The Japanese dish of simmered beef and onions served over rice is gyudon. It consists of thinly sliced beef and onions cooked in a mildly sweet sauce commonly flavored with soy sauce, mirin, and dashi, then spooned over a bowl of steamed rice.
Gyudon developed from gyunabe, a beef hot pot that became popular during Japan’s modernization after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. By the late nineteenth century, beef-and-rice bowls were being sold in Tokyo. Eikichi Matsuda opened the first Yoshinoya restaurant in 1899, helping establish gyudon as an accessible working-class meal and, eventually, a national fast-food favorite.
The dish is often topped with beni shoga pickled ginger, shichimi pepper, a raw or soft-cooked egg, or extra sauce. Tendon means tempura over rice, katsudon uses breaded pork cutlet, and oyakodon combines chicken and egg. A notable interruption came in 2004, when Japan’s temporary ban on imported U.S. beef forced major chains to suspend or alter their gyudon offerings.