Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ

DineLa was last week and we have reserved through Open Table for lunch. We got the confirmation email and a phone call the day before from the restaurant confirming our reservation, however, when I called to let them know we were running about 15 minutes late, the hostess said we had no reservation. I was really disappointed and ended up not taking advantage of the DineLa promotion. That was horrible!!!

I’ve been to gyu-​kaku a couple of times and I think this is one of the better locations. I called ahead to see if they had happy hour and compared to most places they have the most extensive happy hour menu and hours.
Odd as it is, I went in for more tapas than bbq today and was very satisfied with my experience.
We got the gyoza, cheese wontons, avacado salad, spicy cabbage salad, tofu nuggets, and chocolate lava cake.
The spicy cabbage salad was a bust. wayyyy too salty. But the flavor profile was not bad. If the salt was muted it probably would have been a lot better.
My two favorite items we’re the avacado salad which had a nice Japanese Mayo on it and the tofu nuggets. So delicious!
Our servers were both very nice. Offered plenty of water refills and checked on us often. service was fast. Never found myself waiting to order or for the check.

Went here with my sister, and I love this place! YUM!

Small location and limited parking
I used to park in Babiesrus next door and walk across but now they block the parking lot. Sad
Happy hour is a all day Monday. :)
And all January $ 15 lunch special for Dine LA special
Garlic noodle, angus beef sweet soy and hanger steak miso are my favorite
Just wish the service is a bit faster
Too slow ! Why? It’s all uncooked marinated meat anyway ?!

We came here for for lunch during Dine LA Restaurant Week and we had the best service! We were greeted by the staff when we walked in and thanked when we left. Our server, who was being trained, was very nice and attentive. I suggest trying the flavored marshmallows with your s’mores at the end. We had one each of the coconut and lemon meringue flavors. I recommend them both!

Parking: One of my least favorite parking situations. Since it shares a lot with a ton of other establishments (Lucille’s, Gatten Sushi, Boba), parking straight up sucks. Consider yourself lucky if you find a parking spot in less than 5 minutes.
Place: I immediately dug the lighting and ambiance of the place. Servers are very friendly and politely explain everything (recommendations, cook times, where on the grill to place what your cooking). I’d describe it as the classiest KBBQ place I’ve ever been to (though, I know, it’s a Japanese grill). I also particularly liked how the grills are designed. It’s tough for food to fall through. Though it was a bit difficult to hear over the hum of the grill fans.
Price: Availed of the $ 29 DineLA Restaurant Week dinner menu. Pretty solid price for a full dinner.
Pfood: DineLA Restaurant Week menu included an appetizer + 3 meat selections + s’mores. Fried calamari was great, but the 4pc Dynamite/​crispy rice app was just ok. The meat selections were some of the best I’ve ever had at a Do-​It-​Yourself grill restaurant. We ordered every cut of beef they had and they were all awesome. We did have to ask how to cook them (and the garlic spinach + onion side dishes that we selected to accompany our main course). The s’mores (featuring a variety of marshmallow flavors) was a great closer to the meal. I’ll def be back here!

I love Gyu Kaku! But this location has terrible service! Had lunch at 12 on 1÷23÷16. Denny, you seem like a nice guy but maybe you shouldn’t be serving larger parties right now… try taking tables of 2 – 4. It’s not your fault, it’s whoever trained you and said you were ready.
I get it, we had a party of 10, but receiving the last couple dishes about 3 hours (we were there from 12 – 3) after ordering is unacceptable (WTF?). It may be difficult but from my past experience of being a server, organization is really key. Try writing a simple seating chart so that you know what people ordered. Try marking off what dishes you have already brought out. This will prevent a lot of confusion, especially in a situation with first-​timers who are not familiar with the menu &/​or those who have trouble remembering what they ordered due to foreign dish names (trust me, I worked at a Hawaiian restaurant), in addition to long a$$ periods of wait time to receive each dish (–don’t be surprised when ppl forget the name of the meat they ordered).
Issues
–brought out meats in an inconsistent manner. Half of our table finished all their meats while the other half were still waiting on 6.
–brought out dishes in double orders of meat– the problem with that is they combined meat orders of diff people who were sitting on opposite ends, & one person/​wrong person unknowingly eating both servings. Please communicate beforehand. This happened twice. Let us know who’s meat you’re combining & make sure we hear you. If you place a plate in front of someone, they are going to assume it is theirs, or belongs to someone around them.
–my sister & her boyfriend were still waiting on 4 meats by the time everyone was done. So we asked Denny. He brought out 2 & then claimed that he had already brought out the other 2 meats. We were annoyed and confused. He then explained that maybe the guests in our party on the opposite frikken side may have ate it. ORGANIZATION** Why would you drop of meats to their side. It’s your job to make sure the guests get the right food.
–in the end, literally the end, our server came out with the 2 missing meats & apologized because they found the ticket & realized they never brought them out those 2 meats & other dishes that took forever were cooked & taken to-​go. Sitting there just made you full. I left with a full to-​go box & full belly of water.
–forgot my brown rice & brought it out when I’ve already devoured 1.5 meats (we all ordered 3 meats from DINELA/​lunch special menu)
–took forever to refill our waters & bring out other little requests like extra salad dressing
–inconsistent dishes. 2 salads looked pretty skimp. 1 salad looked fuller & had cherry tomatoes when the others didn’t
Being around good company definitely lightened up this disappointing experience. But will never go to this Gyu Kaku location again.

