Fine Dining - Fantasy Birthday Brawl at Gyu-Kaku

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

It's Michael's 34th birthday dinner with almost a dozen friends! Michael & Garrett speculate why the bathroom is deafening Garrett sides with the waiter as a Dungeons & Dragons battle breaks out in the restaurant JUB will annoy your friends to ensure they're on time to their appointments 10 year-old Luke was snubbed by Gyu-Kaku in this week's Munchkin Menu Musings segment Michael & Garrett go in-depth on the expansive menu at Gyu-Kaku, even if they aren't always sure what they're eating   Get our 5 Survival Tips for Casual Dining at www.finediningpodcast.com!   Send us your Gyu-Kaku stories at [e-mail].   Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @finediningpodcast   Let us know where we should go next by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts. We read every one!   Next time on Fine Dining: Rainforest Cafe! If you have ever worked for Rainforest Cafe and have a story to share, or if you’d like us to hear your child’s review of the Rainforest Cafe kids menu, send it to [e-mail].

Welcome to the Fine Dining Podcast, the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America. I'm your host, Garrett Zwerk. And I'm your host, Michael Ornelis. And we are hunting for the perfect 5.00 out of 10. Out of 10, we're looking for the most mediocre restaurant. We're trying to find a bar for you people that we can use as the measuring stick of mediocrity. Exactly.

It's like we want to save words and say, you know what, that's better than Olive Garden. So we will know that's a good restaurant. Which Olive Garden is currently the standard bearer of mediocrity sitting at a 5.10 out of 10. Wow. It's so close. We rated it on atmosphere, service, and food. Much like we rate every restaurant on atmosphere, service, and food.

And you can look on our Instagram to see the chachki of mediocrity, the wall chachki, combining all the parts from the walls of all these places that is also our running tally, our scorekeeper. And you'll see Olive Garden plastered close to right that 5.00 in the middle, closest one we've got. Garrett, why are we doing this? We are men of the people. We are men of the people. And men of the people have birthdays.

Yes. I had a birthday. You had a birthday. I had a birthday. And this week's episode was a celebration of said birthday. We actually had 11 people dining with us. A large number for this type of food. It was a large number.

And I had a lot of fun. So thanks for putting that together. We went to Gukaku. Yeah. Thanks for being born. You're welcome, man. I thank your mom and I thank your dad for making you. Don't do that.

No. I mean. I'm just thanking your parents. The wonderful individuals they are. So I made it weird. Yes. I fall for your trap every time. It's almost like it's intentional.

Yeah. But you know what's weird? JBBQ. Yeah. Because it's not KBBQ. It's not KBBQ. That's what we're used to. Korean barbecue.

It's basically Korean barbecue. It's really the same thing. But Japanese. Yeah. I liked it. I did too. It was definitely different than what I'm used to but I thought this was a positive experience.

I did too. Fine dining party of two. And it looks like our table's ready. Your table is ready. Follow me. Have you tried our chicken breast? Serving pancakes and ribs. I recommend the spaghetti.

We're here to satisfy not to impress. Your table is ready. Complimentary butter and bread. These walls have growth signs. Knit, knack, cowboy hat, good luck hat, autographed guitar. Some crap from your city. Behold the trash key of mediocrity. Fine dining.

It's just fine dining. Fine dining. Two ledgers on the sign. It's just fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining.

Fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining. The ledgers on the sign aren't shining.

Neon flickering irregular timing. Identify the perfect vibe. Fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining. Fine dining. First impressions. This was tucked into a cute row of restaurants and shops downtown.

It was your classic downtown Saturday night hangout street. Yeah, it was like nice and lit up due to the bouquet of Beppo that looked like a casino, basically. Yes. Yeah. Yukaku was way more understated on the outside. Across the street, there was this really gaudy cigar shop, which, judging your outfit, you looked like a cartel member.

I looked very cartel. I had just a mustache, like a flowery button-up open shirt at the top. White pants. You would have been like a character on Better Call Saul. This was my first time in my life rocking white pants. I felt at home, Garrett. I felt true. But as we find out later, there's a universal experience.

What a risk that is when you're wearing white pants to a barbecue, to be fair, a Japanese barbecue, but still a place where there are meat splashes possible, a place where there are chopsticks hanging off of things that you could potentially bump with your arm and launch your chopstick onto your pants, and now you have a big brown stain in the front. I didn't love that part of it. I don't have any response to a frontal brown stain. I think we all know that it's just meat. I walked out of a yukaku.

I need to still train myself to say it correctly. It's yukaku, not gayukaku. My first impressions of this place, there were a few things. One, it smelled great from the outside. Oh yeah. Like walking by it immediately caught me and I was like, yeah, we're eating here. Hell yeah. I got excited about that.

It wasn't super crowded. Our table wasn't ready. They had a policy where you had to have half of your party there to show up. Speaking of which. Oh yeah. The bet. The bet. We wanted to know.

Which we actually didn't put stakes on. It was just pride. We wanted to know how many people would show up on time. Yeah. So we had a 630 meeting time, a party of what ended up being 11, and three of us drove together to get there. And we were wondering how many people will show up before 630, in addition to us. My guess was that we would get four more.

I said three. And that we would have, you know, four people running late. Garrett thought five people running late. And another three that drove together showed up at like, I don't know, three before. Yeah. Another one was showing up. If only she would have run. I was on the phone with her.

I was like, I need you to run. And she was like, no, don't do this to me. People aren't reliable in this day and age to show up at a place at the specified time. No, not at all. People are not reliable in Los Angeles, driving outside of Los Angeles, from Los Angeles, to show up at a specified time and place. Yeah. I mean, traffic is a variable that can obviously throw people off.

But it's also like, you've lived in LA for a long time. It's not like it's a surprise to you that there's going to be traffic. You learn how to work around it. But some people are always earlier on time, like us. Some people are fairly prompt people. I'm happy everyone showed up. I think the latest person we had already been seated for about 20 minutes before they showed up. But I think, didn't you call that happening?

I did call that he would be the last one there. Yeah. And the other 10 were all there. To be fair, was he coming from work? No. No. He has no excuse. Okay.

His text to me said, there's traffic. And I was like, oh, no. If only you weren't born and raised in LA to know that. Maybe I'm just bitter. I don't know. Thanks, Herbert, for coming out to celebrate my birthday. Thank you. I appreciate that.

And he came to bubblegump with us. Yeah. You got stuck in the little odd corner. So speaking, this table was made for 10 people. 10 people could comfortably sit here, four on each side and one each on the ends. Yeah. Herbert got stuck into a corner because he happened to be last and petite enough to sit there.

He is the smallest human at the dinner. Yeah. Did he make do it? You sat next to him. Yeah, no. He made do. He was able to eat, I assume. Yeah.

He made do. It was just a lot of scraps. He didn't have to fight for survival. He had to hold his fight while eating a lot of stuff. Did he really? Yeah. That was kind of sad. That is sad.

The other first impression I have, one, the table wasn't ready despite a reservation. Shame. I have a theory on that, actually. So the original reservation was for 14 people and we were given a table that comfortably sits 10. There's no way if we had 14 people, they would have given us that table. Oh, so you think they scrambled to give us a smaller space so that they could... Okay.

That makes sense. The other thing I noticed was you, with your phone out, measuring the decibel levels of the restaurant. Damn straight. Complain. That's the thing I do every restaurant now. You weren't complaining. You weren't complaining, but I guess this is my first or second time picking up on it.

I don't know if I mentioned it last time. I don't remember if I even noticed it last time, but this time it really stuck out to me. And I felt like it was way too much. That's right. This week's This Was Way Too Much Award, again, I am giving to you, Garrett, for being just way too much. Thank you.

