Review: Say hello to the new Don　外国人から見た新登場丼

私はお正月ごろ日本に行ってきた。久しぶりに牛丼が食べたいのに、牛丼がないところで行ったのは非常に残念だったが、新しい丼は思ったよりまずくなかった。食べて見たものをここで（英語で）評価する。
Hey guys. As some of you may know, I took a short trip to Japan this New Year’s. As a few more of you may know, I was giddy with anticipation of the new menu items available at the donburi chains. In the two weeks I was there I managed to squeeze in quite a few bowls, so for those of you who are away from the action I will review them here.

But first, some background: donburi (丼) are a dish served in Japan consisting of rice on the bottom and (usually) meat topping on the top. Not sure what the origin of the modern donburi came from, but the most popular one is gyudon (牛丼）, or beef bowl. Gyudon are so popular, in fact, that there were about 4 major chains in Japan who sold nothing but: Matsuya, Sukiya, Nakau, and the venerable Yoshinoya, whose logo looks like this:

Now, those of you who haven’t lived in Japan or didn’t venture far outside their gaijin bubble while they were there might not realize just why Yoshinoya and their ilk are so important to Japanese consumer culture. But those of us in the know are fully aware that there are approximately three types of regular customers at Yoshinoya: truck drivers, male college students, and gaijin like me who have no money. What is the draw? It’s CHEAP BEEF! 24 HOURS A DAY! Beef in Japan is fucking expensive, but you could get a good meal at Yoshinoya without buying and preparing it yourself for a mere 250 yen. It’s a good, cheap meal if you are drunk at 3am or are simply too broke and don’t want to eat natto to survive.

Yoshinoya was number one, partly because they were first and partly because they were far and away the best. That was until December of 2003, when there was an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease in the US and the panicky and protectionist Japanese government banned all US beef imports. Unbeknownst to me (or most of the Japanese public for that matter, I’m sure), the donburi places all got their beef from farms in America, so after their stock ran out (in about February 2004 I believe) there were no more gyudon. With no end to the ban coming soon, and not wanting to shut their doors completely, the major chains decided to release a trove of new donburi, including salmon egg, curry, mabodofu, bibimba, pork, etc.

(For deep discussion of the Yoshinoya phenomenon go here. For the history of such deep discussion go here (JAPANESE ONLY!). )

Thankfully for me, I have been in America during this whole fiasco, so real, live gyudon were always available for me at the New York Yoshinoya (and even with a real, raw egg until they stopped that 🙁 ). However, I spent 2004 wondering just what those new donburi tasted like. Here are my findings:

Yoshinoya – Pork Bowl (豚丼） *** (of 5)

When this first came out it met with terrible reviews since it used the same sauce as the beef bowl, only with pork as the meat. The kind I tried was with a “new sauce” and tasted pretty good! didn’t quite have that melt in your mouth texture that gyudon has, but quality eating nonetheless.

Yoshinoya – Korean BBQ beef bowl (牛焼肉丼） ****

This was nice! It beat out my university’s version of the same dish, and went well with beer (I know, only ossan drink beer at Yoshinoya, but I have a confession to make — I have always shared an affinity with ossan, and in my last trip to Japan learned the joys of drinking not only in domburi chains but also in trains and on the street… I mean they sell beer IN THE STATION for God’s sake. What a country…)

Matsuya— beef bowl (牛めし） *****

Matsuya decided to grab the initiative in reinstating beef bowls, only with beef from China rather than America. While some expressed concern over health standards in the People’s Republic I went ahead and ate the stuff anyway (I mean, even in America excrement is included in beef to some extent, so what the hey). This, while not up to snuff with Yoshinoya, was in fact the real thing, bringing me back to my college days.

Matsuya — Bibibma bowl (ビビン丼） **

To be honest, I didn’t eat a whole one of these but only tried the gf’s, but this wasn’t too bad. Kind of a half-assed version of the stuff you get at Yakiniku (Korean BBQ) places.

Sukiya — Didn’t go, but it looks like they have reinstated gyudon using Australian beef.

Nakau — Pork Bowl ***

About the same as the pork bowl at Yoshinoya, except I ate it for breakfast after spending all night on a bus from Tokyo to Kyoto. That really hit the spot.

OK, so that sums it up for my impressions of the new bowls. Has anyone else tried these? Let me know your impressions! Also if you have any more info on the beef ban, let’s hear it! The last I heard was that not only has Shuwa-chan pleaded on America’s behalf but that the US government is begging a stubborn Japan night and day to let American farmers in. My expert opinion is Japanese beef producers see this as a good opportunity to kick out the foreign competition.