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Yoshinoya beef bowls become miniature gacha toys

Oona McGee Sep 12, 2021
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Six sets so realistic they’re making our mouths water.

Miniaturised items never fail to make our hearts sing for joy, with their tiny proportions and elaborate details making them almost too cute to bear.

Now, Japanese beef bowl restaurant chain Yoshinoya is the latest big name to miniaturise their products, and the collection they’ve created is so high in quality it’s hard to believe these aren’t real, edible dishes!

Created in conjunction with gacha capsule toy specialists Kenelephant, there are five sets in the collection, plus a special “lucky” item which will only be obtained by a special few.

▼ The realism of the dishes is so great it’s as if we can smell the aroma of Yoshinoya just by looking at them.

The lineup includes:

▼ Grilled Fish Set Meal

Yoshinoya’s standard morning set meal contains rice, miso soup, seaweed and grilled salmon. The bowl looks just like the ones used in-store, while the salmon looks like its just been freshly grilled, with such attention to detail it looks entirely edible! The tray and the chopsticks are a nice addition, and the seaweed replicates the packaging on the real product, only in tiny, miniature form.

▼ Cold Sake / Pickled Ginger

Yoshinoya’s cold sake comes from Kashiwaro Sake Brewery, and was first developed in 1992 as a sake that pairs well with beef dishes. The logo and colour of the sake bottle is a perfect replica of the ones served in-store, and the ginger box is also a faithful replica. Since the tiny ginger here is removable, you can add it to your other tiny meals, just as you would if you were enjoying the full-sized products!

▼ Takeout Set

This cute takeout set comes with a Yoshinoya-branded container, which has a removable lid, and inside you’ll find separate rice and topping parts for true beef-topped rice authenticity. No takeout set is complete without a set of Yoshinoya disposable chopsticks, and ginger and shichimi (“seven spice”) sachets, and those are included here as well.

▼ Yoshinoya At Home (Frozen Beef Bowl, Frozen Pork Bowl, Kimchi)

Frozen meal packs were born from the requests of Yoshinoya’s customers, who were keen to make Yoshinoya meals at home. Each pack contains all the ingredients you need to make your favourite meal, and the kimchi packaging flips open like the real thing, so you can admire its tiny ingredients

▼ Gyudon beef bowl (with pickles and raw egg)

Yoshinoya’s signature beef bowl, popular since the chain’s founding in 1899, is the true tiny star of this miniature collection. The saucy beef and soft onions have been elaborately crafted, producing an incredibly realistic topping, which sits inside a beautiful miniature Yoshinoya bowl. The set is complete with a pair of chopsticks, along with two popular side dishes, and if you like, you can even add the egg to the beef bowl!

Rounding off the collection is the teacup, a lucky item that looks like the ones used in store, and it contains a generous amount of green tea inside as well.

Even though it’s only about the size of a fingertip, the teacup has been specially designed so that it won’t fall over, even if you tip it on its side.

Although they’re made by a gacha capsule toy specialist, these new miniature items will also be sold in blind boxes, and priced at 500 yen (US$4.54) for the machine-sold capsules and 550 yen for the boxes.

The collection is set to go on sale from the end of September and will be available to purchase at capsule toy stores, general stores, online shops, and hobby shops nationwide.

The packs will be sold in sets at the Kenelephant online store as well, with pre-orders open from 2 September. Personally, we’re looking forward to adding these to our tiny Ozeki sake collection, and our miniature tamagokake gohan rice bowls that light up while making our mouths water at the same time!

Images: Value Press
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[ Read in Japanese ]