I'm honored. I'm so like finally being able to download an app on my phone gets me recognition. Oh, recognition for me? Yeah. Yeah. You are way too much. Yeah. It's science.

Science is great. I want to know the exact decibel level of every restaurant we go to. You know what, Garrett? Not only are you way too much, you're also a fussy little boy. I am. Proudly. Garrett's a fussy little boy. Garrett's a fussy little boy.

Baby. Garrett's a fussy little boy. Garrett's a fussy little boy. I love a good song. Me too, especially a song about me. I don't care if it's positive or negative. Is it about me? Hell yeah.

Oh my gosh. All right, Garrett. Challenge accepted for a future episode. I'm going to make a Garrett diss track. Oh, let's go. You'll all see. It'll be hot fire. Not hot garbage.

And if you want more music from us, go back and check out our Olive Garden episode. Seven songs, seven original songs about our night at Olive Garden. Chocolate dip, raspberry. How aren't you full yet? What? You want to eat it all until your tummy's upset? Only upsetting thing here is in this chocolate glaze. It tastes just like latex.

It's a waste of space. What a magical time that was. It was good. Go back and listen to that. Anyways, yeah, I think that's about it for our first impressions. Friends being late, table not being ready. Smell is awesome. You checking the decibels.

I think that about covers it, right? And now a word from our totally not made up sponsor. Oh, hello. Once again, it's Job. I am back and I have a brand new job. The last one didn't work out too good because with all those coins in my mouth, people were starting to confuse me with those rap musicians and I do not have rhythm. So here I am shifting careers once again to bring you a product that you're not going

to want to miss. Are your friends always running late to your parties? Well, Job can hurry them along. Hurry them along. You got places to be. So what I do is make a paper airplane out of map quest directions and throw it in my general direction. The breeze will carry it to me.

Just got to tell me the time that you need them to be at the place that you want them to be at and I will figure the rest out. I have earned myself at least seven noteworthy restraining orders in my lifetime. So I am pretty good at tracking people down. So if they're just taking their time and they're lollygagging and you said 630, Job will make sure they get there by 630. Whether it means picking them up and wearing them like a backpack and jogging as fast as they can to the destination, I will deliver you your friends on time because they clearly

cannot do it themselves. If this sounds like a good idea to you, call me. Again, I don't have a phone. I am probably cutting myself off at the knees with that policy with how many different businesses I'm trying to start but I'm holding firm to it. Just yell out my name and I will come paragliding down because that's how I get around. I'm really good at landing in tight spaces because of all the time I've spent going through airport conveyor belts.

Okay, bye. You know the coolest thing about our table? What? There was a grill in the middle of it. Is the coolest thing about the table? Yeah, I guess the grill's cool but like the shelf right next to the table so we had an entire shelf to put our meat on. I don't know.

I mean, alright, yes. Cool. That was really cool. Not cooler than a grill on the table. I think it's cooler because I go out to get barbecue and all I want is more space to put my meat. It was so useful. It was very practical.

I liked it. I mean, I was sitting to where my back was to it so I had to like reach over my head to grab plates of raw meat that I now wanted to put on the grill which is kind of a weird experience and then you're also putting like your finished dishes up there and then when the staff comes by to like bust those dishes we're now like reaching back over our head and it's kind of like a weird handoff but it is convenient to have that much room to work with when your table space is kind of encroached upon by a grill in the middle. Are you being a fussy little boy right now?

No. Because it's not a complaint. I'm just saying it is a practical workaround for it. Do you think that's a fussy opinion? I don't think so. I think you're shoehorning it because you want to hear a song which is making me fussy. So go ahead, play the song. I don't agree with it.

Michael is a fussy little boy. No, I'm not, but I'll give you the music because you want to admit to being a fussy little boy other than mentioning the fact that there is inherently encroached upon space on the table. That's not a complaint. That's a fact. There's a grill in the middle. You're making me grumpy and you're doing it on purpose and I see what you're doing and

I don't like it and I'll call you on it. So they kind of had like an upscale Japanese style in its decor which was very minimalist. It was just kind of like the wooden designs with like those white cloths. Their kitchen area looked like it had like a nice wooden frame around the frame. It was an open air kitchen. It was an open air kitchen. Open viewing area. But the walls around us, it was just like brick painted gray.

Yeah, because it's probably the original walls of the area. It looked like a warehouse and I didn't like it was too barren to where the atmosphere in that regard didn't do it for me. The table and the menus were all sticky, which bothers me. That initially was, I made a note, the table was wet and it annoyed me. It was wet because it was 100 degrees outside and these were glasses of ice water placed onto the table for us and condensation. There's no way to avoid that.

I'm not talking about wet. I'm talking about sticky. Sticky and wet are two different things. Okay, I didn't get any sticky. Oh, I got sticky. It was on the menu. I didn't. Nothing sets apart a place more as being lower tier than having sticky menus.

I feel like this is your like second week in a row complaining about sticky menus. I feel like sticky menus have happened at about 50% of the places we've gone to. I have never noticed a sticky menu. Maybe I just, that's not a thing I notice. Maybe I am being fussy. We both have our things. Yeah, we're both fussy little boys at times. Yeah, the only things I noticed on the wall were advertisements for different beers.

Was it beers? Yeah, they were like, uh, I noticed one that was also like a sauce tier, basically. They had like a few sauces that they were also advertising. There were like three or four posters around the restaurant and they were like selling their sauce. It was like three for 30 or something. Yeah. Charge for sauce.

They were taped up signs like it wasn't it was tape. It was literal scotch tape. Dude. They were taped up signs. This was one of the weirdest things. Yeah. I saw at least five signs pointing in the direction of the washroom. There was blue painter's tape, literal arrows, followed by a literal arrow on the floor,

beating you from the front all the way back to the restrooms. Someone went in Microsoft Word. It looked like it was in Calibri or something. They just taped it to the wall with blue painter's tape instead of what do you expect them to do? Have a sign that says restrooms this way that's made like an actually made sign. Yeah. And just one of them, not five pieces of white paper, taped.

Sometimes you get sick of customers asking. There were things about it where this feels like a fancy place, but they kind of did little incremental things to just lower the tier of restaurant that it was in my mind to where I came into this being like this place is going to be stellar, like a nice you know, elite level experience. And they did a lot with the atmosphere to remind me this is still a national chain restaurant. This is not, you know, this is a place for middle aged Asian men to get drunk at. It is very good for this tier of restaurant.

Yeah, it is very good for this tier. It is approaching great, I would say. But there are things about the atmosphere that really gave me a reality check about, OK, I know what this place is. And for all the image they're trying to put out there, they're not fooling me. I agree. I took a note. There's a place in K-Town called Bulgogi Hut.

And wait, yeah, there's a place called Bulgogi Hut. It's amazing. One of my favorite, I guess, not top tier barbecue joints. Yeah. And I thought the interior of this yukaku was Bulgogi Hut by big lots. Interesting. I was sad at the lack of chachkis. I did.

They had cool light fixtures. They looked like they were made out of like a round, smooth stone. They weren't. I don't think I think they were kind of like imitation, probably like nice hard plastic or something. They looked good. I took a picture of those and it reminded me of like what the what the good alternative is to what Outback did with the low hanging lights.

Yeah. There were also some like hanging loose wires that were weird. I didn't know what was happening with those incomplete electrical work. Like one of them actually looked like the tip of a wireless mic. So are they trying to listen to us? You really did. They're their eavesdropping on us to make sure we're I don't know what they're trying to make sure we're not doing, but they're diligently

trying to make sure we're not doing it, whatever it is. Or they're just trying to verify that we are doing a thing. Yeah. Are they doing that thing? Are they enjoying themselves? Yeah, it's one of the two. Like are they better not be doing that thing? Or I really hope they're doing that thing.

