We head to the beef bowl king to try their first attempt at beef mazesoba.

We recently found out that Yoshinoya was adding ramen to its menu, and it was surprising for multiple reasons. First, Yoshinoya is, quite famously, Japan’s favorite beef bowl joint, and they’ve never had a noodle dish served by the entire chain before this. Second, Yoshinoya was promising that it would be a “refreshing” meal that’s “perfect for the hot summer.”

Looking at preview pictures of the Gyutama Stamina Mazesoba, though, we weren’t so sure about that claim. See, in Japanese foodie jargon, “stamina” is often used to refer to garlic, which is indeed thought to help cope with heat exhaustion by some people in Japan, but isn’t exactly a taste that most people would describe as “refreshing,” and the pre-release photos were giving us the impression of a boldly flavored but also heavy-feeling meal.

But hey, what were we going to do, not eat ramen? So when Yoshinoya started serving the Gyutama Stamina Mazesoba on July 4, our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun sauntered over to try it for himself for 767 yen (US$5.30).

Before we get to the taste test, though, let’s unpack that name. Gyu means “beef” and tama here is short for tamago, or “egg,” and the Gyutama Stamina Mazesoba’s toppings include Yoshinya’s famous simmered beef strips and an egg. Mazesoba, meanwhile, is a kind of no-broth ramen where you mix (mazeru) everything together in a bowl before you start eating.

You might feel a twinge of disappointment when the tray placed in front of you doesn’t look like the picture on the poster, but that’s because the garlic sauce and egg come in their own separate dishes, and you combine everything yourself.

▼ That’s better.

Speaking of the sauce, it’s pretty pungent stuff. As P.K. poured it into his noodle bowl and began to stir with his chopsticks, he could feel the sharp garlic notes prickling his nose.

The garlic aroma was strong enough that P.K. braced himself for a powerful punch to his taste buds as he took a bite, only to be swiftly startled by a much smoother flavor profile than he’d expected.

That doesn’t mean that it’s bland, and the flavor that’s here is quite nice. It’s just that the way Yoshinoya’s mazesoba looks and smells had P.K. building up an intense image for how it was going to taste, and when what he actually got was the exact opposite, it was kind of hard for his brain to process right away.

But then again, the flavor is entirely in keeping with how Yoshinoya itself told us the Gyutama Stamina Mazesoba was going to be: “refreshing” and “perfect for the hot summer.”

There are ways to dial things up a notch here, and if you want to Yoshinoya recommends adding a side order of extra green onions with rayu (chili oil) or kimchi to the bowl. But for what it is, and for what Yoshinoya says it is, its first noodle dish does the trick.

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