Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ — Restaurant in Arlington

Huge fan of Japanese yakiniku, which is why I'm so excited that Gyu-Kaku is now so close to home. Gone are the days of eating GK on vacation in CA and NYC.

I was lucky to get a table of 4 during the soft opening and was pleasantly delighted in the experience. I've gone to other restaurant soft openings before and most of the time the service was abysmal and the food was cooked just a bit off. I was expecting something similar this time around but instead received excellent service from my server. My family and I asked him to walk us through the menu and provide recommendations. He was very knowledgeable of all the food, the cuts of meat, and what sauces go with what. The service from the hosts, the bartenders, and the servers were very friendly with smiling faces and perfectly spoken Japanese greetings.

Now onto the food. My family and I opted to go a la carte instead of ordering the prix-fixe BBQ courses. Since I have eaten at GK before, I knew exactly the types of meat that I liked. However, if you are new, please do enjoy the prix-fixe courses. Another plus is that you are in charge of the grilling, which allows each diner the ability to cook their meats to their preferred level (I like mine rare plus). My go-to courses are:

Apps: Spicy Cold Tofu, Shrimp and Mushroom Ahijo, fried bacon chips, fried crunch calamari, and the Japanese Fried Chicken.

Meats: Kobe Style Kalbi Short Rib, Beef Tongue with the scallion sauce (must get the sauce), Harami in Secret Pot (My favorite), Bistro Hanger steak (2nd favorite), Japanese Pork Sausage, and Prime Garlic Shoyu Steak.

Dessert: Lady M Green Tea Mille Crepes (AMAZING and the only place in the DMV to get it).

Since yakiniku is brand new to the area, a lot of diners will make comparisons to Korean BBQ. Please keep in mind that GK offers higher quality cuts of meat and a more modern atmosphere. Additionally, the grillers downward vacuum suction keeps the hazy smoke out of the restaurant space (no smoke haze as you dine) and leaves your clothes smelling like how you came in. Perfect for the area as you can hit the bars and not worry about your clothes smelling like BBQ meat.

My only gripe with my experience is that our server was not attentive enough with our Harami Steak in Secret Pot. This is the only meat that you can't grill yourself because the server has to cut this slab into slices when it is done. Our server left and didn't come back until later, leaving the Harami a little more charred than we liked. Being that the Harami in Secret Pot is my favorite, the most expensive meat option, and the only meat that requires the servers attention, management needs to work with them to address this issue going forward. I'm sure as the servers get more experience, this won't be a problem anymore.

Enjoy this amazing restaurant in the heart of Clarendon. It's truly the only place in the DMV for Japanese yakiniku. I would come back just for the Lady M Mille Crepes. ...

when we first time visit this place couple days ago for dinner, it's a very amazing experience with heejin(bartender), zach(the server) and ayes(the manager) they are very super friendly and make our dinner amazing, then we think about comeback during mother's day for lunch because they will open during lunch time on mother's day and they also have a special kind of beef that we love it's a kobe style beef so we decide to comeback yesterday. But this time we got POOP SERVICE from the beginning that we arrived until we done here what happen : i got an email said they will do happy hour since the restaurant open until 8.30 p.m but when we arrived around 1.30 p.m and ask about happy hour the bartender(james) didn't know about that offers and when our table almost ready, we ask for another bottle of sake and a pitcher of beer because we wanna enjoy that with our food in the table, because the happy hour ONLY in the bar so we order the drink from the bar and the bartender say "you can order in the table for the sake and beer, oh ya you wanna "take advantage" from happy hour" excuse me 😠 take advantage ? that's not a good words!!!! they make offers so you think i am gonna pay more for the exactly same stuff ???? seriously ???? that's rude!!! when we visit last time our bartender forget to gave us our bill and we want our bill from the last time, and we ask the server(bianca) if they can gave us our bill, and she said she will talk to the manager and in couple minutes the manager come to our table and we ask if we can get our last bill that we paid last time and he said "he will help to email it to me so i just need to gave him my information in a little piece of paper and he said just give that information to him and when i am done writing my information i ask for the manager to one of the server who just pass our table and suddenly our server(bianca) start telling us that they are so busy and have no time to handle my last bill and she telling me that i have to comeback another day to handle my last bill problem and stop asking for the manager, she don't even ask me what i want she just so rude telling me that they are busy and i think Gyu Kaku in new york more even super busy than them and the one in new york still do excellent service to everybody and even though they are so busy they cannot be rude to customers!! and also all i want i just wanna give the paper with my information to the manager and that's it!! it's just take 2 second!!! DEAR GOD!!! and i have never ask for the manager before he came to our table so be polite please!!!! the server(bianca) gave us bill before ask for it and we don't even done with our food we still have another dish that we don't grill yet!! it means she wanna kick us out?????? SO RUDE!!!! i have the picture for that below👇🏻the cover bill on the right side! because of that i am NOT GONNA COMEBACK TO THIS PLACE ANYMORE!!!! it's REALLY BAD...

Second visit here at Gyukaku, this time and everything went very well. The key is to ignore pork and chicken, just focus on beef.

Food: Harami in Secret Pot - Everyone's favorite. $26 maybe a bit pricey but this 1/2 pound slab of quality beef made up for it. It can easily be share with 2 people. You can taste quality in this steak, extremely tender and rich in flavor.

Prime Garlic Shoyu Steak - Lean and tender. Slightly more salty marinated than other ones which makes it even better to eat with plain white rice.

Prime Kalbi Short Rib - These extraordinary tender short rib goes very well with ponzu sauce.

21-day aged premium Sirloin - Hearty and flavorful.

Garlic Mushroom - Foil wrapped steamed button mushroom. Aromatic, buttery and garlicky. Such a great side dish, you may need a beer for this.

Service: John, our server was very cool and extremely polite. He offer us proper recommendations and some of his personal preferences. Efficient customer service as good as the first time I went.

Personal comments:

After heavy bbq meals from most kbbq spots, your hair and clothes will end up smells like intensified grilled meat. But Gyu-kaku got that cool technology down draft system of smokeless roaster. All the smoke will not rise up to the top and devoured you face. I felt quite fresh after the meal.

Another thing about Gyu-kaku. This place is the alternate answer for izakaya (which we don't have any in Northern Virginia). A cool lively spot to hang out, eat and drink with your friends, co-workers and so on. Except it's on expensive side with small portions but you get your money's worth for fresh, higher quality meats, seafood and vegetables.

Most likely going to update my review again in the future. I hope this location will be able to get imported Wagyu beef later on. I'm keeping my...