Japan's Gyudon shops Ranked

For those who don't know.... gyudon is one of the major staple foods of Japan. It is fast, simple and

delicious. Gyudon (literally beef bowl), is a Japanese dish consisting of a bowl of rice topped 

with beef and onion simmered in a mildly sweet sauce flavored with dashi (fish and seaweed stock), soy

sauce and mirin (sweet rice wine).

Behold: 

In Japan, there are 3 Big Fast Food Gyudon shops: Yoshinoya, Matsuya, and Sukiya. Similar to fast

food burger joints in the U.S. you can find these shops everywhere, prices are low, and the food

is...well...fast. My average wait time for getting gyudon is usually less than a minute.



So here is my personal ranking of these 3 behemoths.

#3

Recently, Yoshinoya raised the price of their standard gyudon from 300 yen to 380 yen. This is the same price as Matsuya but at Matsuya you get a miso soup with your gyudon. At Yoshinoya you have to pay extra for that. While the service is great and fast, the quality of the gyudon just doesn't match up with the recent price hike. For that reason, Yoshinoya gets the lowest score on the Gyudon scale.

#2 

Sukiya! Sukiya is a great choice. Definitely my favorite color scheme in my opinion (not sure if that has anything to do with food though). Overall the Gyudon was tasty and the portions were fairly big. What's nice about Sukiya is that it has more options than other gyudon shops. They even have cheese gyudon, which is pretty tasty. 

(Cheese gyudon can only be found at Sukiya)

#1 

Matsuya! Matsuya is pretty basic when it comes to gyudon, but I think the quality of the beef here is the best. It's simply great gyudon that comes with miso soup and is a perfect meal at any time of the day or night. (open 24 hours) Plus you can use a vending machine to place your order, so it is easy and you don't have to deal with flagging down one of the employees when you want the check.

So after much trial and error I found that my go to cheap gyudon shop is Matsuya. You can never go wrong here for the price and quality. It's simply the best cheap gyudon shop in Japan.

But...... wait. There is more.

There is one gyudon shop that I did not include in the list because this gyudon shop is TAKAI (expensive). So therefore it's not exactly cheap fast food. But in terms of deliciousness this shop is about 3 times better than any of the 3 cheap-o gyudon shops.

And this glorious tummy-tucking bundle of joy is........

Sutadon (すた丼)

While this is a chain restaurant, Sutadon, isn't as well known as the Big 3, especially to foreigners. It's one of the hidden secrets of gyudon. The name itself was derived from the word stamina, which you will need if you want to eat the biggest bowl of gyudon.

For a reasonable 780 yen you can get a huge bowl of gyudon including an egg and miso soup. It's very difficult to find a truly filling meal in Japan, but Sutadon is one of the few exceptions. As someone who is always hungry, I was able to eat sutadon for lunch and then I was so full that I didn't need to eat dinner that night. And the quality of the beef and rice + sauce is amazing. I can never look at Matsuya, Yoshinoya, or Sukiya the same way again after eating Sutadon. 

( an average sized portion at sutadon)