Japan is on a roll recently with its cute character cafes like the Card Captor Sakura Cafe and the Cinnamonroll Cafe opening later this week and this Friday Japanese restaurant chain Yoshinoya is getting its own cute makeover thanks to Hello Kitty. Yoshinoya is known predominantly for its gyudon beef bowl, which consists of Japanese beef marinated in a tasty sweet savory sauce with caramelised onions sitting on a bed of fluffy rice, and is a must try for any Japanese snack lover or foodie as well as being a favourite here at TokyoTreat!

Now why the kawaii makeover from Hello Kitty you might ask? As delicious as gyudon is, due to the get in, eat, get out nature of chain restaurants like Yoshinoya, their clientele are mainly male and/or salarymen, and they've received a lot of feedback from female customers saying "I want to go to Yoshinoya… but it's difficult to enter (such a male dominated space.)" So to combat this, Yoshinoya have come up with the solution of collaborating with the kawaii character queen Hello Kitty herself! Now lets take a look at what this collab has to offer~

There are some very special limited edition goods up for grabs. 200 customers have the chance of winning a set of multi use bowls, whilst another 500 customers have the chance of winning the lunch thermos both pictured above. The designs are simple but cute and perfect for everyday use, and due to the limited nature of the items I'm sure we'll see them popping up on auction sites for a lot of money after the collaboration is over.

Customers also have a chance of getting their hands on this very special Hello Kitty gyudon bowl which mixes traditional Japanese aesthetic with Hello Kitty for a super adorable yet cool design. And customers who spend over 1500 Japanese yen ($15) on Yoshinoya's webstore will also receive a free limited edition Yoshinoya x Hello Kitty lunch cloth to wrap their cute homemade bento boxes in!

So what's offered in the actual stores taking part in the collab? A special Hello Kitty menu which consists of one item, Hello Kitty gyudon, which includes gyudon in the cute multi set bowl (of which you don't get to keep sadly!), a side of pickled burdock root (gobou) or potato salad, and a Hello Kitty place mat you do get to keep! Customers will also receive a free Hello Kitty coaster (2 designs available) with their order. And finally there will be Hello Kitty photo ops inside the store.

As for the actual locations of the stores, again it's very limited and only two stores will be taking part in the whole of Japan. Yes, you read that right. Two stores out of the thousands of Yoshinoya locations across Japan!! The two lucky stores are in Ebisu, Tokyo and the other in Matsudo City in Chiba (only a short train ride from Tokyo!) which is too bad for the rest of Japan. The collaboration will only last 3 days in each store, the Ebisu location running from Friday the 27th of July until Sunday the 29th, and the Matsudo location running from Friday August the 3rd until Sunday the 5th. Again due to the limited nature of this collaboration it's bound to be a massive hit and you can expect queues to get in, so if you do intend to go then please plan accordingly!

You can find out more information about the collab on the Yoshinoya x Hello Kitty website here.

What do you think about this collaboration? Would you like to eat here? What kind of collab would you like to see next? Let us know in the comments!

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