Matsuya – a place where you can eat beef rice bowl or warm dishes 24/7 at a reasonable price

When you stay in Japan, you may want to eat warm dishes at a reasonable price. Mastuya is a good option for you.

It’s located near major stations in city centers. Find the nearby store.
It’s open 24/7.
You can order dishes without speaking Japanese.
The price range is usually 500 to 700 yen.

Their popular dish is beef rice bowl. Simmered beef and onions with soy sauce and sugar are on the rice. The taste is quite similar to Sukiyaki. In a sense, you can try the Sukiyaki taste at a cheap price in a very simple way.

Matsuya also offers other types of rice bowl dishes, and grilled meat set menus.

English Menu | Matsuya

How to order

At the front of a store, you can find a ticket machine. You can select English.

I usually select “Beef Bowl”. You can choose other categories and dishes as well.

“Gyumeshi” is the beef rice bowl (or gyudon). You can choose the size of the rice and meat.

If you want, you can order side dishes. In my case, I’ll choose Salad & Soft-boiled Egg.

You can order a Bibimbap style rice bowl, or other grilled meat dishes.

Click “To payment” to pay, or “支払いへ” in case you only see a Japanese message.

You can use a credit card.

After that, don’t forget to get a receipt, which will be used as a meal ticket.

The ticket has an order number (221 in my case).

How to wait

There are 2 types of stores at Matsuya.

If you only see counter seats, have a seat and show your ticket to a store staff member. They usually come to your seat to bring a glass of water and get your ticket.
If shop staff are only in a cooking area, you need to wait at your selected seat, pick up the cooked dishes, and bring a glass of water on your own. With this system, you’ll see your order number on a screen. Once your order number shows up, your dish is ready. Go to the counter.

Time to eat

Now it’s time to eat the dish 🙂

There are various dressings and sauces in front of you. The sauces are usually for grilled meat set menus.

On the left top of the above photo, there is a red pickled ginger. You can put it in your rice bowl.

And here’s my meal 🙂

You can taste the beef rice bowl (aka gyumeshi or gyudon) in various ways 🙂

Similar stores

Aside from Matsuya, Sukiya and Yoshinoya offer the same types of dishes. Caveats in these stores are that they usually don’t have a ticket machine and you have to pay after having the meals. Some interactions with store staff would be required.

These are considered another type of convenience store, or fast food in Japan. But the dishes are the great outcome of their profound research and passion to strike a balance between quality and cost.

Japan may be the unique country where you can enjoy this kind of high quality meal at cheap prices and anytime.