Far from the famous delicateness of sushis, Japanese cuisine counts plainer dishes... and stodgier, as for our ham and cheese sandwich or our cheese omelett. A perfect demonstration of that assertion is Gyudon, or its improved version : oyakodon. These are dishes made with rice served in a bowl for only some hundred yens and therefore are ideal to feed salarymen when they leave their work.
A unique heavy dish
Made from slices of cheap (fat) porc, gyudon and his even heaviest version oyakodon, is a heavy dish. Therefore, it is a good way to feed salarymen after work or tired tourists who have walked all day long. With more than 800 calories for one bowl (even for the S/small ration), it is a bowlof rice topped with slices of porc cooked with onions... the all topped by a boiled egg if you ask an oyakodon. You can also add ginger and soy sauce to it. This cocktail is then quite stodgy but really appreciated by Japanese and international people, particularly during the winter when it is served with a hot green tea.
Oyakodon
Available in many places...
If this dish is really traditionnal, places which serve it are also quite surprising. In Japan, three chains of restaurants are weel known to offer gyudon: Matsuya, Sukiya and Yoshinoya. It is possible to taste it in more traditionnal shops, but the main advantage of these chains is that they are cheap (it is less than 300 yens or 3€ for one small bowl... with which you should be already pretty full) and omnipresent everywhere: in Tokyo, it is difficult to make more than 100 meters without finding at least one of these stores. Moreover, as they do not make many dish they make gyudon pretty well at least.
However, their serving is quite different. Yoshinoya is the biggest and offer a wider choice of sets and dishes. Moreover, its restaurants are more occidental, with a waitress to who you have to command and some tables, added to the traditionnal counter where Japanese people like to eat when they eat alone very fast. Two aspects which appear to be normal but which are in fact not so logical in Japan. Indead, both other chains have a different way of serving which should be able to interest the occidental that you are ;)
… with a 100% Japanese organisation
The first thing you will notice while entering Sukiya or Matsuya is the disposition of the room. If you enter a small restaurant at the center of the city, there will be only a counter around the stove where the cook is working. You will also remarke a ticket machine at one side. It presents all the dishes that the restaurant is selling and it is really easy to use: you only need to press the button with the picture of the meal you want, to pay the amount of money indicated and to take the ticket the machine delivers. You give it to the cook once you are sitted and some seconds later, a steaming bowl will be served to you. It's ready ! Now, you only have to eat it with the chopsticks made of plastic you should find in the plastic boxes you have close to you. You are also allowed to add some spicies in it, as ginger or red pepper... Do not add soy sauce in the rice at the end: it is really not polite in Japan ! So, you see, to eat gyudon is as easy as that: you do not even have to say a single word in japanese... an easy solution for those who are affraid to speak... and to those who want to discover a different way of life.
Ticket machine at Matsuya
Because it is obvious that this is not the kind of restaurant you should chose if you want to try good Japanese cuisine. Besides, Japanese people do not go to these restaurants in that aim. These restaurants are some improved fast-food without burgers, a food factory where people keep entering and leaving after some minutes (I actually mean some minutes). This is a good way of experimenting one of the Japanese way of life... and a good solution if you are hungry at 3 a.m.: one of the caracteristics of these chains is to be opened 24 hours on 24 !
To be tested. Definitively.
Marièke Poulat
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