Are they doing that thing? Again, what's the thing we don't know? I don't know. We'll never know. Oh, but speaking of fun things, dude, did you go to the bathroom? You know, we went to the bathroom together, Garrett. So you know the answer to that. And yes, we didn't even go to use the bathroom for its intended function.

After we had both separately gone and I had, you know, again, party of 11, multiple people went to the bathroom and came back and we're like, you guys are going to want to talk about the bathroom. We're like, what's special about the bathroom? It was so loud. Holy crap. It was like a concert in there. And actually we did post a video of Garrett and I entering this bathroom

and you can just hear how overwhelming the volume is. We posted that on our social media. That's right. We're on Instagram at Fine Dining Podcast. We're on TikTok at Fine Dining Podcast and you can email us whatever you want. Fine Dining Podcast at gmail.com. We might regret that, but I don't know. Maybe we won't.

The bathroom was about 20 decibels on average louder than the rest of the restaurant. Wow. I just, it makes me think what's going on over there. What's going on over there? What's going on over there? Should I wear it? Should I tan? What is going on over there?

Gukaku had an all-you-can-eat option, right? Yeah. We didn't take it. No. But they had it. I think they are trying to discourage people from quote, unquote, making room for more. Whether it's out the top or out the bottom,

they're trying to make that bathroom as unpleasant and intolerable to be in as possible to drive people back into the restaurant so that they're just like, okay, you don't want to spend time in here. Get back out there. Stop making space for more. I could not concentrate on anything in that bathroom. I would get self-cut. Like if I was in there doing number two or something like that, number three,

I would be like, I got to get out of here. Yeah. I would be losing my mind. I am also not a fan of that type of music. It was kind of like the pop punk from the- Oh my god, that was my jam. It was like straight up, like I felt like I was third row at an all-american rejects concert.

Oh my god. That's like my freshman year of college. Fall Out Boy drops their first album. And holy crap, everyone loves it. But do you want it in a bathroom at that decibel level? Do you? Or would you go back out to the restaurant? I'm going to go back out to the restaurant if I can't do in peace.

And that's what was going on over there. There actually was one other thing. I won't make it a full-on what's going on over there sort of situation, but there was just a storeroom full of boxes in the background. Yeah. If you just looked in the distance, if you looked past the bathrooms, maybe that's why they did the bathroom signs. They're trying to avert your eyes to their sloppy storage room that's right in eyesight

of the path you would take to go to the bathroom before turning right. Sir, please do not pee on our boxes. Yeah. Sir, we have a bathroom this way, so you don't need to relieve yourself into our box of shirts that we have. Are you a dog? I go zero thumbs for the atmosphere. Fancy upscale place in presentation.

Convenient but weird shelf behind us. Sticky menus, zero thumbs. I love how we just transitioned from the former topic to this. Garrett, don't acknowledge it and just give your thing. That's the comedy of it. Okay, so I'm going to give Gyukaku's atmosphere one thumb up because it was everything I expected. But at the same time, the only thing that stood out was the pure volume of the bathroom. And not in a good way.

So what did you expect then? Did you expect a two thumbs up and it got lowered to one? Oh, I expected about one thumbs up. Oh, I expected two thumbs up and ended up being kind of underwhelmed by the lack of not even the chachkification but the blandness of the decor. I was expecting one. I need positive chach-chachification. You can't say it, can you?

Chachkification. Chachkification. There it is. I'm expecting a positive chachkification. Chachkification. This is my favorite word. It's such a good word. Okay, I need that to bring it to two thumbs up.

Give me something else. If it looks okay. I needed it to get to one thumb. It didn't even get to one thumb for me. Zero thumbs for you, one thumb up. We'll be right back after a quick break. Hey, everyone. Thank you again for all the reviews.

They keep coming in. It makes me feel good. Like, I got to get my validation somewhere. I know there's nowhere else I get it. So, this week's favorite review is from Bree B08. A fine podcast. This show is hilarious. Love even more that between all the joking around in banter,

they actually give an incredibly thoughtful and thorough review of these restaurants. Five stars for me. Can't wait to listen to the next episode. Thanks, Bree B08. If you're listening, email us at finddiningpodcast at gmail.com and we'll send you a free t-shirt. For all you guys listening out there, same thing goes for you.

If we read your review on the podcast and you hear it, send us an email. You get a free shirt. Until next time, thanks. We've got Rusty Fact Roundup. Garrett, what do you got for us? Yee-haw! Oh, my gosh.

It's a roundup. I'm running up some cattle. I get it. We had a lot of beef. Speaking of cattle, Gyu Kaku loosely translates to horn of the bull. So we're there rounding up some cattle here. Gyu Kaku is a Yakiniku style restaurant.

Okay. Now, does that mean some controversy over that? A Yakiniku style restaurant is basically a Korean barbecue restaurant in Japan. So is that like the circular pit in the table that you cook on? Is that what defines it? Yes. But the controversy is between Korea and Japan. Koreans, I happen to be one of them,

claim that this style restaurant was founded by Koreans living in Japan post World War II. As part of this, we're saying, you know what? Korean barbecue came first. Right. We're the originators. On the other hand, many Japanese people are claiming it was invented beforehand by Japanese people. So we've got a bit of a culture war going on.

Because really, in Korean barbecue, Japanese barbecue, in concept, they're basically the same thing. So I'm just going to let people have their opinions. There are over 650 locations worldwide. Wait, is that a real number? That is a real number. There are, there's just that same amount in Japan and Japan's not a large country. Yeah.

I saw this is directly on their website. I saw it. I'm like, I don't believe this. How are there 600 locations in Japan? That's crazy. Even more craziness. This was only founded in 1996. So they've had 26 years to build up 600 locations over 650.

That's crazy. It was founded by the Reigns Group, which is one of the largest restaurant conglomerates in Japan. So means nothing to me. Like Japanese Darden. It's a very easily franchisable concept. Because in order to serve this food, there are three simple steps. One, open the package of meat.

All of their meat comes in vacuum sealed packages ready to go. Pre-marinated? Not pre-marinated. Okay. Step one, open the meat. Two, weigh the meat. Three, add the marinade to the meat. And then you just bring it out.

And then you just bring it out. It's a really simple. Well, that's just the prep. You still got to like, you know, have the equipment in place to be making these grill tables and stuff like that. Oh yeah. You need the right pluggage. The highest cost of this establishment.

Can you tell I'm not electrician and don't know what I'm talking about? That's what blew me away. It's a simple three-step process to have a high-end restaurant. Yeah. There's no skill involved in making this. And I love three-step processes. Atmosphere service food. Boom.

Three-step systems are the shit. Should we open up one of these restaurants? No. I'm not going to. Garrett, we're... This podcast is a lot of work. I don't have time to run a restaurant. So any of you out there that are looking for a strong franchise opportunity.

This has been Resty Facts Roundup. Dumb. Service. Michael, I think we had very different experiences with our server from what we've said. I wouldn't go so far as to say very different. I think you had a stellar experience and I had a good experience. Okay. So I wouldn't say my experience was bad, but I definitely was not without my issues.

I don't know. I don't want to say anything that sounds dramatic like grievances or like... It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad. But we're objectively reviewing a service. What was very funny to me is our server, we always try and catch our server's names and we're not always sharing them on the podcast. Like if they're like next tier like Keith and Brandon, our current reigning service champion,

we'll give a name because it's all glowing things. But for the most part, none of these people signed up to be on this podcast. So I'm trying to keep things anonymous unless it's just like... They were the greatest waiter. I liked our waiter here. I did, especially on a personal level. He was very friendly, made good conversation, seemed to actually care that I had a birthday. There was a cool note.

