Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ — Restaurant in Overland Park

If you can overcome the cognitive dissonance that arises from paying $50/pp to cook your own food, this place is good-ish. It's good in class. I'll elaborate:

Grill it yourself style restaurants appear somewhat uncommonly in the Midwest. They are more common on the coasts, while often couched in the aura of Korean or Mongolian or whatever. To like this place, you must be comfortable with the idea you are paying for the novelty of the experience. My 11 year old is; I would prefer to pay someone else to cook my food when I eat out. Moving past that notion.

For what it is, and in comparison with similar style restaurants, I had the following observations:

1. The beef dishes lacked enough flavor distinction to make higher quality cuts shine. My wife preferred the chuck to the ribeye simply because it was easier to manipulate with tongs and did not taste bad comparatively;
2. The pork belly preparation was underwhelming when it could have been the star of the show. I wouldnhave preferred a cured element or a smoked element to make the cut shine rather than taste like thin pork chops;
3. Sides and accouterments are the real sleeper-crowd-pleasers here. The fried calamari - lovely. The gyoza - yum!
4. What joker said the smores were their favorite? Really?! It was literally a basic smore. A novel idea executed with basic effort.

This place is great for a fun night out, or a more social-food setting - office happy hour, get to know you date night, birthdays, or anything involving pre-teens. I don't think it offers a particularly great value for what you actually get, but that is not uncommon for this type of restaurant. The manager told us an all-you-can eat option is coming soon, which is more in line with similar spots on the West Coast. Frankly, I didn't think it was necessary, as we were all very content with the quantity of food we ordered. The all-you-can-eat model would be a better sell for some folks at this price point, at least creating the illusion of good value.

They offer some chicken options, some seafood options, and you can make it through gluten free, excepting miso soup (which was a bit overly salty).

Ambiance was fine, but nothing special. Table service was fine; the manager was exceptional - attentive, friendly, on-it.

In summary, the food is good-ish and the experience is fun, if you are into this sort of thing. I think at this price point there is many better Japanese restaurants in the area, and I'm pretty sure they will even cook the...

We experienced many issues when we visited this evening. To start off they told us our reservation was not ready because they overbooked. They are doing reservations only due to COVID so people are not packing into the restaurant. So they break their own precaution by overbooking and having groups of people waiting in their small waiting area near bar, not a terrible thing as it was not a long wait but ridiculous considering the reason for it all and the additional problems.

We had a party of 4, me and my wife ordered a la carte and our friends ordered the pre planned meal. Their salad came out with one of the two appetizers me and my wife ordered. Then one of my meat dishes came out and nothing else. 5 plus minutes go by nothing else is brought out, and no sign of waiter. When he comes to our table to ask how things are we let him know nothing else was brought out. He came back with something about the ordering or computer system issue. A bit goes by and the other appetizer we ordered came with the rest of our meat order, but not our rice order. Half of the meat order of our friends came along with their rice. Again time goes by before our waiter comes back to check on us and we have to inform him of the missing dishes.

At this point they then had still forgot to bring out the rest of the meat dishes to our friends, the chicken, shrimp, and an additional beef plate. So again more delays apparently. On top of all of that the grill was turned off before they finished cooking their food and had to get the waiter to come back to turn it on. They had thought it would be hot enough still to cook, which it was not. After all of the issues no real apologies for all of the mistakes, no discount or even a token complimentary dessert. It was their soft opening, which means mistakes will happen. With that said though this was just too much for the first time without them going above and beyond to ensure a great experience to bring you back in.

Food was very good but for the price point it definitely was not enough. It is more of an experience place to eat to me. You can get a great steak, much better portions all around, and much better service for the same...

[06/30 @ 12:30pm] This is a special shoutout to Katarina AKA: "Kat", her customer service is a rare gem! She speaks calmly (this makes me feel like I'm not taking too much of her time) & very attentive towards her customers. She is very observant & pro-active with your needs whether if you needed a refill for your water, grabbing you some napkins w/hand-wipes, bringing my check, & asking me if I need anything else like to-go box. I finally do not have to worry about having to tell someone my needs bc she is on the roll, call her "butter" just kidding! In addition, thank you management for the great improvement as well, when it comes to cleaning method post to customer's dining-in. I have taken notice of this young man who made sure to spray on the cleaning towel to clean tabes, rather than just spraying it on the table 1' apart which is bothersome. I applaud you all for the improvement in such a short period of time. Now, I can have a peace of mind giving you my 5 Stars!

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[06/19 @ 6:30pm] To the Management, Please make sure that your employees are mindful when cleaning tables or sweeping floors. This has happened to me & my family multiple times. I love dining here & I love the food, however when we are at the table, employees would clean right beside us and spray their cleaning bottle like we are not there. This made the atmosphere poor when it comes to your customers dining-in. I don't feel comfortable & I'm sure nor anybody dining-in with feeling, that the cleaning solution made it on their food. So, please just spray closer to the table so it is not spreading the fume. Thank...