Day 5. I was truly rested. It seems like I have seen the last of the jet lag and adjusted myself to the day-night cycle. Which is good because I was so worried about wanting to sleep during the day time and being awake like an owl during the night.
We started with breakfast in Oriental Mall. We had breakfast there because we planned to use the subway to get to the Summer Palace. Ben told me that there are two subway stations around the Oriental Mall. So you can imagine how long that one building is.
I like the Oriental Mall because there are so many things to eat. Moreover it is so clean and modern.
We had breakfast at Yoshinoya in the Gourmet Street in the Oriental Mall. Ben was telling me about Yoshinoya which is found all over Beijing. There are so many of them that you can almost be sure there is a Yoshinoya in every shopping complex, mall or major street. It seems like there are more Yoshinoya than there are McDonalds and KFC.
Yoshinoya is a Japanese fast food chain who are famous for its beef bowl. Believe it or not, Yoshinoya is older than McDonalds or KFC. Yoshinoya is more than 110 years old already.
We ordered one breakfast combo to share because we wanted to save some stomach room just in case we came across something interesting to try later.
The combo was just … RMB27 (about CAD$4.50). One of the item in the combo is a colorful and delightfully delicious salad with thousand island dressing. Ben does not like salad, so I had the salad all by myself.
Another item in the combo is an egg flower soup. The soup is just OK. It looks good though.
The main dish of the combo is a grilled chicken on rice. The meal is pretty decent considering the price. But whatever it is, it is definitely filling. The counter service is fast and efficient. They do seems to take great care about hygiene because they have chopsticks and spoon dispensers that doubles up as sterilizers.
Too bad we don’t have a Yoshinoya yet in Canada. I think this chain will do well in Vancouver as a lot of people, I am sure, who had been around Asia knows of this chain.
Looks good and very reasonable. I would love to go to China,
Actually, there are similar “beef bowl” places in Vancouver (Donburiya is example of one). But I find the prices to be more expensive than Japan (and probably other Asian places), and I don’t think people are used to the idea of convenience and efficiency that places like Yoshinoya present.
It’s a bit sad actually, I used to live in Japan and it was the best thing ever to go to my local beef bowl place and pay $3 for a decent meal 🙁
Well We have Yoshinoya in the Philippines,A Combo is about 3$ in the Philippines