And he was trying to make it special. D&D came up and he mentioned he used to play a rogue in D&D back in the day. Like first edition or something like that. Yeah. No, it was cool because most of my D&D group was at the table with us. So that was very endearing. So I liked our waiter. The closest I'll tell anyone to his name was one of my friends was like,

Hey, I didn't catch his name, but I heard another server call out to him. And I could swear they called him corn. Q-U-O-R-N. H. Yeah, that's probably how a name like corn would be spelled in L.A. Corn. Or maybe his parents were just big fans of the band corn and it's with a K. Although if he played first edition D&D, he would have preceded corn by many years.

So probably not that. But anyway, so our waiter, corn, was great. Yeah, I really liked him as a person. Literally as we were leaving the restaurant, he popped his head out to like, again, wish me happy birthday, say bye, and that he appreciated it. Like genuinely, he was a very personable server. I had an amazing experience with him. If it were just me, I'd name him because he took the time.

I asked him, he gave me a very detailed explanation of the menu, the all you can eat, the courses, a la carte, and he went through each meat. So I didn't get that. I think maybe he did that for you, but we would get handed meats on our end of the table because you and I were on roughly different ends of the table. It was a longer table. This stuff came to my end of the table. I wanted to know what all the foods were.

And there was probably about a 10 to 12 minute gap where, because I was writing notes in my notebook for the different foods we were eating, and I wanted to make sure that I had the right meat that I was talking about. Because again, you're being brought a bunch of different plates of raw meat, basically, to put on a grill and cook. They all look similar. He did say what the meat was when he brought it out, though. He did not to me.

Okay, he did to me. There was a specific one where I was really wanting to get his attention before we put the last one on, but it just took so long that we ended up putting it on, eating it, and then we kind of reverse engineered it later. I was trying to be like, hey, which one was this? And it looked like it was the Harami skirt steak. They're number one seller. Easily the best thing that they had.

Yeah, it was just one of those things where I had questions. And maybe it's because I snubbed him. I did not snub him intentionally. He was about to talk about... Someone brought up D&D. He brought it up and asked me personally a question, but my attention's being pulled in so many directions, especially because, one, we hadn't ordered yet.

And so I'm just trying to make sure everyone's happy. I have one friend who doesn't want the all you can eat, so we're trying to figure out what to order best as a group to accommodate. Well, it's your birthday and you have a social responsibility to entertain your guests. I have a social responsibility. I also want to make sure everyone's getting what they want and getting what they can afford, because different things are at different price points and all that. So I'm just feeling pulled in all these different directions.

And he asked me a direct question about D&D. And everyone tells me that I made eye contact with them and then just ignored them and looked and started talking to other people. I have no recollection of this. I'm sorry that I did that. And if that's why I didn't get the personal, hey, here's what these meats are when you brought them to me. Look, I understand getting even revenges in my blood.

That's not true. I'm not a vengeful person. But yeah. So it's not like I was the perfect experience. I'm sure you came across as more engaged, which is probably why he engaged you personally more. But it did give us different experiences. I realized that Japanese barbecue,

someone at the table needs to be that person. It's every time you go to barbecue, someone needs to take charge of it with the server. Yeah. I think at a place like this, I just really want that curation. I want to know, and even if the tables long, do it at each end. And I feel like I had to, yes, I was told what the meats were, but I also took the time to flag him down and ask.

I tried. I think that's a lot of our seating position. I was on the end, clearly accessible. Yeah. You were more towards, I guess, the back. I mean, my back was to the wall, but I was as close to center of that side of the table as possible. And I was really just trying.

It was one of those things where I'd see, and it wasn't even just corn. It was all the servers. I would try and make eye contact with anyone, trying to indicate like, hey, I need you for something. I have a question or something like that. And I wasn't getting it from any of them. So that did paint my experience in a way that it's not,

didn't ruin my night by any means, but it's still a thing that I noticed where I'm like, I wanted more. It just felt like a battle for his attention. Oh, I'm sorry. Is it a battle you want from me? What's going on? Corn? What's with this music?

I'm going to need for you to roll for initiative. Wait, hold on. You want to play Dungeons and Dragons with us in the middle of a gyukaku? There's literally a fire pit in the middle of the table. That's badass. Wait, Garen, are you on his side? Someone has to be. Fine.

All my other friends are here. We can beat y'all. Gang sound off. Chains here. Let's grill this corn. I'm Sandy and I will cut you with my words. Let's put them in a bag and pop them. Trey is in the his house.

I'm Terrell. I'm the one who misunderstood his name. And now we're pretending to battle against a guy named corn. Andrea, the fun one. Michael's Dungeon Master Nick here. I'm just glad none of the players are distracted by their phones. It's Joyce. I have no idea what DMD is or what it even stands for,

but I am still here ready to enjoy every minute of it. I'm Steven and I need someone to lend me their dice. And I'm Herbert. That's all I got. All right, guys, knives out. Let's peel this husk. We outnumber you. 10 to 2.

Stand down, corn. I cast Fireball. It burns. Yo, what the f***? That's an actual fireball. You can't just kill my friends who didn't make their deck saves. Now this is some fine dying. Anyone else have any last words?

Oh, the one sec. Thanks for calling you, Kaku. This is corn. We said no phones. Oh, sorry. My bad, my bad. Michael, back down. You'll never win his undivided attention with me here.

I'm the fun one. I'm the cute one. I shove Garrett into the fire pit. What? Go ahead and roll a contested strength check for me, please. I'm not even the big bad evil guy. Corn is. I'm not evil.

I just walk here. Both of you roll now. With a natural 18 and my holy bracers of the birthday boy. That's a 21. Garrett, would you roll? Garrett. Would you roll? I think my die fell into the fire pit.

Sir, it's bolted to the ground. You can't flip the table here, do you, Kaku? It's literally impossible. Okay, so with Michael's strength roll and Garrett's lost die, you successfully throw Garrett into the fire pit. Garrett, you take... Oh, that's a lot of damage. You're dead for sure.

Michael, your friends are still dead and you just killed your co-host. So all that's left is you and Corn. But you can rest easy knowing that you finally have his attention. You get 2,000 experience for killing Garrett. And you finally get to ask Corn any one thing. Hey, so which meat was this again? That is the Hirami's skirt steak. Don't bring me some more of that.

To sum this up, let's say someone wants to go to a barbecue joint with the group. What's the best way that they can guarantee they get strong service? I don't know. I think step one, engage with the wait step. I think you got to say early, hey, I'm going to want to know what... I think if you state your needs up top and be like, hey, can you please go over all the things one by one? And if you have a long table, have someone at both ends ask that question

and be like, hey, I know it might be a hassle to go over it twice. Ask as many questions as possible. When the meat comes, they'll tell you the meat. But then again, ask again. But I do wish that they checked in more and that other... I could tell that it was very much like one server per table because none of the other servers even like glanced our way. It was kind of just like, mmm, that table is Corn's problem.

So... I'm going to laugh every time. Or maybe don't get Japanese or Korean barbecue with a group of 11 people. It makes it a lot harder. I'm just going to throw this out in a side. But I want to put this to all of our fans. If anyone wants to Photoshop an ear of corn

playing first edition D&D and put googly eyes on the ear of corn, I would love to be sent that image. So go ahead and just like tag us on Instagram or send it to our email, whatever. We will repost all submissions of that as long as they are appropriate. Do you not want to see that? I want to see that. With like a corn colored D20.

Yeah, that's kind of where I landed on service. He was very nice, very cool, definitely cared. There were things about the actual details of the job that my end of the table definitely felt like we were the short end of the stick compared to your end of the table. He was potentially the best Japanese Korean barbecue server I have ever had. I'll say this because I got a full explanation any time I wanted it. Yeah, he brought new meats at an appropriate pace.

He took away the old plates at an appropriate pace. He didn't bother us too much. You know, I don't know if I agree. There was definitely a point where like that bonus shelf behind us was just covered with it. It was full. But it was fine because it was at a point where we weren't being brought new things. When we were being brought new things at first, it felt kind of overwhelming.

