10416 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, AB T5J 4R5

Gyu-Kaku is a Japanese BBQ restaurant that opened up last year in Edmonton. I was invited give it try, so my meal was complimentary but I first experienced Gyu-Kaku on my trip to Japan, where it originated, and it was delicious, so it was an easy yes. Over time, they’ve gained international fame and have hundreds all across the world. It’s located downtown on Jasper, so parking is limited to the street parking. On event nights, I generally try to park just one block south of Jasper, where you’re not subject to event night pricing.

Gyu-Kaku offers a unique dining experience, in that you get to cook your own meat! The interior is relatively large, with varying table sizes. With the personal grill, it makes dinner very interactive and fun. There are two ways to dine at Gyu-Kaku, where you order a-la-carte, or a set menu (or both in our case). We were recommended the Premium Meat Lovers ($88, but $96.50 value), which we ended up getting, and a few additional items a-la-carte.

Some of the extras we got was the Gyu-sushi, the cheese corn, and the tuna tataki to start. Tuna tataki is one of my favourite appetizers to get at any Japanese place! This one had nice and thick pieces of tuna, drizzled with ponzu, and served with onions and crispy garlic. Very tasty to eat! The Gyu-sushi is premium roast beef sushi with a splash of Japanese shoyu barbecue sauce and served with kuki-wasabi. Tasty, but the tuna tataki was by far better. The cheese corn was enjoyable to nibble on in between bites of our griled meats. It wasn’t as rich and cheesy as some of the other cheese corn that I’ve had at other restaurants, which was nice since our meal was otherwise quite decadent!

The combos usually come with Miso soup and a Gyu kaku salad. The salad is mixed vegetables, daikon radish, hardboiled egg slices, and served with a sesame house dressing. To be honest, we left this towards the middle/end of our dish, we were too interested in grilling our meat and eating the other food! We did have some and it was pretty good! I liked the sesame dressing.

Another appetizer that comes with our dish was the chicken karaage. Thick pieces of Japanese fried chicken served with a chili mayo. This was light and crispy and delicious.

Another dish that comes with our set is the Beef Sukiyaki Bibimbap. It comes with thin pieces of Sukiyaki-marinated beef, rice topped with white onions,
green onions, and sesame. Served in a sizzling hot stone bowl. Tasty! The rice at the bottom gets a little bit crispy and quite delicious. This was also nice too because it gave us some rice to eat with our grilled meat!

As our meat came, our server told us the recommended cook times for each slice of meat, and where it was best to cook on the grill. Most of the meats come with some sort of marinade, but there are also some table condiments to choose from; Ponzu, Spicy, and sweet soy. My favourite was the spicy, because it gave the meats a little boost in flavour.

The Premium Meat lovers combo comes with several of their ‘Must-trys’ which was a nice. It comes with Filet Mignon, Gyu-Kaku Kalbi Short Rib, Harami Skirt Steak, New York Steak, Chicken Thighs, a Mushroom Medley, and Broccoli.

All of the meats were really tasty! The filet mignon is a leaner cut of meat, but was very tender. The kalbi was so juicy and marbled, and served with a premium soy sauce. The Harami Skirt steak is one of their best sellers and is 21-day aged skirt steak. The New York Steak was lean with a nice fat cap. The chicken thighs were marinated in a basil sauce and was actually very surprisingly juicy and succulent. The vegetables are served in an aluminium pouch, and the broccoli served with butter to steam up. We also got an order of the duck breast which was very tender and delicious as well

Overall, everything here was very high quality and tasty! I really enjoyed my experience. We were absolutely stuffed and didn’t really need the extras. I would say for $88 for two people, it’s a pretty good deal. You get an interactive and fun dinner. I enjoy cooking at home a lot, so this is also a fun way to share that experience with your partner. Definitely check it out if you haven’t been! (I’d also opt to choose things a-la-carte next time. They have a fair amount of seafood which I think would be tasty and fun to grill as well!)

Disclosure: The food from this post was gifted to us, however our opinion remains unbiased and based on our own experience.