If I can give less than one star, I would give it to them. They have no integrity or interest in honoring our open table reservations made on line. We had a reservation at 8pm and checked in at 7:50 but the host could not honor the reservation. We then spoke to the Manager and he said that we would have to wait until 8:30pm. Unbelievably that they questioned us on when we made the reservation and proceeded to delete it from their side. Be upfront with customers and don’t advertise something you don’t have any intention of honoring. There’s plenty of restaurants nearby like that is honest with their customers.

This it’s probably the lowest review I’ve had to give to this location but it’s still way better than the Pasadena one. Our waiter Daniel was definitely not the worst server I’ve ever had, but he also was nowhere near the best. From the second we sat down he seemed inattentive and very unsure of his surroundings. Even when he was taking our order you could tell he didn’t really care about what we were saying or ordering. At the beginning of our meal he paid very little attention to us and two tables who sat down after us received their entire meal before we got our meats. Altogether it was just a very scattered and weird dining experience. I’ve come to expect a lot more from this location and their staff and was kind a let down this time. We participated in the Dine LA menu option which is an amazing deal. When I receive my bill at the end of our meal, there was an error of over $ 40 that I had to have them correct. Again, Daniel was so inattentive and scattered that he couldn’t be bothered to check the bill before he brought it to my table. And then provided a half assed apology at the end. Definitely not the worst meal and definitely not the worst server but I truly expected a lot more. Hopefully you do better next time guys.
Also PS, how do you still not offer to go bowls? This is like the third time I’ve had to take my leftover Ramen home in some weird makeshift container?
Order some styrofoam bowls guys, I’m sure it’s in the budget somewhere.

I had the best and most delicious time here yesterday!
About a 10 min wait without a reservation for lunch time.
Wait staff was friendly and helpful.
I came in with a friend for the Dine LA special (!15 lunch) and we were so impressed and happy with all of our food!!!
The salad!!! I have never had such a delicious yet simple salad that left me craving more! The dressing must be heaven sent. I mean delicious!
I did the Garlic New York, Chicken Fondue, and Miso Hanger Steak! Freaken delicious, juicy, tender and just melt in your mouth delicious!
Round it out with some S’mores ugh!!! I was in love.
I can’t wait to come back, we had our meal with some hot sake and ice cold draft Sapporo. I just can’t say enough good things.

WE GOT KICKED OUT! I wasn’t impressed by the food here. It was pricey for the size of the portions. The meats kind of all tasted the same. There is a Korean BBQ place down the street on South that’s less expensive and has better quality meat.
As we were paying I was still willing to go back and try it again another day. I thought maybe just what I ordered wasn’t all that. That is until we were asked to leave because somebody else was waiting for the table. We had just paid. It’s not like we were planning to camp out or anything. We were just finishing up a conversation as we were putting away our credit card receipts. I don’t blame the waiter. I’m sure his supervisor told him to tell us. It was obvious he was embarrassed about asking us to leave. He was very apologetic. He apologized to us again as we passed him on our way out the door. So don’t pay your bill until your absolutely ready to leave because you will be asked to leave.

I have always loved Gyu Kaku and will continue to come. This is mostly due to the many coupons they give you for your next visit. What an outstanding ploy to get people to come back.
Go for happy hour. Paying full price here is criminal when happy hour is almost at all hours of the day. I’ve received excellent service, maybe this is because I go in at 430 p on a weeknight. I don’t know how their service is otherwise. The meat lovers set during lunch is a great value! The meats are tender and vegetables are delicious. I highly recommend this place.
I took off one star because of cleanliness. My plates were dirty a few times.