But as soon as they said, hey, cheat code, use the thing behind you, it did get smooth. So you know what, I will give it that for sure. Maybe I'm used to meat just taking way too long. Maybe the places I go to, services just slow. There was never a point where I was desiring meat that wasn't in front of me. There was always something to put in the grill. When I was getting food to the table, I have no problems.

And I think that's one of the best green barbecue things. For me, it was having questions answered. That was always my issue is I had questions. I wanted to know more. I wanted proper labels. So I mean, when we get into the food section, I'm going to give food ratings for things that I think they are, but they might not all be right.

They'll be close. But yeah, I'm not confident that I am rating the right things. Moral of the story, don't cut off your waiter. I didn't even know one thumb up for corn. Hey, I'm going to give him a strong two thumbs up as one of the best waiters I've ever had a Korean or Japanese barbecue. And you know what point I will agree on that with is it is the first time I've been to a Korean or Japanese barbecue place where the server actually felt like a part of it.

Because normally it is. It's almost akin to like a Fogo to Chow where it's just like a bunch of people just dropping off meat and that and that's it. That's what I'm used to. So yes, it definitely was more curated than that. My only issue was the difficulty of like grabbing his attention and getting answers to questions. But again, he may have been out for vengeance.

He may have been out for vengeance. I totally snubbed him. It was accidental. But corn, I do apologize. I just OK. I just something game to me. Maybe I don't get this level of service at Korean barbecue because I'm Korean and they just expect me to already know it.

Yeah. They think you're an expert when they don't know is that you were adopted. Yeah. They don't know how white I am. They don't know that you were adopted by me in the Olive Garden musical. I'm legally adopting Garrett and we're sticking to the story. Daddy. No, not here.

You know what? Not anywhere. I've got many daddies. All right. Well, we'll be back after a short story from a Kukaku server. How's it going? My name is Han. So I work at this restaurant called Gyu and basically we have this fatty meat, right?

And our customer ordered five orders of the Toro meat, which is a fatty beef. And the rule was they're supposed to put it one at a time. Otherwise, the flames are going to go up and the grill is going to catch on fire. But the customer dumped the entire plate onto the grill and the table started burning. In our restaurant, we don't have like a ceiling where the sprinkler would start going on. But we have like a hose on the floor. So we'll start flooding and the whole restaurant start flooding. And yeah, that's how we got rid of it.

Wow. That was a lot of food. We had a lot. We have a lot to talk about. But first, you got to come clean to the table. Oh, I do. So as you guys know, I am retry guy. If I don't think I can give a true and honest opinion on the food, I'm going to go back another time.

I'm going to order it. I'm going to do everything I can to give you guys, our listeners, the best, honest description I can. So I went back. Every time you send me this text where you're like, I got to go back, I'm just like, OK. Yeah. I went to my local yukaku a few days later and retried a lot of the meat because this time, I was in charge of the grill and I was just with one other person. Yeah.

I was in trade on the meat. I could ask our server every time like this is this, this is this. It was a really smooth experience. You know, I'm not going to lie. I kind of wish I had been able to get the opportunity to have a curation where I truly understood everything that I was eating instead of kind of playing the guessing game of like, yeah, this kind of looks like it's this cut of meat. Oh, and even more than that, I don't think you can give a true opinion by tasting one or two pieces of meat.

That's fair. I went through. I had for each one of these, I had a full half a plate. Yeah. I've had full steaks before that I loved and still had a few disappointing bites. So to judge the entirety of an entree by one bite. Yeah. So it is it is tough.

So, you know, I do think these ratings are fair and that I will accurately describe what I did taste. But that that doesn't mean I got the best or the worst piece of it. It's tough to know. The first thing they brought to our table was steak sushi steak sushi, which is like a chilled piece of cooked steak served over rice. I don't know how chilled it wasn't like cold. It just wasn't warm.

It wasn't even look. It was a weird experience. I didn't love it from a feel perspective and from, you know, what your brain expects steak to be like, of course, we got a ton of hot steak throughout the night. So it was different. Yeah. I just, but it was unnecessary steak on sushi, like put some steak tartare on top of it and I'll take that.

That makes sense in my mind. I don't want raw, but it's sushi. Yeah. Like that's the point. Yeah. Six and a half out of 10 for that. And taste was all right. Six out of 10 for the taste.

But you know what? I'm giving this a five out of 10 because the concept. Why? Yeah. Gyoza. I love Gyoza. What's, what's the other term for you? Like they're not it's a dumpling.

Okay. I'll get into that. What the difference between dumplings and pot stickers? There are differences, but every culture has their own thing like Japanese Gyoza, Chinese pot stickers, Korean Mandu. Each one is different and I do have my preferences. Gyoza is ranked last among those three for me. Oh, I love Gyoza.

I love Gyoza more than I love like soup dumplings, I think for sure. Like you and I will go to Din Tai Fung at some point. I love Din Tai Fung. It's great. That style of dumpling, I prefer Gyoza. I do too. I prefer fried always. Yeah.

But that's for that episode. For now, this Gyoza, I thought was really good. I didn't think it was the best Gyoza I've ever had, but it was a solid entry into the Gyoza category, but also all Gyoza is pretty good. Eight out of 10 for me. Wow. Okay. I'm going to give this a seven out of 10 because I have a feeling this was deep fried.

I prefer my dumplings pan fried like a pan fried mandu. Oh, man. I haven't had mandu. So basically it's when I get very similar to I will be excited. I'll get some for you. It's the Korean one. I like that the dough is a little thicker. Gyoza dough is thinner by nature and that's probably why I like it the least of the three.

Aesthetically, I love the crimping on the Gyoza dough. Oh, yeah. Gyoza is very pleasant to look at, which is not real. Especially at the tier of restaurant that we're reviewing the mediocre tier presentation isn't necessarily a huge consideration on a lot of these. And if they do pride themselves in a presentation, it's usually for something crazy where it's like, Hey, we shoved shrimp inside of a milkshake or like, you know, whatever. Oh God, shrimp inside a milkshake with like sparklers coming out, but also like butter

roasting down like this doesn't exist, but you get the point I'm making. The next thing I had, you did not. No, I didn't. I was disappointed and they forgot to bring me that on my retry. So the chicken karage that's kind of like a popcorn chicken ish sort of dish and the aioli sauce that they had was kind of like a yellow, almost like a Chick-fil-A sauce. One of the best things. It was like a nine out of 10.

So I recommend going back and getting it if you if you go back again. Asian breaded fried chicken is so amazing. Yeah. Good. I mean, KFC is Korean fried chicken and that stuff's amazing. Let's be honest. All fried chicken is pretty great. Yeah.

Of course there are tears and there are different styles, but I wouldn't even say any are better. They are just different and distinct and almost all great. Next we have the bibimbap. The beef sukiyaki bibimbap was the one that we had. It's a texture problem for me because like the rice is good until you get a bite of burnt rice and that mix of like the do you like burnt rice? Oh my God. I love it.

Yeah. We're different in that way. I liked the taste of this bibimbap. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't like a strong entry amongst the other things at the table. I went six and a half out of 10, but the texture, the mixing of the like crispy rice that popped in your mouth when you bit down versus the and I think I had some over crisp. Like I got like bottom of the thing rice.

I had a similar texture problem that you did, but it was because of a lack of vegetables. I'm expecting some just a good heaping pile of fresh and pickled vegetables mixed in with this. So I've got that texture crunch. Got another a lighter flavor thrown in. Yeah. Without that, it's only a five out of 10 because this was just some greasy fried rice. Yeah.

