All about Yoshinoya

Got to taste Yoshinoya dishes for the 1st time last week at the Ms. Earth lunch held in Robinsons Galleria. Loved that it's very affordable without compromising its taste and authenticity. 

Beef Bowl ( Gyudon ) is Yoshinoya’s specialty.  It is the same product profile where Yoshinoya operates in other parts of the world. The core product is prepared using premium beef with the special beef stock over steaming bowl of white rice.  

Yoshinoya was born in 1899 under the ingenuity of its founder, a Japanese, named Eikichi Matsuda.   Our story begins at Nihonbashi, a humble fish market in Chuo-ku, Tokyo, on the outskirts of Edo Castle where Mr. Matsuda created a delicious recipe of beef and rice known as Gyudon (beef bowl).  Named for his birthplace of Yoshino-Cho, Osaka, Mr. Matsuda’s restaurant featured delicious, affordable and fast meals. 

It was an entirely new concept in Japanese culture, and both the hard-working fisherman and market visitors embraced it. Yoshinoya was an instant hit. In 1923, Japan was hit by the Great Kanto Earthquake  and Yoshinoya  had to move to Tsukiji with the rest of the fish market and throngs of hungry patrons continued to enjoy Yoshinoya’s original gyūdon, or Beef Bowl.

In 1946, Mizuho Matsuda, son of Eikichi Matsuda, turned the business into a 24-hour restaurant and rapidly gained wide spread popularity in Japan. In 1958, it became a corporate company operating on a chain store system. Yoshinoya boasts of more than 100 years of tradition. Yoshinoya has grown to be one of the most important brands in Japan and boasts of more than 1,000 outlets, making it one of the biggest fast-food chains in Japan. To date, there are more than 1200 outlets around the world, namely Japan, USA, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines.   Soon, it will open in Thailand and Vietnam as part of its expansion program in the Asian region.

Now, there are currently six branches in Metro Manila:  SM MEGAMALL, SM MALL OF ASIA, SM MANILA, SM NORTH EDSA, ROBINSONS GALLERIA, AND GLORIETTA 1.

Yoshinoya’s logo, the “bull horn” was invented by Yoshinoya’s Mizuho Matsuda, with orange as its main color and has been adopted as Yoshinoya’s log since 1899.  The idea of the “bull horn” logo was derived from the initial letter of Yoshinoya “Y) while the rope surrounding the horn represents “Yokozuna” ranking (winner) in Japanese sumo-wrestling, also representing the Yokozuna quality of our food.  The surrounding rope is made of 27 rice grains and the whole log means Yoshinoya sells the “best beef bowls”

Head over to Yoshinoya now and get a taste of authentic Japanese dishes! Happy eating! :)