A beefy experience that will bowl you over

The local fastfood scene has never sizzled like this. And competition gets beefier and beefier every day. Last Wednesday, people queued up for their first taste of Japan’s most famous beef bowl at the formal opening of Yoshinoya at the upper ground floor of SM Southmall in Las Piñas. Walk-in customers were certainly bowled over as their orders were taken and served by – surprise, surprise! – young actress Judy Ann Santos, who plays a meaty role on the popular TV soap opera Sa Puso Ko Iingatan Ka. Today, she simply smiles for media cameramen as she plays one of the crew of Yoshinoya. And Judy Ann gave a stellar performance.

Sharing the limelight with Judy Ann were Yoshinoya’s culinary stars. Members of the Super Bowl cast include Beef Bowl (succulent beef slices cooked in herbs and spices and served on a bed of a steaming jasmine rice), Chicken Bowl (chunky pieces of grilled boneless teriyaki chicken and fresh vegetables on jasmine rice), Pork Bowl (tender pork cooked in spices and served with fresh vegetables on jasmine rice), and Beef and Chicken Combo Bowl (a mix of tender strips of beef and chicken cooked in a special blend of spices and served on jasmine rice with fresh vegetables). Completing the star-studded menu are Yoshinoya’s specially formulated beverage, the green iced tea, as well as side dishes like kimchi and native desserts like ube sago and halo-halo cocktail.

Judy Ann led the cast of VIP guests, among them Yoshinoya D&C Co., Ltd. officials headed by its president Shuji Abe who flew in from Japan for the opening of the first Yoshinoya outlet in Manila, Yoshinoya’s 997th store worldwide. "The Philippines is an excellent place to open a Yoshinoya restaurant," says Abe, "and we are happy to bring and share with Filipinos the Yoshinoya heritage of good taste, fast service and reasonable price."

Says Raymond Tan, vice president of Yoshinoya Century Pacific, which brought Japan’s most popular and oldest fastfood chain to the Philippines: "We assure Filipinos that they will enjoy the same top quality products and service that Yoshinoya fans enjoy worldwide."

In Japan, Yoshinoya rivals McDonald’s, pound for pound of beef, according to Raffy Lantin, marketing director, Century Canning Corporation. Annually, it grosses a whopping US$1 billion from its worldwide operations, including Japan. Outside Japan, Yoshinoya is in the US, where there are nearly a hundred Yoshinoya outlets, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and now, the Philippines, where it plans to open more than a hundred stores. But for this year, 7 sounds like a good number.

"We want to open in strategic locations, initially north and south of Metro Manila," says Lantin. "Like our SM branch on Alabang-Zapote Road, Las Piñas and our MetroPoint outlet on corner Edsa and Taft Avenue, where the MRT and LRT converge."

This joint venture between the Manila-based Century Pacific Group and Yoshinoya D&C Co., Ltd., and Mitsui & Co., Ltd. of Japan can only be a mouthwatering success. After all, it was the same company (Century Pacific) which converted Filipinos to tuna-eating people. "We’d like to turn Yoshinoya into another Century tuna, another Argentina corned beef, another 555 sardine," Lantin points out. "We’re a marketing-oriented company, we research on what consumers want."

What do Filipinos want?

"It’s multi-faceted," Lantin replies. "For sure, it’s very meaty. We like meat. And we have a sweet tooth, we like desserts."

All this – and more – customers are getting at Yoshinoya. But of course, you’re getting only authentic Japanese fast food, whose cherished recipe dates back to 1899, when Yoshinoya opened its first restaurant in Nihombashi Fish Market in Chuo Ward, Tokyo. A century and three years later, Yoshinoya is still serving its well-loved rice bowls in over 800 outlets in Japan.

"This standard formulation, based on consumer taste tests conducted before launching our operations, had a high rating of acceptance, 89 to 90 percent," Lantin asserts. "But we also recognize the need to adapt our products to local taste. So it is only in the Philippines where Yoshinoya has desserts like ube sago and halo-halo. But Filipino fare, being a mixture of Malay, Chinese, etc., cuisines, there are variants of the sago and halo-halo in other places in the Asian region. It all depends on the ingredients available. If we find opportunities to launch a local dish or a new product, we will. For example, our pork bowl was introduced by Taiwan while our chicken bowl was a product of US operations."

But please don’t look for noodles, tempura or sushi (not yet anyway) at Yoshinoya. "Traditional Japanese food really consists of the beef bowl (gyudon)," Lantin tells members of the press over bowls of Yoshinoya’s meaty offerings.

Expect only hearty, healthy food served hot and fresh at Yoshinoya. "We don’t use MSG in our food," Lantin stresses. "We use vegetable oil. We have a commissary in Laguna which sources our ingredients on a daily basis. Because our promise is food is cooked only when it is ordered. Our veggies are fresh and crisp as they’re sourced locally every day. Our beef comes from the US and is definitely mad cow-free. Our fine rice comes from Thailand. We never reheat. Everything is freshly cooked all the time."

What’s more, quality at Yoshinoya does not come with a high price tag. "We’d like to deliver high-quality Japanese food at reasonably low prices," Lantin notes. "We’d like to change the perception that Japanese food is expensive."

How affordable? A regular sized rice bowl goes for only P59 while the large bowl is only P70.

So quit beefing and let’s eat.