But I love greasy fried rice. But speaking of vegetables, the yukaku salad, I didn't get to try that. How was it? 8 out of 10. Really? I usually think a salad is a waste of space, but my girlfriend like suggested like you should have some salad. I was like, all right, hint taken.

And I was actually really like, I actually had more later. Like when I was like out of, we were out of meat and I was like, I still want some more. I guess I'll have some of the salad. The salad was really good. The dressing was good. Yeah, just texture is really good. I guess like on my retry, we got the salad. I didn't eat it.

Yeah. My girlfriend ate the entire bowl of salad by herself. So it was good. I assume she really loved it. Another one that I had that didn't make it to you, the garlic shrimp. Oh, I had that one. Oh, you did have the garlic shrimp. I have an opinion.

All right. Hit me. I don't like shrimp. I don't like shrimp. They are gross little sea worms, but this garlic shrimp. Oh my gosh. One of the best tasting shrimps I've ever had in my life. This is a solid nine out of 10.

I'll have seven out of 10 for me. And my take is literally it was very good, but I'm still acquiring my taste for shrimp because I'm not that well versed with seafood. I've started to have a lot of sushi over the past couple of years and, you know, I like a good grilled salmon or something like that. But I'm still developing my palate for seafood. This podcast in general is making me more adventurous with my eating because I am a very picky eater. Cheese is still kind of a no, no deal for me.

But cheese is gross. Cheese grosses us out. Wow. We just lost audience. Yeah. I mean, we talked about that in an earlier episode. They know what they're signing up for. So like this is actually a good question now.

So you are giving this a seven out of 10. We both have a limited shrimp experience. Yeah. How is this shrimp compared to the other shrimp I've had in my life? Even if I don't enjoy shrimp. Here's the thing. I've had fried shrimp that I liked better than this. This was, you know, it was grilled.

And to me, the taste wasn't that strong. It was just I didn't feel like I was getting enough flavor. OK. Maybe I got one where the garlic wasn't super strong because I love me some garlic. It was a good garlic flavor, but it was a little more delicate to balance with the natural, I guess, lighter flavor of shrimp. Yeah. I think that that lighter flavor weirds me out because it's almost like a

why am I eating this? If it does, if it's not flavorful, why am I eating it? I don't like the lighter element of it. You're a red meat guy. I'm a red meat guy. So seven out of 10. Next, we're moving on up to the Umakara rib eye, which I thought had great seasoning. I went eight out of 10 on this.

I'm a sucker for ribeye. Love myself a good ribeye. I agree with you completely. I'm going to give it a nine out of 10. Just marinate was excellent. It was. It just melted in my mouth. So good.

We had the garlic New York strip steak. I gave it a seven out of 10. I undercooked it a little. It was a little rare. I usually like stuff to fall in medium rare. I felt like it didn't. It didn't have the texture I wanted and I attribute it to myself. My own preparation, I think, was the problem.

The garlic taste was good. I've had a lot of great steaks in my life, though. So as far as that's concerned, this didn't compete with the great steaks I've had, but seven out of 10 is a very respectable good score, in my opinion. I'll give it a six out of 10. It was, again, buying it tasted like a garlic marinated steak. Yeah, but that's a good thing. Why are you saying that?

There's a garlic marinated steak. That was it. That's all it gave me. It was no step beyond. It was the sum of its parts. Yeah. Okay. I'll give you something.

All right. Well, you want me to give you something? The prime Calbee, I gave a 10 out of 10. Wow. I love Calbee meat. Short rib? Is that what Calbee is? Yeah.

Yeah. 10 out of 10. I've loved Calbee everywhere I've had it, every time I've had it. Almost all preparations, all marinades I've had, I've never had bad Calbee. The worst Calbee I've ever had was like an eight and a half, nine out of 10. Wow. Maybe I've been spoiled in the preparation and it's always been good, but they did not let off the gas with the Calbee, in my opinion, at Kukaku.

I will agree with you. The taste of that was spectacular. Uh-huh. Maybe I'm being fussy, but I'm eating Calbee. No bones. That weirds me out a little bit. Oh, I love that. They take the inconvenience out of it for you.

I like the bone in it. I like the meat to be a little thicker. It felt like I was eating bulgogi and that just infinitely weirded me out. The taste is probably a nine out of 10 taste, but I'll give it a disconnect. I'll give this a 7.5 out of 10 because it's not Calbee, it's bulgogi. This would have been a nine out of 10 bulgogi. That's so weird that that distinction matters to you. Because it was so much to me.

It wouldn't to me. These are like my two favorite Korean dishes. Yeah. And when you confuse them, it confuses me. Now, because things were kind of brought out in kind of an out of order fashion, like we got entrees next to appetizers, like at the same time, it wasn't like all the appetizers and then all of that, which honestly made the meal feel like we kind of had like courses to it and gave you a little reset button.

A little bit, but it was chaos. It was chaos. I agree with that. But let's get into the soups. Yeah. We had different soups. I got the spicy tofu chige. Spicy tofu chige soup.

It had an immediate spice to it. Okay. Immediate, but not persistent. Like once it was in your mouth, like coated your mouth, but then it didn't hit you any harder than the initial sip. Which was interesting. The taste of it, I'm not a big tofu guy. It was okay.

Six and a half out of 10 for me. Respectable. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Okay. Like I'm not like raving about it. I wouldn't advise anyone against it, but I wouldn't recommend it. I think I got the better soup. I had the miso soup.

It was the first time I had it. I only managed one spoonful because there wasn't enough soup for me at the table. Seven out of 10, the first try. Really subtle, the tender smokiness coming in at the end. But my second try, I had a full bowl. And this time I got to taste the scallions within it and the smokiness was consistent. The fresh crispness of the scallions mixed with the smokiness of the flakes and the miso soup contrasted each other and exploded in my mouth.

It was eight out of 10. I will have this every time. This next one though. I really want to know what your opinion is on this because I did not like this dish. This is the garlic noodles. It's the reason I wanted to go to Kukaku. Really? Yes.

Wow. Okay. They were bland. They were flavorless. The noodle texture, they were soggy and overcooked and it tasted like cheese. What the hell? Like this is, there was no garlic flavor. Three out of 10.

Like this is embarrassing. Yeah. So, I have only been to Kukaku in person twice. Once, you know, with this group that we just did, that we're talking about. And once, just on a date four or five months ago or earlier this year at some point, I don't remember exactly when. And I got the garlic noodles then and they came out like they came out here. And I was just like, this isn't right.

This texture. Yeah. Like cheese is kind of like a weird element to bring into it. But it did kind of, I don't think there was, but it was it. But yeah, it's also garlic chicken noodles. Did you get any chicken? I didn't get any chicken. I just got overcooked noodle.

Same. And to where I saw like little ground pieces in there that I assume were garlic. But when I asked, when I went the first time a few months ago was told, that's the chicken. It's ground up. It's like minced chicken. Okay. Now, I give it a five out of 10. But during the, you know, year and a half of quarantine where I was on my couch and ordering

Postmates a lot. That's when I first discovered Kukaku. That's what I would order every time. And it was a 10 out of 10. And it was different. The noodles were thicker. It had large chunks of chicken in it. Garlic was incredibly pronounced.

So I don't know if it's a matter of the preparation. I don't know if it's a matter of like, do they prepare it differently for a to-go order? Because obviously if you're ordering Kukaku, they're not going to cook all the grill stuff the same way, right? Yeah. And you're not going to be getting the stuff that's brought to your table. Right. So it's just a very different experience when you order it to go.

If anything, the to-go food experience should be worse. You would expect. I'm leaning towards shrinkflation or something like that where they're using lesser ingredients nowadays to fulfill this dish because it was amazing. And when we went, an immense disappointment. Like it wasn't even Panda level. No. No.

