Gyubee
95 York St. 613-367-5065,
gyubeejapanesegrill.com
Open:
Sunday to Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Prices:
$32.99 for all-you-can-eat dinner Monday to Thursday, $35.99 for AYCE dinner Friday to Sunday, $22.99 for AYCE lunch Monday to Thursday, $24.99 for AYCE lunch Friday to Sunday; children aged five to 10 pay a little less than half price, infants 0 to 4 play $3; a la carte dishes available for takeout and delivery
Access:
steps to front door
Note:
reservations available only for parties of six or more
Not long ago, a friend of mine wanted to try the food from Gyubee, the Japanese grill restaurant that opened on York Street in February. However, her anxieties about COVID-19 made her stop short of dining at the restaurant, and instead she ordered some thinly sliced, grilled pork belly and rice to be delivered.
“How was it?” I asked. “Just OK,” she said.
After dining this month at the Ottawa location of the Toronto-based chain, I can clarify: ordering takeout from Gyubee is a bit like watching a superhero movie on your phone.
What you really want is the thrill of cooking your dinner on the grill embedded in your table. What you want is immediate, all-you-can-eat gratification, in the form of charred but succulent morsels of beef, pork and chicken, with cooked-through shrimp, clams, squid, mushrooms and pineapple as secondary pleasures.
Indeed, when I visited Gyubee on the Friday just before Labour Day, it was packed with customers whose meaty cravings superseded any COVID-19 anxieties.
The restaurant was filled with young people, most of whom were Asian, who seemed to be enjoying themselves as if it were February 2020, boisterously flipping bits of their dinners with their tongs.
To be sure, Gyubee, which only accepts reservations for parties of six or more, follows pandemic guidelines. Staff, who are masked, take guest information for contact tracing and rigorously clean tables once guests have left.
But given how busy the restaurant was, complete with an indoor lineup as well as guests waiting outside for texts that would tell them their tables were ready at last, dining at Gyubee had an almost surreal, pre-pandemic feel to it.
Our wait for a table was a good 90 minutes, although we were told that on weekdays and at lunch, when a smaller menu is in effect, the restaurant is less busy.
Fortunately, once we were seated and our grill was activated, there was no further testing of our patience. A server arrived nearly immediately to take our order, and had we been Gyubee adepts, we would have known that the most efficient answer to “What would you like?” would have been “One of everything.”
While the menu teems with options, from marinated short rib to slices of brisket slathered in miso or sweet soy to chunks of steak to chicken thigh to sake-steamed clam to oyster mushrooms, if you came to maximize your all-you-can-eat gluttony, you could just waste no time and ask for the works. Or at least order all of the beef and pork options, which we ultimately found were the most satisfying, and then ask for repeats.
As Gyubee newbies, we ordered a little more selectively at first and even asked timidly, “Can we order more?”
“Yes, sure! This is just the start!” we were told.
Thereafter, plates of raw meats and other items (even chicken cartilage, which is a taste, or rather, a texture, to be acquired, if at all) landed at our table, and we threw ingredients onto our grill with abandon. The only limit to our dining was that we had a maximum of two hours at our table, which made for a carnivores’ race against the clock.
Soon, we grew accustomed to the sprightly rhythm of gorging at Gyubee. We lightly charred our meats and seasoned them with a sweet-salty dipping sauce or togarashi, a chili-forward Japanese spice mixture. As our plates of raw items emptied, we deliberated what to order next.
Punctual servers were always on hand to help us fulfill our all-you-can-eat dreams, and the grill was changed when it became too crusted. We paused at the sight of an empty grill, which made us sad, but soon returned to our communal, casual, culinary fun.
There were side dishes to order, too, including miniature servings of edamame, cold tofu, kimchi, rice, cold Japanese soba noodles and bibimbap, the Korean dish. Until dessert, which can be either a mini creme brulee or a frozen fruit bar, anything that was not meat felt refreshing.
Despite our ambitions, we were very pleasantly full before the two-hour mark arrived.
I don’t know when my friend will opt for the full Gyubee experience. Maybe it will take the arrival of a vaccine to make dining rooms more alluring to her. I certainly wouldn’t argue with that stance, although it bears repeating that at present, the current surge in Ottawa’s COVID-19 numbers comes mostly from large private gatherings and not from more generalized community spread.
If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, Gyubee would basically be hellish. If you are uneasy about indoor dining, then Gyubee, especially at full occupancy, would best be avoided for now.
But if fun, carnivorous eating is your thing, then Gyubee, later if not now, deserves your attention.