Gyudon

Gyūdon , also known as gyūmeshi (牛飯 or 牛めし, "beef [and] rice"), is a Japanese dish consisting of a bowl of rice topped with beef and onion simmered in a mildly sweet sauce flavored with dashi (fish and seaweed stock), soy sauce and mirin (sweet rice wine). It may sometimes also be served with toppings such as raw or soft poached eggs, Welsh onions (negi), grated cheese or kimchi. A popular food in Japan, it is commonly eaten with beni shōga (pickled ginger), shichimi (ground chili pepper), and a side dish of miso soup. After the arrival of Buddhism in Japan in the 6th century, consumption of meat became rare in Japanese culture (especially those of four-footed animals such as beef or pork) and in many cases frowned upon, both for religious and practical reasons. It was only after the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and the subsequent westernization of the country that meat began to be widely eaten. Gyūdon is considered to be derived from gyūnabe (牛鍋), a beef hot pot originating in the Kantō region of eastern Japan. Gyūnabe originally consisted of cuts of beef simmered with Welsh onions and miso (as the beef available in Japan at the time were usually of poor quality, the meat was cooked this way to tenderize it and neutralize its foul smell), but by the late 1800s, a variation that used a special stock called warishita (割下) – a combination of a sweetener such as sugar or mirin and soy sauce – instead of miso and featuring additional ingredients such as shirataki (konjac cut into noodle-like strips) and tofu began to appear. This version of gyūnabe (known today as sukiyaki – originally the name of a similar yet distinct dish from the Kansai region) eventually came to be served with rice in a deep bowl (donburi), becoming gyūmeshi or gyūdon.

Source: Wikipedia