and only worst experience so far. I am a loyal costumer here at Harvard and at Brookline. I ordered a decent amount of food but less than usual (thank goodness). My go-​to meat item is the Yaki Shabu, ordering from a range of 3 – 8 orders. I ordered 4 today. As I received the Yaki Shabu, I didn’t see anything wrong with it until I used my tongs to pick up a piece of meat… Okay, no problem… Until I put it on the grill and more than half of our order went through it. We were eating scraps from a cow… Something you give to an animal to eat. It constantly burned the grill so quickly and some of the pieces would stay on the grill and burn. What makes it okay to serve that kind of meat to any customers? It’s not acceptable at all. Obviously the kitchen people messed up. My friend, who never complains about anything actually complained and mentioned this to our waitress. She seemed like she was fine with it. (Our waitress seemed a little annoyed as time went on.) So she or the kitchen workers decided to give us 2 orders of the Yaki Shabu back. The meat tasted and looked very different. The table next to us happened to have ordered the Yaki Shabu too and instantly my friend and I looked over their table to see how the meat came out, perfect. No scraps. I hope it doesn’t happen again or to anyone for that matter. As for the spicy tuna volcano appetizer, why does Harvard serve 3 of them while Brookline serves 4 for the same price of $ 7? (It was very hard to eat today as well, I could barely chew it and it got stuck in between my teeth each bite, very uncomfortable) When we finished our meal, our waitress took well over 10 minutes to give us the check. She seemed like she was the only one running around. So understandable. (But it wasn’t even that busy. Filled only half of the place with customers) Where’s the rest of your workers? We got our check, I looked through it and an item was placed into it that we did not order. She fixed it. Moved on. Today was very sloppy and there just was too many mistakes. I have never been so disappointed before. Extremely upset.

Love this place — the food is amazing! The beef tongue and bibimbap! The service is excellent. But I am not much of a fan of their famous green tea crêpe cake…

This is literally my favorite restaurant here at Cambridge. The spicy ramen, garlic rice, addicting cabbage and Ponzu sauce are soooo delish. My boyfriend is Japanese and even he thinks it’s really authentic!

The first time, I didn’t make reservations and thought we could get seated when we got there. wrong, got there at around 6 and they said the wait would be until 8. Said we could wait around in case someone canceled, but we were far too hungry to wait and went somewhere else.
The second time which was the following weekend, we made reservations way in advance. Got a nice big table for the two of us. We got there right in time, right after us were huge parties just waiting and waiting. Love that this location seems to always have happy hour prices all day. We ordered a bit of everything. Smaller portions, but pretty good quality. It was super busy and our server was swamped but would check in when he could. He even recommended a pretty cool place to go to for huge fish bowls!
It’s always a fun experience to cook your own food. Except that I would forget about my food. Recommend getting the scallops to grill, those are really yummy. Pork belly is always delicious along with the toro beef and sirloin. The bibimbop was pretty standard. For a drink, I tried the strawberry lemonade with soju which was delicious.
I only really wanted to come here was for dessert. It was my first time trying the Lady M Green Tea Crêpe Cake. OMG it was amazing so fresh and tasty. I highly recommended trying it. They had already run out of the other flavor which I think was vanilla or strawberry but love green tea anyways.
It’s pretty cool, they have an app that you can download that allows you to collect points from how many dollars you spend to redeem for a discount off or for dishes or dessert.

Gyukaku is one of my favorite restaurants in Harvard Square. They just opened last year and as a promotion, are doing all day Happy Hour prices (some of which mark down their menu items by 50%) and 99 cent draft Kirin beers, which is a total steal.
Gyukaku’s specialty is Japanese BBQ. They give you thin slices of heavily marinaded meat and you cook it yourself on the grill in the center of the table. Some of my favorite meats to order are the yaki shabu beef, toro beef, and pork belly. The meat is so tender and flavorful and only takes 1 – 2 minutes to cook. I also usually order garlic spinach (which comes in an aluminum pouch and is also cooked over the grill) and an order of beef bibimbap. Although I’ve had bibimbap at many other Korean restaurants, Gyukaku’s bibimbap is my favorite — it has more beef flavor and umami than other bibimbap I have had, and at $ 6 (Happy Hour pricing), is a great deal. I’ve tried a couple of their appetizers (deep fried bacon, hot oil seared salmon, avocado salad, addicting cabbage) and thought they were decent, but not as good as the entrée meats so I usually skip the appetizers and just order the marinated meat.
Their most famous dessert is the lady M green tea crêpe cake. It’s a little pricey at $ 12 for the amount of dessert you get, but it is certainly delicious. The green tea flavoring is strong and he cake comes with a scoop of ice cream.

