yoshinoya and the dangers thereof

so one of the best japanese fast food joints (or so i had previously thought) is a "gyudon" joint (basically beef or pork on a rice bowl) called yoshinoya. for about 500 yen you can eat a pretty hearty lunch or dinner and its really popular with cash-strapped university students, time-strapped salarymen, food-strapped foreigners, and lots of other groups of people.

i used to visit the place on a ratio of about once a week until about the middle of april. then one sunday night i decided to take a stroll down to the local yoshinoya and munch down a quick dinner of beef, rice, miso soup and green tea. tasted a bit funny at the time...thats because i dont think either a) it wasnt cooked properly, or b) was just meat gone bad. in any case, about 5 hours later i was in the john with a powerful punch of food poisoning.

luckily, monday was my day off work so for i was able to throw up all day on my day off instead of having to use a paid sick day or an unpaid day off. that said, i havent been back there since and have done my best to educate my students on the inherent health risks taken by visiting whats been called the most popular fast food chain in japan.