Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ — Restaurant in Pasadena

First time at this Gyu-Kaku spot, and I have passed by several times. It is located in a nice location with convenient parking spaces nearby. Anywho, we walked in and were greeted warmly by the host and were seated promptly because of our reservation.

Less than a minute passed by, and our server stopped by, introduced herself, and explained pretty broadly about their menu. I believe she had 5 other tables, which we'll get to in a second. Asked us if we were ready to order, and I let her know that it was our first time there, and we just barely looked at the menu.

I was asking my girlfriend about the options of what we should eat and discussing the items available, and she stopped by again no less than a couple minutes later while we were still in a deeper conversation. No biggie. Let her know we still needed a bit of time, and she went off to talk to her other tables again.

After we ordered the Dine LA special for $25 each person and got the Spicy Addicting Cucumber (7/10), Japanese Fried Chicken Karaage (4/10), Gyu-Kaku Salad (6/10), Miso Soup (6/10), Takoyaki (6/10), Spinach Garlic (5/10), Broccoli (4/10), Bistro Hanger Steak (8/10), Garlic Shoyu Chicken Thigh (6.5/10), Spicy Pork (3/10), Green Tea Ice Cream (7/10), Matcha Tiramisu (2/10); we waited not to long before the items came out.

Started off with the appetizers which were nice except the Karaage Chicken which was to my surprise, not the way I was thinking a Japanese-style Karaage should have been cooked as well as the vegetables which were pretty sub-par. The Bistro steak was probably the only good item there as the chicken kept getting charred, and the pork flavoring was overly strong. The Spicy jalapeño Miso sauce made it almost uneatable with our palates. (A normal person that likes spicy may enjoy this.)

Finished out with the Green Tea Ice Cream, which was slightly less flavorful in terms of green tea matcha, but still hit the spot because of the extremely spicy pork burning my mouth. The ice cream shape was surprisingly unique, too, so kudos on them. The Matcha Tiramisu, however, was a sad finish to our meal. It was probably sitting in the freezer too long or was left out in room temp, frozen, and left out again because there were ice crystals inside the dessert. It was also very crumbly, and the matcha cream's texture was a bit weird for us. Basically, it's too old to eat.

As for service, initially, Jenifer was very attentive and asked us if we had questions about the menu and / or if we were ready to order or not, which I don't mind at all. When dropping off certain items, she would inform us about how long to cook on the grill, which was very appreciative as well as time the course out relatively nicely. However, after most of the food was dropped off, contact with her almost became non-existent. She would stop by the table every 10 minutes or more to see if we were doing alright.

As a Japanese person, I like putting empty dishes near the edge of the table and keeping them organized for easy taking. Paired with my serving experience with food industry jobs, I love it when guests make it easier for me to pre-buss their table. However, the dishes were left untouched for about 25 minutes or so when we were at our "meat-eating" phase, so that irked me a bit. I also left our empty water cups near the edge so they could be refilled but wasn't done until after we ate the spicy pork, which by then would have been very nice to have.

It was relatively underwhelming to eat here at Gyu-Kaku, but that's okay. Pasadena has a lot of great stores...

This is the worst interaction with a manager I have ever had in my life. I've written a great review about this location before, but now my thoughts have completely changed and we'll never be coming back.

We were a party of 8, so we were seated with two grills. Our friend's grill was working perfectly fine, but ours.... it took 45 minutes to "steam" the beef on top. 20 minutes in, I flagged to a staff passing by and he said he'll get someone. 10 more minutes go by, I flagged it to the waitress who dropped off more meet, that we couldn't cook since we were still trying to cook our first plate of meat, and she said "oh it could be the skirt around the grill" and then took it off with her bare hands. That should've sounded the alarm bell to her that obviously our grill was not hot enough if she could touch something that had been in direct contact with it and not be hurt. Then 10 more minutes go by, no improvement and the beef on the grill was finally a safe temperature and we started on our next plate of beef. The restaurant recommends 45-90 seconds per side, and at that point we were at 40 minutes for just this plate of beef. Our waiter, who had not stopped at our table ONCE, since this all started, I had to flag him down after he dropped off something for the table next to us and tell him our grill wasn't working. He finally put his hand over the grill and realized, oh yes, something was wrong. He then grabbed the bus boy and had him help us. At this point, we're an hour into sitting down, have eaten one plate of meat, and technically are supposed to be kicked out in 30 minutes. The bus boy who came over to fix the grill had to use a toothpick to stick into individual flame spouts to clear our the crud and char that had been stuck and causing the flame to not come through, it was DISGUSTING. I flag that to the waiter and ask to see a manager.

25 minutes go by and the manager comes to drop off food to our table. I wait for him to say anything, and he doesn't so I finally ask if he is the manager. It's obvious he is because he wearing a completely different uniform and his name tag has "manager" on it. He says yes, and then I begin to tell him our problems with the wait time, that none of the staff believed there was something wrong with the grill until the 3 person and we had been waiting over an hour now to eat just one plate of meat, and the fact that I had asked to talk to him and he didn't come to do so when I had done so twice. The manager immediately became defensive and backpedaling saying he didn't know that he was supposed to come to talk to me specifically and that he did fix the grill and that side of the table looked to be having a good time laughing. I was furious, of course that side of the table was having a good time, they didn't have the problems, and he should've asked the whole party and table how we were doing instead of assuming. It was very clear we were one party and one table. He just said he would go check with the staff what happened and be back. I did not appreciate the way he spoke to me condescendingly and that I was in the wrong for trying to get something fixed in the first place. It was also very clear he had never handled an upset diner before because he continued to evade my questions and backpedal. I never once heard an apology from him. This was only my first interaction with him, the second one is worse, but Google won't let me write anymore so I wrote it...

We came in and the place was busy. I asked the hostess for a table for three and I was told the wait would be 15 minutes; not bad so we decided to wait. Our table was ready within 30 minutes. We ordered the Gyu-Kaku Course ($60 for two people). Next time I want to try the Meat Lovers.

Food For starters we got the Edamame, Gyu-Kaku Salad, Assorted Appetizers, Miso Soup, and Sukiyaki Bibimbap. The Edamame was seasoned and served warm. We didn't really eat the salad because we were saving our appetite for the main course; the peanut salad dressing was good. For the assorted appetizers, it came with two fried fish ball, two gyoza and two rice sushi with spicy tuna; nothing special. The Sukiyaki Bibimbap comes in a cast iron bowl, the rice is mixed with onions and beef. Chicken Cheese Fondue came with a tin foil bowl filled with pieces of cheddar cheese. We placed it on the grill to wait for it to melt. Then we dipped the chicken (marinated in pesto) in the cheddar cheese; I personally didn't like it very much. I only ate one of the Shrimp Garlic, it was okay. The short rib and skirt steak would be my favorite. Spinach Garlic and Mushroom Medley was wrapped in foil, we placed it on the grill for four minutes (two minutes on each side); I enjoyed the garlic flavor.

Desserts For desserts we got six gram crackers and small pieces of Hershey chocolate bar with 3 sticks of marshmallows. My daughter loved this the most!! We melted the marshmallow, placed it in the middle of the gram crackers and chocolate, then we squeezed it. Ta Da .... chocolate marshmallow s' more, it was delicious!!

Customer Service I was not very happy because the waitress didn't come as often to check on us. We had to find her if we needed something.

Tip ~Call for reservations

Notes ~Street Parking and...