Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ — Restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga

I was looking forward to this initial visit, as my family members are Japanese natives and there isn't much in the choice of Japanese food in the area. I personally feel that 3 stars is already generous, please read below.

Admittedly, I was quite disappointed in the visit. We had a reservation on Sunday @ 6pm, which is quite a busy time. We were seated quickly, waters were brought right away, and the idea of the Japanese grill was explained, and we put in our first order.

35 minutes in, our order of the meats have not come out yet. These are raw meats plates that are brought to you for you to cook on the indented table grill. While waiting, I flagged down a server to ask how much longer we have to wait, they mentioned that the kitchen was backed up, apologized and asked for patience. I didn't quite understand the wait given that it was "raw" meats that we were waiting for.

When our meats finally came out (40+ min in), it was quite evident that they had not anticipated for the crowds that evening. The intestines that we ordered were still half frozen, all the meats that came were watery, and unfortunately, that does affect how the meats will cook and taste.

The seasoning and marinades on the meats were nice. They also provide ponzu, sweet soy sauce, and a hot sauce for dipping. I asked for some salt, which is typical when you order meats, and the waiter came out with salt in a rice bowl. Not sure why, but maybe they should invest in salt shakers. They don't have pepper.

We paid $42 dollars per person that evening for the mid-level AYCE. I'm glad that we didn't go for the premium AYCE which will run you $50+. The wait times were horrendous and meats were not up to par. Hopefully this is a one time occurrence, but with the price point, I don't know if I, nor you, should "test" out the quality again. The quality should have been when I visited this...

The worst dinning experience for a long period of time! 😡

Saw this place when we shopped at Victoria Garden last time, so we decided to go and try it on tonight, and we wished we didn’t 🤦🏻‍♀️

Remark: we did the supreme all you can eat, and which is $70.00/person for 90 minutes.

1 ) It took the server more than 10 minutes to greet us and take orders for our drinks. (Giving the doubt that he was too busy) 2 ) took over 15 minutes before he start bringing us the 1st round of order. 3 ) We have to hunt for our server to get our drinks refilled. (Glass has been emptied for at least 10 minutes before we started to get his attention) 4 ) Start giving us attitude at the beginning, but we didn’t think too much until he started to roll his eyes when we placed our orders for the second round. 5 ) Missing item on each order (we have only ordered 3 rounds since each order takes 1015 minutes) 6 ) Every table gets the grill net changed 12 times but us… (we were the only Chinese in that dinning section, not sure if that matter) 7 ) the avocado was brown in the salad. 8 ) Ice cream was served without utensil (maybe he assumes we eat everything with chopsticks 🥢) 9 ) we have to hunt him down to take the card when we were trying to pay 15 minutes after he left the bill. 10 ) the food quality is not stable. Example, garlic shrimp was served nicely in the first round, but when we ordered it again, it was served like they just dumped the order on the plate.

If you worry so much that Chinese don’t tip, maybe be you should consider adding tip guarantee to ease your worry.

*We did tip about 18% just because we’re in the states, but definitely won’t be going back...

This restaurant is one of reason why we usually eat at home. I bought a Groupon discount because we ate the Pasadena location (2 Years ago) and the food seemed good especially for $36 for two. Not knowing there was a location in Rancho Cucamonga which was closer to my house I took the deal. To start the server took about 10min before even acknowledging our presents. To be honest I didn't even know who our server was. Then the food came. The miso soup was good! The Karage (fried chicken) was good but they used a spicy Chipotle sauce to dip not what I was expecting. A meat and rice dish came, and my first impression was that the rice tasted like Uncle Ben's long grain rice (Nasty). Then we got white and garlic rice and that also tasted cheap. I ask the manager whom appears on the company website, is this Japanese rice. The manager said yes, but didn't know the brand name of rice they use (If they used a good Japanese rice the manager would know because the cost is high). The meat was not allot by my standards, and for the first time ever, I got meat that was salted and peppered at a cook for your self restaurant. I will admit that I may be a snob, because my wife is Japanese, I have travel to Japan many times and I eaten that these types of restaurants in Japan. But for $90 (groupon discount out the door $17+ $10 tip) that is allot of money to spend for cheap rice and seasoned raw meat. I would love to recommend this type of restaurant to non Japanese like myself, but it is...