Before the new year arrived, I went to Yoshinoya for lunch for my official “last beef bowl of 2012,” and decided to post a picture of my meal to my Twitter and Facebook feeds. As usual, food in Japan can be confusing and/or difficult to identify to people not familiar with it, and I got several questions about what I was eating. Several people commented on the raw egg sitting in a bowl, and I answered that that I was going to add a dollop of soy sauce to the egg, mix it up then pour it over the beef bowl, pushing the egg inside with my chopsticks so the heat from the rice could cook the egg. I’m what’s known as 卵派 tamago-ha or “raw egg faction,” the name for people who think beef bowl is better with raw egg mixed in, while people who eat it without the egg are そのまま派, sonomama-ha or “just-as-it-is faction.” This tendency to break people into groups using the 派 (meaning faction, denomination or school, as in two opposing schools of thought) kanji is quite common in Japan. For example, there’s an ongoing debate raging in my family about whether fried eggs are better with soy sauce or that heavenly Bull-Dog Sauce. While I’m usually 醤油派 shoyu-ha or “soy sauce faction,” I switch to the ソース派 so-su ha or “sauce faction” if the fried egg in question will be part of a sandwich or otherwise eaten with bread. You can use the 派 kanji for just about anything you want to debate, e.g. Kirino-ha or Kuroneko-ha, etc.
My Last Beef Bowl of 2012