This was my first time having Japanese BBQ, and it was way better than my Korean BBQ experience, although it’s the same kind of deal: order your meats/​veggies and grill it. I had the tempura shrimp with these orange fish eggs on top. yummy ! And I had a couple of pieces of my sister’s garlic shrimp and basil* chicken (I could be wrong on the seasoning). The meat was fresh and seasoned well, and the shrimp was clean (no head and shell and shit like at the Korean BBQ I went to). The 3 soy sauce/​dipping sauces had great flavor as well.
Our server, Daniel, was great, and the service overall was good.
Let’s just say, I will come back someday :]

My Daughter LOVES this place… a ‘meaty’ experience (but they have added more seafoods and veggies on the menu. woohoo!) fun atmosphere. She likes to cook, so she is in control here… and we get to relax while she does it… we come here every 4 months or so because of the ‘meat overload’ (she loves the meat lovers combo… steak and more steak. Always a nice family fun time
Check this place out… lots of locations around

We love coming to this location because of the relaxing environment. The meats are great in quality and though little in quantity, you’re getting a great deal and experience here. The customer service is very friendly and the staff is attentive and always available to answer your questions.
The food cooks slowly (because you probably shouldn’t out too much on the grill all at once) so you can definitely enjoy yourself. The happy hour specials are great for drinks ($ 13 for a while soju cockktail pitcher that yields 8 cups!) but the lunch combos are pretty worth it! We always get the meat lovers, which comes with salad, miso soup and gyoza (fried dumplings)

I have a buddy that’s absolutely obsessed with this place. I’m pretty sure he’s been to all the LA locations and ordered most everything off the menus. I usually tag along for the pork and beer.
PORK
tasty.
’nuff said.

The food was tasty! The rice with beef was good, but they don’t have the garlic rice anymore.
Servers offered to explain to us how to cook the food and to explain the menu. Very good service!
The s’mores were good, you toast the marshmallow so it is like a little campfire. They gave Hershey’s chocolate so it is a great classic s’more.
We had reservations so we didn’t have to wait. But we went there the other night and there was a 45 min to 1 hour wait so know that the wait can be bad.

Parking: Parking is no problem on weekdays. Went on a Tuesday around 9pm. I know plaza parking is bad on the weekends.
Wait: We went for happy hour and there was no wait at all. We got seated right away.
Food: We got a la carte instead of the combo meals, thinking it would be cheaper. It did come out to be cheaper because we got HH drinks as well. LOVED how cheap it was btw, but don’t get too excited, it adds up!!! Don’t order all the food you want thinking it is all you can eat kbbq. Think wisely…
I’m not too sure on the meats we got. The chicken basil or pesto? … was good and cheap it was $ 2.95 so we got it. We also got garlic mushrooms. I highly recommend getting that if you like mushrooms and garlic. The egg soup was okay. Definitely try ponzu sauce on ALL the meats. The downside with their meats is that they give such small portions! The size of their meat is so small… –1 star.
Drinks: $ 3 mixed drinks during happy hour, yay! gyu-​kaku drink I believe is the red wine and lemonade was pretty good. Reminded me of a sangria. The other drink I got was peach soju cocktail… OMG that drink is sooooo sweet BEWARE! Our server did warn me it was sweet, he recommended green apple but since I don’t like green apple I went with peach, I wish I didn’t…
Service: Great service! I think it was because they weren’t busy, there were probably about 5 parties in the entire restaurant. I’m glad we went when it wasn’t busy. Our server was very attentive. Thank you.
Will definitely be coming back again for happy hour! Glad to know it is all day on Monday’s! If you’re having a crappy Monday came here and drink all your sorrows away (;

A big huge shout out to our waiter Daniel on July 20^th, a Monday afternoon. He took excellent care of me and my boyfriend, and made our first Gyu-​Kaku experience excellent. We were about to get the Cerritos deal for $ 70, but upon finding out we did not eat pork he instead directed us to the Meat Lover’s Special for $ 55. He introduced everything we would need to enjoy our expensive lunch to the maximum (including the tip about the 45secs — 1 minute cooktime for meats).
What can I say, this restaurant is amazing and I absolutely love this JBBQ experience. It makes me wonder why people blow money on AYCE KBBQ instead of going to a high-​quality restaurant like this one. The meats are all super tender and flavored exquisitely. The garlic spicy sauce is especially delicious on the meats.
The cheese wonton is pretty magnificent when on the grill for a few seconds. I liked the salad because the flavor is very fine and not overly saucy. I just loved it all and will be back soon. Thank you

Went for happy hour on a Tuesday night, a bit different from Brea location cause they only have beer & wine, but the seatings are more comfy and intimate.
We ordere a few usual A La Carte, I must say that the seasonings are very rich and flavorful, and the garlic edamame came with huge amount of garlic sauce on it, no kidding! All the meats and seafood were very fresh and tender as usual. My new favorite apps are spicy cabbage salad and spicy cold tofu, in addition to spicy tuna volcano and tofu nuggets. Garlic shrimp and butterfish are my favorite seafood dishes, so good! As for meats, ask sever about what premium meats are in happy hour items at the moment, he will recommend a few to your liking.
Overall this is a nice spot for late night Japanese BBQ, I just love the service at all Gyu-​Kaku locations, ALWAYS great! The Lychee soju cocktail I tried at the end of the meal was very tasty and strong, they can make regular ones or strong ones, ask for a strong one!