Yoshinoya - Fast food shop for Japanese Taste
In Yoshinoya you can get food really fast - but it's also a very good tasting. Yoshinoya i
s sometimes called "yoshi gy・" which comes from its famous beef dish. Yoshinoya is
cheap, quick and yummy. Comparing to
MacDonald's, a meal containing as much food here will cost approximately half.
Actually, Yoshinoya started discount war with MacDonald's when they made a new dish, gyudon. Unfortunately, the BSE incident in Washington forced Japan to quit importing beef from USA for a while. Therefore Yoshinoya had to stop making gyudon. In the picture on right, gyudon fans are queuing on the fast gyudon meal, February 11, 2004. In December 2005, beef importing was resumed, and gyudon returned to hungry fans.
Its good question whether places like Yoshinoya is actually fast food shops or not. In terms of whether the service is fast - Yoshinoya surely pass. It takes few minutes to get bowl of steaming rice and some fantastic topping.
The sitting order can be little intimidating for foreigners since you wont get your own table or anything, just sit in the counter which is on the middle of the restaurant. In middle of this counter goes a short passage for waitress to take orders and deliver food.
Yoshinoya has more than 700 restaurants in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, and Singapore. Yoshinoya also has restaurants in USA since 1979.
Strange though, in their menu in USA they do not seem to make curry bowl - perhaps one of the most popular dish in Japan. (Actually its the reason why editor loves going there so much)
We here in Hanami Web recommend visiting Yoshinoya in Japan. Its healthy, fast and cheap. And much more delicious than MacDonald's.
