It has beef and it comes in a bowl, but it’s not a beef bowl.

There’s no dish Yoshinoya is more strongly associated with than gyudon (beef bowls), and no restaurants is more strongly associated with beef bowls than Yoshinoya. The mental connection between the two is so strong that it’s not uncommon for people in Japan to mash the words together and refer to the chain and its flagship food as “Yoshigyu.”

But this summer Yoshinoya is stepping out of the beef bowl box, and while they’re not ditching beef in their newest offering, it’ll have no rice, because it’s beef ramen.

Specifically, this is mazesoba. The “maze” part comes from mazeru, meaning to stir or mix, and while “soba” by itself usually refers to buckwheat noodles, it can also indicate ramen noodles (as it does in the stir-fried ramen noodle dish yakisoba). Mazesoba is a type of non-soup ramen where instead of the noodles floating in liquid broth they’re placed in a bowl with sauce and other ingredients, and you stir everything together just before eating so that the flavor mixes throughout.

For its Gyutama Stamina Mazesoba, the key co-star for the noodles is the same strips of simmered beef that Yoshinoya fans know and love from the chain’s beef bowls. Accompanying them are sliced onions, diced leeks, tempura flakes, an egg, and a thick-consistency spicy garlic sauce, which is served on the side so that you can add as much or as little as you want.

Yoshinoya says the result is tasty and satiating, but surprisingly describes the flavor as “rich yet refreshing.” Considering that just about every ingredient in Yoshinoya’s mazesoba is meaty, pungent, or fried, it’s probably best to take that “refreshing” claim with a grain of salt, but the bold and filling parts of the promise definitely sound plausible, and with Japanese folk wisdom holding that garlic is supposed to boost physical endurance, the Gyutama Stamina Mazesoba, priced at 767 yen (US$5.30) is set to go on sale July 4, right as the midsummer heat starts showing up.

Source: Yoshinoya (1, 2)via Hachima Kiko
Images: Yoshinoya
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