Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ Restaurant Review

March 3, 2015

Spread the Love!

Last Saturday, J and I went to see Kingsman: The Secret Service at Shangri-la. It’s the new Colin Firth movie that was buzzed about being good. At first, I was skeptical about the movie. My impression upon seeing the trailer was that it was some sort of Agent Cody Banks movie, just with more Hollywood budget. Groan.

But with nothing better to watch, J said we might as well see it. We bought our tickets and proceeded to find a place to have dinner before going to see the movie. I ended up not really liking the movie – I found some parts of it crass; however, the action was pretty good – BUT AT LEAST, I ENDED UP REALLY ENJOYING DINNER.

After walking around looking for somewhere new to have dinner, J settled on Gyu-kaku because he felt like having real meat (that means wagyu, steak, or grilled meat). We’ve dined at Gyu-kaku before at their BGC branch and we were disappointed at the small amount of meat we got with our expensive order. But J was feeling good and wanted to have yakiniku, so we gave Gyu-kaku another try.

This was our table. The grill is in the middle of the table. It’s currently covered. The menus are on top.

J wanted to have enough food for the both of us, so we decided to order the Fuku Set that was good for 3-4 persons. This includes a kimchi, a salad, 4 kinds of meat, a rice dish, gindara, assorted mushrooms, and a dessert. To be honest, the food that is supposedly good for 3-4 persons is only good for 2 hungry adults.

The Fuku Set costs P3,595++. Really pricey, but did I mention that J was feeling good that day and felt like splurging?

First, we were provided these sauces: Sweet (the one with sesame), and Spicy. The sauces are both sweet and a bit fruity (hint of orange?), the spicy sauce is really not that spicy.

The first dishes to arrive were the kimchi and the Horenso Salad.

The Horenso Salad was delicious. The spinach leaves were fresh, the creamy sesame dressing is similar to the sesame dressing available at tonkatsu restaurants, the salad also had garlic, fresh sliced mushrooms and bacon bits. This is one salad I don’t mind eating a lot of, and I was actually sad that we had already finished the salad, I even got a spoon to scoop up the remaining dressing at the bottom of the bowl.

We hardly touched the kimchi.

Here’s the grill:

Next were the rice and meats.

The Ishiyaki Mentaiko is quite similar to a dolsot bibimbap. It’s rice that comes in a very hot clay pot, and you’re supposed to mix the toppings into the rice.

The thing is, some of the meats indicated on the menu were not available, so they told us that they would just replace it with other meats – I have no idea with what though.

The meats are already pre-marinated. Wagyu tenderloin (cubed wagyu), the darker meat that looks like bacon, the darkest meat, buta karubi (the one that looks like bacon, right-most):

We were also given a packet of Miso Gindara. The gindara is inside the foil packet:

Here’s the cooked gindara. The gindara was very creamy – I loved it! The miso sauce was perfectly sweet, a bit salty, and creamy too.

FYI, I hope you know what happens to you when you eat too much gindara.

Assorted Mushrooms, also in a foil packet that needs to be cooked on the grill. These already had a salty, butter sauce inside the packet.

More grilling! It was really fun!

The meats were actually quite tender and flavorful. Just take care not to reduce them to charcoal! All in all, J’s manly meat cravings were satisfied.

For dessert, we were given a scoop of ice cream each.

The ice cream is actually quite creamy, and the graham cracker crumbs sprinkled on top just makes the whole thing more luscious.

You can control the fan for the grill using the controls on the side of the table.

What I Like About Gyu-kaku’s Fuku Set

We got a good variety of dishes for our meal. I am always a fan of having several dishes in a meal. There’s meat, there’s fish, there’s vegetables, rice, and even mushrooms. The flavors of each dish is different enough so we didn’t feel like we were just eating different variations of the same flavor.

I like the interactive nature of the yakiniku meal. We had fun grilling our meats and panicking when our meats were getting overcooked or were turning into charcoal! hahaha.

They have house tea. We didn’t need to order any additional drinks. Service was also prompt and cheerful.

Cons: Expensive. And some meats were not available so they had to replace them with something else.

It’s a good place to go when you feel like splurging.