What is truth of gyudon (beef bowl) and the correct way to eat gyudon
2016/02/19
What’s gyudon
We Japanese love gyudon also called beef bowl , a simple dish consisting of beef and onion topped over rice.
Until 200 years ago, we had never heard of beef. Someone from a western country introduced us to this kind of meet then a great ancestor invented the dish.
By the way have you ever heard of sukiyaki？
When I was a child, sukiyaki was a great treat. Of course it continues to be until now.
You can eat sukiyaki at restaurants, but it is more of a home cooked dish. If you have it outside you need to pay a lot of money.
The most important thing is I found out that sukiyaki and gyudon are related. They have almost the same taste, as both are cooked with soy sauce, sugar and mirin (sweat sake). The older brother, sukiyaki, is noble and proud, so it seem to look down on common people. But the younger brother, gyudon, is for the common people. You can eat it for a price less than a piece of quality chocolate.
Furthermore gyudon is the food that you can eat the fastest. Office workers are very busy and need to prepare for a meeting at 13:00, or mail carriers or delivery workers have to deliver a large amount of things by a requested time. There isn’t enough time to have a leisurely lunch.
How long does it take?
To answer the question, I measured the amount of time it took to eat. I started a stop watch when I entered the store. The result was as follows.
28” waiter took my order
1’46” gyudon was served
9’20” finished eating
10’15 left the store
What do you think? Do you think you don’t have that much time? Don’t worry. You can just have someone buy it for you. You can get take out from big gyudon chain stores.
Finally I have a piece of advice for you. If you are a man, never take your Japanese girl friend to a gyudon restaurant because she might suspect that you are stingy.
How to eat gyudon
When you eat gyudon, don’t forget about “benisyoga (pickled ginger)” and “shichimi (seven flavor chili pepper)”.
Benisyoga (pickled ginger)
Benisyoga has very important roles. You can’t eat gyudon without it like Central Park for New Yorker. 
First, There is the color. This brown food doesn’t look delicious but pink benisyoga gives an edge to our appetite.
Second, gyudon tastes good but it tastes very plain, so the more you eat the more get bored. Benisyoga is a stimulation like love for our life.
And a specialist say it is also good for your health. It improves a blood circulation and has vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber to make you look beautiful. So you had better more if you want to be beautiful by eating gyudon.
Shichimi (seven flavor chili pepper)
If you require more stimulation, you should take shichimi. There must be on the table at gyudon restaurant.
Shichimi means seven tastes and consists from 7 ingredients including hot chili pepper. Of course It is hot, but if you like spicy foods you might not feel hot.
Actually I love spicy foods so when I eat gyudon I put much shichimi like this picture.
But it’s too much, you may be looked as a stranger by other customers or staffs.
Egg
Most gyudon restaurants put egg on their menu. But I don’t favor gyudon with egg. It completely become egg sauced rice with seasoned beef which is quite different food from gyudon.