Japan’s cheap beef bowl chain goes upscale with Matsuya Premium, but is it worth the higher price?

Ordinarily cheap Matsuya opens a high-priced Matsuya inside another upscale Matsuya.

Japanese department stores have food departments on their basement levels, and naturally the fancier department stores offer fancier foods. So it might surprise some shoppers at the Matsuya department store in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza neighborhood to find that one of Japan’s cheapest restaurant chains now has a presence in the store’s food section.

June 10 was the grand opening of Matsuya Premium Ginza, the new department store spinoff of the Matsuya gyudon/beef bowl restaurant chain (which is a separate company from the Matsuya department store). As the name implies, Matsuya Premium is positioning itself as a more luxurious, upgraded version of the Matsuya restaurant chain, offering takeout meals exclusive to Matsuya Premium, such as beef bowls made with Kobe beef.

▼ Premium Matsuya’s Kobe beef gyudon

▼ Premium Matsuya’s Kuroge Wagyu Hamburger Steak Bento with tomato sauce

Obviously, Matsuya Premium’s prices are higher too. At a normal Matsuya, for example, the standard beef bowl is just 460 yen (US$3), but Matsuya Premium’s Kobe beef version will cost you 1,390 yen. There’s a gap in price between the price for regular Matsuya’s tomato sauce hamburger steak set (1,180 yen) and Matsuya Premum’s Kuroge Wagyu Hamburger Steak Bento (1,681 yen).

Here’s the thing though. Regular Matsuya’s food isn’t just cheap, it’s also really tasty. Sure, the restaurant chain is friendly to your wallet, but it’s just as kind to your taste buds, which raises a question.

If regular, cheap Matsuya is already so good, is there any point in paying extra for Matsuya Premium?

To investigate, our Japanese-language reporter Seiji Nakazawa sprang into action, first stopping by Matsuya Premium to pick up a Kobe beef gyudon and Kuroge Wagyu Hamburger Steak, then swinging by a regular Matsuya to procure their more plebian counterparts as well.

▼ Matsuya Premium on the left, basic Matsuya on the right

The Matsuya Premium items do come in more elegant-looking containers, but visually there isn’t much difference to be seen with the food itself.

But beef is always beautiful, and we’re paying extra for what’s supposed to be the special flavor of the Premium items, not enhanced aesthetics. So now it was time for Seiji to taste-test the different versions back-to-back.

He started with the beef bowl, and right away he could taste that the Kobe beef version has something the regular Matsuya beef bowl doesn’t. The marbled quality of the Kobe beef gives it a much heavier dose of umami flavor, which melts in your mouth and merges with the flavors of the stock that the beef is simmered in. That combination danced across his taste buds and fired up his taste buds with a greater intensity than the regular Matsuya gyudon, in which the meaty flavor of the beef is less pronounced and the stock plays a more prominent role.

Moving on to the hamburger steaks, the most striking difference here was the texture of the meat. The Matsuya Premium version is tenderer, and it’s juicier too. Switching to the regular Matsuya hamburger steak after trying a bite of the Premium, Seiji couldn’t help but feel a that the cheaper version is drier and tougher, and, with such a closely-timed comparison, had a twinge of frozen-food feeling to it, he says.

So Seiji is happy to report that Matsuya Premium isn’t just charging more because of its location, and that it genuinely does deliver a more refined eating experience than what you can find at a regular Matsuya. The new venture might not quite match the value-for-money that standard Matsuya is known for, but Matsuya Premium delivers on giving you the quality you’re paying for.

Shop information
Matsuya Premium Ginza / 店名　松屋PREMIUM銀座店
Address: Tokyo-to, Chuo-ku, Ginza 3-6-1, Matsuya Ginza basement level 1
住所　東京都中央区銀座3-6-1松屋銀座 地下1階
Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. (11 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Sundays and final day of consecutive holidays)

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