Yoshinoya Beef Gyudon Eating Grand Finals

It’s “burp or bust” as Yoshinoya, the country’s most popular fast-food chain that specializes in all-time favorite Japanese culinary fare, holds the Grand Finals of its ever-popular “Yoshinoya Beef Gyudon Eating Contest” today at the New Glorietta Activity Center in Makati City.

And as promised, the grand finals will not be short in excitement and competitive gastronomic spirit as a total of Twenty Eight (28) contestants from all around Metro Manila, who competed in several qualifying stages held at various Yoshinoya stores for the past month, duke it out to eliminate each other. The objective is to find out who is “the best among the best” and ultimately crown the newest “Yoshinoya Beef Gyudon Eating Contest Grand Champion.”

Now on its 4th year, Yoshinoya’s popular Beef Gyudon eating contest saw more beef gyudon lovers flocking to Yoshinoya stores to answer to this gastronomic challenge. For the qualifying rounds, the customer who finished the most number of bowls or who has the least amount of leftover food in 5 minutes wins the day’s challenge.  The names of the four (4) fastest challengers were put on display at each store’s Leader Board and updated every time a new record is set.

However, today’s final match will be even more difficult as it all boils down to who will eat the most number of beef gyudon bowls in 15 minutes and less leftover food. The Top Three (3) Finalists with the most number of bowls consumed and the least weight left after 15 minutes will be declared winners of the Yoshinoya Beef Gyudon Eating Contest.

First place winner will receive P100,000, second placer gets P50,000 while the  3rd placer takes home P25,000. Non-winners will get consolation prizes worth P2,000 of Yoshinoya Gift Certificates.

To spice up the event even more, the members of the media were also given a chance to show their beef gyudon-eating stuff. A separate set of Four (4) contestants from the media—Print, Radio, TV, Online, who also competed in separate “media-only” qualifying events—will also slug it out today as they try to finish as many Yoshinoya Gyudon Beef Bowls as they can under the same rules. A separate set of prizes also await the grand winner from the media.

HISTORY

Yoshinoya was born in 1899 because of the ingenuity of its founder, Eikichi Matsuda. Its story begins at Nihonbashi, a humble fish market in Chuo-ku, Tokyo, on the outskirts of Edo Castle where Matsuda created a delicious recipe of beef and rice known as Gyudon (beef bowl).  Named for his birthplace of Yoshino-Cho, Osaka, Matsuda’s restaurant featured delicious, affordable and fast meals. It was an entirely new concept in Japanese culture, and both the hard-working fishermen and market visitors embraced it and made Yoshinoya an instant hit.

Today, Yoshinoya boasts of more than 100 years of tradition and has grown to be one of the most important brands in Japan that boasts of more than 1,000 outlets, making it one of the biggest fast-food chains in Japan. To date, there are more than 1,200 Yoshinoya outlets around the world located in Japan, USA, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Century Pacific Group, under its retail arm, Yoshinoya Century Pacific, Inc., entered into a Franchise Agreement with Yoshinoya International Co., Ltd in 2001 and started its first store operation in December 2001.  Currently, there are six (6) stores in Metro Manila: SM MEGAMALL, SM NORTH EDSA, SM MALL OF ASIA, ROBINSONS GALLERIA, the newly opened GLORIETTA branch, SM MANILA and now in SM PAMPANGA. To further strengthen its presence in the Quick Service Arena, Yoshinoya Century Pacific, Inc. forged a partnership with Ihanat Foods Corporation led by its President and General Manager,  Timothy James G. Yang.

Yoshinoya is home to delicious modern Japanese comfort food, from fresh salads, delectable seafood, noodles and great selections of entrées on Japanese rice bowls. Since 2001, the Company with the vision to be the most preferred Japanese restaurant in the country has offered high quality food at affordable prices with exceptional friendly service to its patrons.  From its vast array of delicious entree selections, fresh salad ingredients to sumptuous desserts, only the highest quality products are presented to customers.

Over the years Yoshinoya’s menu changed to reflect today’s consumer except for the Beef Bowl (Gyudon) which 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. 

With Yoshinoya’s persistence in satisfying customers in providing sumptuous authentic Japanese dishes, Yoshinoya new product offering includes: Maki Variants, Yoshi Chicken and MisonoTeishoku (Set Meals).