Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ Restaurant

If you haven’t figured it out by now I am a major foodie. I love to try new foods and that includes trying recipes at home and going out to eat. I post recipes here pretty much on the regular but only occasionally post my dining out experiences. So I figured I would share this little part of me in the form of a new Dining Diaries series. Let’s start with Gyu-Kaka Japanese Barbeque Restaurant. For date night last night, my boyfriend and I decided to hit the movies to finally see Django Unchained (a must see!) followed by dinner. Japanese and Korean BBQ restaurants has been all the rage in NYC lately and I’ve been wanting to try the experience for a while so we decided on Gyu-Kaku. Django ran a little longer than we expected so we ended up at the restaurant for 9:30, right on time for happy hour which features a lot of menu items for 30-50% off.

There are several locations in NYC, we went to the midtown one on 3rd Ave btwn 49th & 50th Streets. The concept of Japanese Barbeque, Yakinuki meaning “grilled meat”, is to grill meat dishes. So you order a bunch of proteins of your choice from beef and poultry to seafood, and it comes marinated and raw for you to cook yourself on a grill in the middle of your table.

So starting with drinks I orderd a Lychee-tini which is a Lychee Martini and my boyfriend had a Corona. For an appetizer I ordered the Steamed Shrimp Dumplings.

The drink was very good, not too strong and just the right amount of lychee puree. The Shrimp Dumplings were deelish and I loved the crunchy chili topping so much that I ordered a side of it to top my Sukiyaki Bibimbap (japanese fried rice) which I ordered as a side dish…

The Sukiyaki Bibimbap comes with beef or pork, since I don’t eat either I ordered it without meat. It was fried up at the table in a hot stone bowl and was very good, definitely with the crunchy chili topping that I later added. The mister ordered the Garlic Noodles which were very good but I didn’t get a pic as I was already eating when it came out. For my protein selections I ordered the Garlic Shrimp and Teriyaki Chicken.

My boyfriend ordered the Harami Miso Skirt Steak…

Everything came out seasoned and marinated well. My boyfriend also ordered a Snapper Dish that came in foil to steam. Our hostess told us how long everything needed to be cooked and we got started on preparing our proteins. It was super easy…

Everything was delicious, not too fatty, very well seasoned and tender. I didn’t get a chance to snap a pic when everything was done because I was famished and wanted to eat lol. There were three different types of sauce to dip the meats in which were also pretty good. I like the concept of cooking your own meat as you can prepare it exactly like you want it. I really wanted to try the Green Tea Crepe Cake for dessert but they were all out so I had a Carmelized Bananas in Chocolate Dish with Vanilla Ice Cream which was extremely tasty. My honey bunch ordered the Baileys & Ice Cream with Pretzel, minus the pretzel (not shown.)

Overall, we really enjoyed our meal. The portion sizes were decent to feed one person but if you are sharing you may want to order extra of your favorites. The prices were very good for happy hour but it can get very expensive ordering a la carte during regular hours. I highly suggest going during the few happy hour periods during the day to get the best bang for your buck.