Yeah. It wasn't fast food Chinese level. No. Yeah. I don't know what happened to it, but it used to be amazing. And I'm curious, I kind of want to order a takeout order from Kukaku, just the garlic noodles with chicken and sea. But if it turns out to be this thing, then we're getting into Send It Back territory.

Which, again, go check out our Olive Garden musical if you want to hear how we feel about sending back food. Hey, you guys take control of your lives, listen to Olive Garden, the musical. Listen to the voice in the pit of your stomach telling you, I don't really like this. And live your truth. Oh, could you think of just sending back food? How do you say this? I'm not going to eat this.

So waiter, please, we'll send this back. OK, so moving on past that. What do we have? Oh, the edamame. The edamame. It was very average edamame. I love me a good like soy or garlic edamame. This was just plain old unsalted five and a half out of ten for me.

Ah, OK. The time I had it, Saturday nights at four out of ten, the skin was too tough for me. But upon second try, I'm giving this a strong six out of ten. It was healthy. Is six out of ten strong? For this. OK, that's fair. It was healthily salted.

Yeah. The flavor was proper. The skin was a little more tender. Yeah. It just didn't blow my socks off. It was. Sure. Six out of ten.

Now. Oh, yes. The masterpiece of the night. The 21 day dry aged Harami skirt steak. They're number one seller. It's so good. Best thing they had. Ten out of ten perfection.

This dish alone is the reason that I didn't give two thumbs up on service. I liked it so much that my need to identify what it was caused me to put my entire meal to a stop for 12 minutes, trying to get the attention of corn or waiter and ask what is this? And as the attention didn't come, we eventually ended up cooking it all and eating it. And then we had that plate bust or no, we put it on the shelf behind us. And then there were a bunch of empty plates and I couldn't like point to even the empty plate and be like, which one was that?

So we had to kind of narrow it down by like, it was one of the ones that came out on a white rectangle plate instead of a bowl or descriptive. Well, but I mean, but I was they had different types of meat were presented on different types of plates. I was like, it was a white plate. It kind of left an orange residue ish. That was the key indicator. Yeah.

And so he went to the back and was like trying to like figure it out. And eventually I like pointed at the menu. I was like, I know that they were like rectangular cuts. So it had to be this, this, this, this or this. But there were like six or seven things on the menu, which had a lot of pictures that it looked like it could have been. And eventually it seemed like we narrowed it down to the Harami skirt steak and given how much of a hit this thing tends to be 90% sure and corn was 90% sure that that's what

it was. 10 out of 10. Yeah. 10 out of 10 that night on my retry. I made it a point to do that. Get this. Yeah. 10 out of 10 again on the retry.

Yeah. So it holds out. It's great. I don't know more, but this is just one of the best things I've ever put into my mouth. Next we've got basil chicken. That was just you. 7 out of 10. It was, it was chicken, grilled, you know, garlic, almost like a pesto, but with no

cheese, which I'm like, no, that's how you should do pesto. Yeah. Take out the cheese. That's, that speaks to me. Take out one of the main ingredients of pesto. But it was a very, you know, kind of a greener, garlicky seasoning. And it was good. I liked it.

I didn't, didn't steal the show, but it was good. It was on the good side of average. The next thing, kimchi. Now you think kimchi from a Japanese place, nah. But honest to God, this was the best kimchi I have ever had that wasn't made by an old Korean woman. I've never had kimchi and I still haven't had kimchi. This eluded me at the restaurant.

I wish you would have this. And it literally sat there the entire meal. Like no one noticed the kimchi until I noticed it and then I ate it all. It had been there for so long and then I handed it over. All I can say is, because what is it, it's pickled what? Pickled cabbage. Pickled cabbage. Okay.

Holy f**k, this is amazing. Here's my 1F bomb. That's, this, I don't have words. This was so good. Yeah. Just the right vinegar balance, the right spice, every, oh. Yeah, you look tingly right now. I'm tingly like, oh, look, there's a shvitz happening.

I'm just like, oh. You look like you're, you're neuropathy is acting up. Like you can't feel the tips of your fingers because you're so profusely sledding. I just think maybe like I'm culturally confused because I'm giving strong compliments to a Japanese restaurant serving kimchi and history all. Hey man. Fill in history. Good food is good food.

It is. We've got the umakara pork. I gave that a seven and a half out of 10. It was good. Yeah. Eight out of 10. Decidedly good. It was flavorful and juicy.

White meat dries out really easily, but this kept its juice. Then we have the filet mignon. Yeah. It's got little bites. I actually have two ratings for this because I got, I ate two pieces of it. One of which was unsalted and the plate had a salt on it. And I rubbed one of the pieces in the salt and one without the salted piece, nine out of 10.

Ooh. The unsalted was a six out of 10. So it's very average. I think filet is one of those meats where it's not a fatty meat. It's had very good branding to where people think it's like the best steak. It is typically very high quality, but it also very much depends on its seasoning. And even just salt did wonders for this slice of meat. That's funny.

Like I also give this a six out of 10, but you didn't have a salted one. Because it was not flavorful enough. Yeah. Like filet mignon feels like a tender aft eye round. That's all it is. Then we had the pork belly. This is the last part of the main course that we had. I just went six out of 10.

Pork belly is usually very good. The seasoning on this didn't do anything to make it better. So to me, it was just fine. It was a six out of 10 pork belly, which really, really surprised me because I expected to go high on that one. I'm going to give it a seven out of 10 because I was impressed with the quality of the meat. Yeah. Like the seasoning was okay, but the quality of the high quality meat.

What does that mean to you? It wasn't greasy. It was still tender. The fat rendered perfectly. All right. It was good. Glad you liked it. I didn't love it.

I liked it, but I didn't love it. And then we got dessert. Oh, actually, one more thing too. I ordered this on our retry and it's a thing we didn't end up getting on Saturday. The Toro beef. Yes. Now you've already heard what happens when someone puts too much Toro beef on the grill. Catches fire.

Yeah. The server told us specifically only put one piece of beef on the grill at a time or else it's going to catch on fire. Yeah. What did I do? You put two on? I put two on. And they caught fire.

And they caught fire. And now I don't have any hair on my knuckles. I would give this Toro beef an eight out of 10 for flavor, but my lack of hair now takes it down to a seven out of 10. That doesn't get your irresponsibility can't affect their score. Oh, it does now. Eight out of 10. Seven out of 10.

Eight out of 10. For my irresponsibility. And then for dessert, we got s'mores, which is, I believe the only dessert they had actually don't quote me on that. It was the thing that comes with the courses that we got. Yeah. So they literally lift up the grill in the middle and you just have access to the flame, which is kind of a weak way to put it because it's bare.

It's kind of just heat. And there is like one small lick of flame that you can consistently find. And I think this was because of the specific grills at our table. My second time, my grill experience was a lot hotter. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. And so they bring out graham crackers with marshmallow on it and a little piece of chocolate

and they give you skewers and you just kind of hold them down. Now the angle that you have to hold them down into the thing is kind of not conducive to cooking a marshmallow effectively. You definitely get heat, but if you're the type of person who likes the direct flame contact because there's different levels of brownness that people like on their marshmallows when they're cooking for s'more. And I'm the type who usually likes to do direct flame contact. And as soon as it catches fire a little bit, just blow it out.

Like I like kind of that crispy char element to it and usually just on a part and then I'll kind of get like a light brown around it. That's what the filet was missing for me, the char. And with the s'more, it was, it was fun, truly. I was the birthday boy. So when there was one leftover, everyone was like, you can have the leftover ones. I did it a second time and it was a lot less fun the second time because I was just like, I felt like I was, that's what I was burning my knuckles on because I'm literally sticking

my hand down into this pit because the skewer is not long enough to get it in there. But eight out of 10, I mean, they didn't do anything revolutionary. It's just a s'more, but man, our s'more is good. Okay, I'll give the first s'more experience a seven out of 10 because the grills weren't as hot and it's difficult to grill a s'more when there are five other people trying to grill a s'more at the same time on the grill. But so my second time though, grill is hotter, two people, I'm going to give that a nine out of 10.