After coming to Gyu-​Kaku, I definitely prefer Japanese BBQ over Korean BBQ. There’s more variety of meats and vegetables that you can choose. The meats were well-​marinated and super tender. My favorite was the beef tongue.
I’d recommend making a reservation beforehand to avoid waiting in line.

Not sure why this place only has 3.5 so far!
I love it! I’ve been to both locations (harvard sq and brookline) and think that they are equally the same in terms of their service, and food. In terms of their dessert, the Brookline location had fresher tasting Lady M cakes.
The service at this location was great. From the past three times, I’ve had friendly hosts and waiters.
Tip: If you check in, you get free edamame, per person! And if you download the app, you can earn points. Their lunch specials are highly worth it, I suggest that you look over their lunch menu online. Portions are huge for lunch.

Food is amazing! its cheap cheap not expensive good experience fun to cook own food every worker was really nice but happy hour is the best time to go theres 1 dollar draft and food is cheaper
Get The Garlic Rice, Hanger Steak, and there pork ramen is amazing!

Gyu kaku is one of my favorite restaurants. I always try to come at least a few times a month. This location is very similar to their sister location in Brookline. I love how they have a happy menu hour so prices are fairly reasonable. Some of my favorite to-​go to items are the yaki shabu, bistro hanger, filet migon, and the kalbi short rib. The service here is really friendly too. Ask for Nelson, Mark, or Sammy they’ll take care of you.

I was here a couple of times when they had grand opening specials. How can you say no to all day happy hour?! I’ve always liked Gyu-​Kaku. They have a lot of branches in Southern California.
Their grand opening specials also included 99 cent Sapporo. I usually order beef tongue, pork belly, toro beef, yaki-​shabu beef, mixed veggies, rice, and some appetizers. You can’t go wrong with any item on their menu. They are all delicious!
Make sure to call in to make a reservation. Last time my friends and I tried to walk in, they told us it was a 1 hour wait when the whole place was empty. I definitely recommend trying this place if you haven’t tried Gyu-​Kaku before!

My friends and I (total 10 people) went here for happy hour. Due to this location being newly open, they were offering happy hour all day long! From sun-​thur, they even have 99 cents kirin drafts beer. If weekend, I heard beer is $ 2? I’m a fan of grill food so I like most of the food we ordered. But some of my friends think it was a bit on the saltier side. We even ordered the green tea crepes (these were delivered from Lady M).I have to say it is on the pricier end for this dessert ($ 10 for this green tea crepes along with 2 scoops of ice cream. It was good but still felt it wasn’t entirely fresh)

came here Friday for my godsisters birthday. I’d been to the one in Brookline before but this location had happy hour all day, everyday. parking is incredibly hard to find since its harvard square. after driving for about 30 min, I managed to find a spot. the wait time was about an hr and a half since it was a Friday night. we waited. we were seated and started ordering. the waiter was nice. the food was delicious. we kept ordering and ordering haha. we were there for maybe an hour and a half to almost two hours. the bill came out to be incredibly cheap, thank you happy hour. definitely will be back. but maybe to he Brookline location since parking is easier to find.

