The Weekly Eater

BY NADINE KAM

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NADINE KAM / NKAM@STARBULLETIN.COM Pesto-coated shrimp, sausages and garlic-topped skirt steak are some of the ingredients that go on the grill at Gyu-Kaku restaurant.

If you sample Gyu-Kaku,
prepare to be standing in line

A night-side co-worker suggested I check out Gyu-Kaku restaurant to confirm that it's safe for him to eat there. That's right, the contemporary restaurant critic is the equivalent of the royal taster, the laboratory guinea pig and the SWAT team, in making sure the coast is clear for everyone.

Let me be the one to stock up on Mylanta, risk encounters with soggy burgers and flaccid veggies so that the collective opu remains untainted by such food bombs. Don't lie to me; you were waiting, too.

Gyu-Kaku seemed especially risky. With its fortress-like wooden facade, it's nearly impossible to see what's going on inside while driving by. Located in the Blackfield Building on Kapiolani Boulevard, it replaces a string of nondescript restaurants. In the three weeks it's been open, I never saw one person walk through its doors ... until the night I decided to go. It was packed with a crowd comprising people whose first language is Japanese, and there was a huge waiting line to get in. (Manager Riki Kobayashi says Gyu-Kaku is the fastest-growing chain in Japan.)

Coincidentally, the crowd came just as Gyu-Kaku introduced a summer special of Kirin draft at 99 cents a glass, and house wine (Merlot, Chardonnay or white Zinfandel) at $1.49 per glass. The prices are good from 5 to 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. to closing Mondays to Fridays through Aug. 31.

If word spread fast through the Japanese community, sadly for them, it will be matched by the local crowd. There's no finders-keepers law that applies to restaurants, so get used to that line. It's fabulous even without the booze factor.

THE DRAW AT this yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant are the tabletop charcoal braziers that allow you to cook marinated meats over glowing red coals for a taste of the backyard grill any night of the week.

There are plenty of booths offering privacy. Back booths offer little shelves for your shoes if you want to kick them off and really get cozy. That's the point: good food, combined with the warmth of the fire and company of friends or family.

If you're unlucky enough to arrive late, you'll have to sit at a communal table, where an overhead bank deflects the heat right back on your face. In this case it's not very pleasant. Also, the wait help is young, inexperienced and easily distracted. Send one off for another drink or dish, and they'll forget on the way to the kitchen.

Oh, and leave your clumsiest friends at home. In such close quarters they're likely to drop food on the grill, sending oil splatters on your hands and clothes. Tongs are offered for grabbing food off the grill, but it's best if everyone is proficient with chopsticks. And don't get so carried away in conversation that you forget you're cooking, lest you leave hungry with too many crusty, inedible koge pieces.

Prices are about $4.95 to $6.95 per selection. It seems inexpensive but portions are small, at about 5 ounces (still more than the 3 ounces generally deemed nutritionally acceptable for one sitting), so plates can add up. The payoff is in diversity. Instead of having to choose between one kalbi or cow tongue entree at $20 each at other restaurants, for about the same price you can get both, PLUS chicken and salmon. The only way you'd do better is to go to a buffet.

Try tender rib eye ($4.95) with a traditional soy (ta're) or miso marinade. The firmer skirt steak might be paired with the garlic sauce ($5.45), which is processed to the consistency of applesauce, and quite mellow once it's been cooked. The two meat portions, with a side order of seaweed soup ($2.25 cup, $3.95 bowl) or tofu salad ($5.25), would be enough for two light eaters. The typical male could polish off four meat orders easily.

Also tempting was the shrimp (four pieces, heads attached) with a choice of ta're, shio (white soy), basil pesto or garlic sauces. I opted for the pesto shrimp ($6.45), but with the shells on, the sauce sticks to the grill and not to the flesh, so wasn't as flavorful as it could have been.

Other grill choices are chicken breast, sausages, calamari and scallops. An order of assorted vegetables ($6.45) includes thin slivers of kabocha pumpkin, which becomes crunchy on the grill, onions, mushrooms, eggplant and zucchini. You'll have to fight for the lone cherry tomato and 2-inch corn cob.

For dessert, most gravitate to the dorayaki ice cream ($3.45) -- your choice of vanilla, green tea or red bean ice cream -- served with a couple of pancakes that get nice and toasty on the grill.

Another mission accomplished.

GYU-KAKU 1221 Kapiolani Boulevard, suite 105 (parking in back, first level) / 589-2989 Food Service Ambience 1/2 Value Hours: 5 to 11 p.m. Mondays to Thursdays, 5 p.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays, and 5 to 10 p.m. Sundays Cost: About $15 to $20 per person without drinks

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Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews run on Thursdays. Reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Bulletin. Star ratings are based on comparisons of similar restaurants:

	excellent;
	very good, exceeds expectations;
	average;
	below average.

To recommend a restaurant, write: The Weekly Eater, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or send e-mail to nkam@starbulletin.com