Alrighty. So overall, what are you rating the food for Gyu Kaku? How many thumbs are you giving it? I'm giving this two thumbs. I'm giving this two thumbs up. This was some of the better food I've had in my life. Munchkin menu musings. My name is Luke.

I am 10 years old and I'll be reviewing the Gyu Kaku kids' menu. There is a game on the kids' menu that is a surgeon find. You are looking for Ushi the cow. If you find him, you get one free s'more. I couldn't find him and they wouldn't give me a s'more. I give Gyu Kaku kids' menu a score of eight out of 10. This was Luke for Munchkin menu musings. Thank you.

Final rating. OK, so I went no thumbs up on atmosphere one thumb up on the service, two thumbs up on the food. Gyu Kaku definitely a net positive for me. I had fun. Yeah. One of the highest rating places we've been to, in my opinion, I mean, I think the food quality alone, you could tell everything was fresh.

There was a lot of effort on the on the service front, especially from corn to be interpersonal. Yeah, I really enjoyed his ability to connect with us. It's kind of almost the inverse of what we had at the Old Spaghetti Factory, where it was just very mechanical, you know, efficiency, but 7.92 for me. I think that's the highest rating I've given. That is. Now, I've got one thumb up for atmosphere, two thumbs up for service and two thumbs up for food, five out of six.

That is five out of six. On a six down to six up spectrum, the second highest score pass. It is, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be an eight or a nine. So I'm going to give this a 7.98 out of very close to eight, very close. What would it have needed to do to get over that hump over the hump? Because nothing we've gone to has scored over an eight from either of us. I don't think if the let's say the restaurant music volume was slightly lower, it goes to an eight. Yeah, this was a two thumb up foods experience, but still like an eight out of ten food

experience in my mind. So the food could have been slightly better. I agree. It's like the Rotten Tomatoes scale where it's like the percentage of critics that like it, but like it could mean they all gave it a six out of ten. It's really subjective. Yeah, it is very. There is a lot of subjectivity within our attempt at streamlining it into a level of

objectivity, seven point seven point nine eight, my definite highest so far. OK, so that puts us at a seven point nine five. Wow, that is our total highest. Let's slap it on the chachki. All right, we have a new leader. Yeah, we have Outback has been dethroned by Yukaku as the best place that we have gone to. It is not the most mediocre place we have gone to. That is still firmly held by Olive Garden at a five point one zero.

Yes, it wasn't even close to mediocrity. You know, it went further than the standard deviation of one point on either direction of five and you know what that means. Not mediocre enough. Draw from the bowl. The you must bowl. For anyone who doesn't know, the you must bowl is our way of punishing people who pick a restaurant that is to not mediocre.

And now I'm going to be on the receiving end of this for the second time, right? You had to eat your dessert blindfolded at Denny's, whereas I've had three. I had to shave a handlebar mustache onto my face. I had to make juicy my pineapple sun. You can go over to our website, www.finediningpodcast.com, go over to the Merch tab and you can buy an exclusive shirt of juicy. He's my son. Oh, also, you had to dress up like a professional wrestler and make my

entrance at islands. So yeah, this is my second I've drawn from the bowl several times. So out of nine episodes, we're not great at picking mediocrity. But the search in and of itself is very fun. So why don't you go ahead and draw from the bowl? You must fully inflate a flamingo inner tube over the course of dinner and wear it out. Great. Yeah. Like what happens if I like get food inside the inner tube?

Am I going to be blowing like food chunks in it? That would actually be disgusting and be very funny. All right. Well, I guess follow us on social media so you can see that on TikTok and Instagram when we go to whatever our next place ends up being, which we need to determine. So I think it's time to play the headline game. The rules of the headline game are as follows. Garrett will present three headlines to Michael that include this week's restaurant.

They can be made up or they can be actual headlines. If Michael can correctly guess if at least two out of three are real or fake, he will get to select next week's restaurant. However, if Garrett stumps him, he'll select again. Are you ready to play, fellas? I'm ready to play. OK, let's go. First one. Fire at Kukaku sends massive plumes of smoke over downtown Vancouver. True. OK, next one.

If I feel like if I handed you that one and it's like you just took advantage. It sounds so. You know what? I'm going to go back. I'm going to false it. I'm falsing it. OK, I don't trust you saying false for the first one. God, the next one. No, I want true or false. OK, here we go. I'm going to count down from five and you're going to give me five, four, three,

two, one, false. OK, you chose false. Second story. Wild Bobcat causes chaos at Cincinnati, Kukaku. False. Third one. Malaysian Kukaku franchisee accused of selling wild boar instead of traditional pork. False. Now I want to change one of them, but I'm going false on all three. Well, the first one. Fire at Kukaku sends massive plumes of smoke over downtown Vancouver. True. Oh, I should have trusted my god.

The second one was false. All right, one to one. The third one. Also false. There were so few headlines, I would imagine that that would be the case. If you probably had like a Google translator to get Japanese headlines, maybe you'd be able to get some. But OK, because they were just like literally like fire, fire. Yeah, OK. Oh, this new place is opening.

You know how much? You know what? It would have been such a dick move as if you just did like fire at Vancouver, Kukaku, fire at Cincinnati, Kukaku, fire at Tampa, Florida, Kukaku. Just like that would actually be really funny and really mean. And I would argue it's in poor faith. I think, yeah, no, that would almost invalidate the game. I would say so. OK, so I get to pick.

Yeah. Next week. You know what? You picked for me a birthday celebration. I'm picking for us a double date. Oh, and it just occurred to me. You have to inflate a flamingo inner tube during our double date, which means that the space at the table is going to be difficult to manage at a rainforest cafe.

We're going to go to rainforest cafe so that the flamingo can feel right at home and we're going to have a double day. Oh, how generous of you. You're welcome. I'm excited for this. That'll be fun. We don't get kicked out. I will very quickly throw you under the bus and be like, just kick him out. We're we're being like, I can see myself like poking the eye out of an animatronic with the nose of a flamingo.

Yeah, yeah. Well, awesome, guys. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the Fine Dining podcast. Real quick, go on over to our website and you can actually get our five survival tips of casual dining. Yes. Just go ahead and sign up for that. And we will send that right to you again.

Photoshop us an ear of corn playing first edition D&D. Tag us on Instagram at Fine Dining podcast. Follow us on TikTok. Who's in that D&D party? Like is Milk Steve a character? I think Milk Steve was there. Milk Steve and Jub. Juicy, obviously.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's actually a really fun group of people. I think corn DMs that. Does corn be? Oh, maybe Milk Steve DMs. Is corn in our pantheon? No, Juicy is definitely DMing. He takes after his papa and is a big D&D enthusiast.

The rest of them are all learning still. Even though I do not prefer to be the DM, I prefer to be a player. I think, yeah, no, I think corn is now in the pantheon as the best Asian barbecue server. I agree with that. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. Have a fine day. We will see you next week.

I was going to say have a fine day at the same time you said have a fine day. Let's try it again. Have a fine day, but also the search continues. The search continues. We still need the perfect file. The search continues. Like and subscribe. The search continues.

Our journey did not conclude. The monorail search continues. Write us an iTunes review. And hey, while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and make it five stars? Come on. Follow us on TikTok. The same on Instagram. All the socials at Find Dining Podcast.

We have a website. Finddiningpodcast.com. Buy our t-shirts. Then put them on. And don't forget, you can always suggest where we go next. Okay, we're going to find it. Mediocrity. The search continues.

See you next week. Hurt my throat a little. Have a fine day.