As good as the Gyu Kaku in Brookline, with less of a crowd. The menu offerings are the same as well as the food quality; Meats galore, so if you like meat this place is for you. Service has been pleasant the two times I’ve been here (once for dinner and once just for dessert). They didn’t run out of the green tea crêpe, which is always a plus as the crêpe is light and delicious and not too sweet.
Be on the lookout if you haven’t been to this location before, as it is easy to miss on the street due to the less than conspicuous signage on the building. I walked by the restaurant 2x before circling back with the aid of my GoogleMaps the first time i visited, and walked right past it even the second time I ate here.
For now, the prices are also a lot lower than the Brookline location due to the All Day Happy Hour specials on certain menu items. Parking can be a bit of a drag in the Square though.

First of all the hostess made me spechless… I called in for a reservation and she clearly confirmed with me on the time and date and the number of people. By the time I got to the restaurant, she told me there’s no reservation and then she went on the say that if it were her to answer the phone, she would not accept this reservation because they apparently don’t do reservation within 2 hours of dining time. Then I asked her who was the hostess at the time, and she said she was. I had to explain to her that if she was the hostess at the time and no one else was at the post, it must be her who answered the phone!!! Simply speechless… dare to say idiotic
Then eventually after much struggling, she sat us. I think there was a short of staff, it took forever for us to order, get our food, change the grill, refill water etc.
The food was okay, not sure it’s worth the money. But the dining experience was not good. Mostly likely will not go back.

Make a reservation like a week ahead or something, this place gets packed.
I am so glad I made a reservation for Thanksgiving Day. I am sorry for those who had to work because of people like me who want to spend time with family at a restaurant instead of cooking at home… (in b4 brag) But $ 25 all you can eat Japanese BBQ, with 12 or so different kinds meat to choose from, with an hour and 30 minutes to cook and eat. Wow. Toro beef tare, Yaki-​shabu miso, spicy pork, chicken basil, beef tongue, bistro hanger steak miso, pork belly shio, Japanese pork sausage, some type of steak, and a few other things. Ughhhhhh. These were all really good; spicy pork was the one that stood out the most and it was probably my favorite one.
We kept ordering round after round, although we didn’t get everything we wanted, we just kept having order more rounds LOL. Such a struggle. In total we had about 5 rounds of meat, and I still wish we ordered more, especially since we were on a time crunch.
Going in at 11:30AM it wasn’t too bad, place was about ½ crowded. But when 12PM hit it was a full house and waiters were running around like crazy. Wonder how bad it gets on a non-​holiday weekend, jeez.
For dessert we got that green tea crêpe thingy! Came with 2 scoops of green tea ice cream. $ 11 holy LOL. A little expensive, but split between 4 people it was pretty worth.
Atmosphere was something else, it looks really interesting in there. Looks like an authentic Japanese interior, rather than just a modern styled place. A little dark, but it was okay it felt a little more intimate. LOL.
Thanks to my waiter, Sam, who dealt with my tables nonsense about burning the grill too early and changing it like twice for us and grabbing a ton of meat because we are needy.

I tried to eat here a couple of weeks ago and it was a nightmare. I’ve eaten at the other location a few times and we always expect a wait on a Friday night, but we get sat within an hour or so.
The hostess gave us a wait time of 45 minutes, but it turned into over 2 hours! It was absolutely nuts, not even close to an accurate time. It was super frustrating. Needless to say, I did not wait around to see if the wait amounted to 3 hours.
Another complaint against this location is the fact that there is NO bar at all to wait at. They simply have a very small waiting section that consists of about 2 tables. When we arrived, it looked like the two parties sitting there had already finished their appetizers looooong ago and clearly weren’t going to be sat anytime soon. I definitely recommend the other location.
I give it 2 stars because gyu-​kaku has the best Japanese BBQ outside of Japan and I’m assuming theirs tastes as good as the Brookline location.

