Gyu-Kaku (Waikiki, HI)

Looking for restaurants before the trip, we came across Gyu-Kaku. Gyu-Kaku is a Japanese BBQ restaurant, done Korean-style where you grill your own meats at the table. They also have a lunch and dinner happy hour, where the drinks and certain plates are much cheaper.

We started with a few cocktails, the Asian Pear Mojito and Paradise Punch. Both drinks were tasty, but Asian Pear Mojito was definitely our favorite. One can easily drink a lot of these in a short period of time if not careful.

I ordered ala carte off the happy hour menu, while Kristen ordered the Petit Kaiseki. Her meal started with a salad, seaweed soup, marinated bean sprouts, and edamame. None of these were particularly good, though not offensive either. The edamame, which came out later with the meats, were tasty.

Onto the star attractions: the meats. I ordered filet, NY strip steak, and corn with butter (not pictured).

With Kristen's Kaiseki she received Berkshire Pork Sausage, Shrimp with garlic, Scallop, Beef Tongue, Short Rib with garlic, and marinated skirt steak.

Time to grill! The potatoes and corn come in foil pouches so they steam as you grill. You use the tongs for the raw meat, and your chopsticks to take the cooked meat off the grill.

Each of these meats are eaten over rice, and can be accented with three different sauces: Ponzu, Sesame, and Spicy. My favorite was the ponzu, followed by the spicy. For the meats, our favorites were the filet and marinated skirt. I also enjoyed the pork sausage a lot.

Kristen also got an order of Haupia with her meal. Haupia is a coconut milk based pudding. We weren't very impressed with this dessert, as didn't have any sweetness to it. We weren't sure if it was intended to be like this, or if it was a mistake. Fortunately, it was very small.

We also ordered the macadamia nut ice cream. Although we were full, we managed to polish this off without any problems. Large macadamia nuts were dispersed throughout, and Kona coffee was sprinkled over the top.

We were very happy with out meal at Gyu-Kaku. From browsing their website, it looks like they just opened up a new location in Chicago. I can see myself returning during the happy hour again to try more of the various offerings.