Another Gyu Kaku location in Boston?! This factor is almost convincing enough for me to settle here permanently! Just kidding.
For their grand opening specials, they serve happy hour all day and kirin drafts for 99 cents a glass! I am sold! I came here twice since they opened. This location does not get as crowded as the Brookline location. I usually call in advance to make reservations. The second time I was here however, I was not able to make a reservation because they were fully booked. When I got there at around 7pm, the hosts told me that I had to wait 1 hour for a table. At the time there were at least 5 to 6 tables open and I was getting a little bit hangry so I questioned them about that. They were accommodating and sat us within 10 to 15 minutes. They probably just need to work out a better system of reserved tables vs. walk-​ins.
Finally seated! Their happy hour menu is pretty extensive. There are appetizers, meats and veggies for BBQ, soups and rice and noodle dishes for a reasonable price.
For appetizers I tried:
Addicting cabbage (very addictive)
Fried calamari
Fried shishito peppers
Meats:
Yaki-​shabu beef (only $ 3 a pop during happy hour)
Toro beef (the most delicious meat I ordered!)
Beef tongue (my favorite! :P)
Pork belly
Veggies:
Assorted veggies (trying to be somewhat healthy…)
Rice dishes:
Garlic rice bibimbap (very delicious!)
They were very busy that night. When everyone at my table ordered our first round of beers, we had to ask multiple people a few times before we got our drinks. I wish the service here was better! Then my dining experience would be complete.
Gyu Kaku is a great place for dinner where you can cook together with your friends and enjoy the meats fresh off the stove. I recommend dunking your meats in the 3 sauces at your table especially the spicy sauce for extra flavors!

I am a huge fan of this authentic Japanese BBQ chain from Japan itself. The meat is fresh and deliciously marinated, the appetizers and side dishes are addictive yet stay true to Japanese flavors, and the vibe of the place is hip, young, and intimate — great for a date or a night out with friends.
The food here is almost the exact same as the one in Brookline. A few items (particularly cocktails) might be missing from here. The atmosphere here is a bit more private and slightly more Japanese-​feeling than the one in Brookline. If it’s your first Gyukaku experience, I recommend getting one of the set courses so you can try a variety of dishes.
Overall, I’m very happy to see Gyukaku becoming successful in the Boston area and having this great addition to the northern side of the river!

A word to the business owner which the Unilocal reader may also want to be aware of:
The business is making a bunch of happy hour and lunch specials presumably to get more customers during the slow hours. That being said, I made a reservation at 2:30 and had to wait 20 minutes even though most of the restaurant is empty. I get it, you’re understaffed so you close off areas. But if you want more business but don’t hire more staff then you’re considered mismanaged.
I will say that the staff is good though. Management needs to keep up.

Everything is happy hour price! They are open from 5:30 till closing everyday.
Came here on a Friday evening and the place wasn’t completely packed — but still had enough people to affect the service of the new staff. Our waitress was nice, but she didn’t seem to have enough experience handling all the tables she had and managing our orders.
She mistook me asking Asahi for sake, confused the number of bibimbaps i wanted, and forgot an order of ramen…
The speed of the food was extremely slow and a bit disorganized. The edamame came at the same time as ramen… why? We were starving for a good 10 minutes waiting for food, you could’ve just put a bowl of it out or seaweed salad out first — rather than both with the ramen. On that edamame was meh, it wasn’t salted evenly, so in some part I felt like I was just eating beans, and in others chugging a whole block of salt.
The fries with cod caviar sauce was amazing! The dip was great. The fries kinda stuck to each other’s and clumped. But that was overlooked at how tasty the fries was.
Got two different kind of ramen — definitely NOT the place to come if you are craving a ramen fix. There’s santouka down the road for that. The ramen here is just not good in all context (and I’m speaking as someone who lived in Japan, and had lots of ramen in Japan, nyc, and boston). Ditch it unless you want some soup to slosh down with the bbq meat.
The bbq meat itself was great and deserves 3.5 stars. The meat could probably have used more marination, but overall, they had three sauces: ponzo (what I would say is like A1 but much better), spicy (mix ponzo and spicy together for the best sauce), and sweet soy sauce. Definitely get the short ribs and a hanger steak. The tongues were also great.
Finished the meal with green tea Mille crêpe cake and green tea ice cream. Loved it. The only thing better than that is the actual strawberry frozen Mille crêpe cake available only in nyc.
For the happy hour price, the taste, and the amount of food, that warrants 4 stars. Would have been a 5 but service was just lacking, but should improve over time.