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The story
Nakau added six new items to its ¥390 breakfast menu starting September 3, 2026. The standout is the “mixed rice bowl” (maze-nokke gohan), also found at sister chain Sukiya under the same Zensho Group umbrella, loaded with egg, natto, bonito flakes, and okra — and it’s become a hot topic. On 5ch’s Newsflash+ board, opinions split: some praised the low price, while others argued “you could make this at home for less than half the price” or “cooking it yourself just means you’re stuck with the dishes,” turning the debate into one about the value of eating out in general. Nitpicks flew over whether the natto was actually included and how visible the bonito flakes were, and the discussion expanded into comparisons with breakfast menus at other chains like Matsuya and Bikkuri Donkey.
■ Nakau’s new menu turned out to be perfect for breakfast! Starting Thursday, September 3, 2026, six new items have joined Nakau’s breakfast lineup.
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Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
That mixed rice bowl looks pretty good
That's exactly what just got added at Nakau
Nakau and Sukiya are both under the Zensho Group anyway
No natto is a dealbreaker
Just make it ¥440 and throw in some natto
They're way too obsessed with staying under ¥400
Can't you see the natto's right there?
Can't you see that's bonito flakes?
Wait, don't tell me you mean the okra…
It means more people are fine settling for stuff like this.
If regular folks can only afford this, you'd have a point.
It just means there are more lazybones willing to go out to eat something like this
One goes up during their Thanksgiving Festival sale
Sukiya's already doing the same thing, so Nakau didn't need to copy it
And it's a downgraded version to boot
There's no way Sukiya would do that
Nothing there is actually made in-store to begin with
Might be the bonito flakes doing that
To each their own — it's not just about having meat
Cook it yourself and it's under ¥100
You still gotta clean up afterward, you know
There's no such menu, is there?
That's true of eating out in general
Paying ¥400 for this just looks like a punishment game to me
Are the people going "thank you, thank you" for it actually the majority?
apparently neko-manma (rice topped with bonito flakes and soy sauce, lit. "cat's rice") means different things in Kanto and Kansai
So this is neko-manma with egg and okra thrown in, for ¥390, huh…
You mix in the okra and bonito flakes, right? Even so, nobody's calling this neko-manma
As restaurant food, that's dirt cheap though
If five customers walk in back to back, that poor person is way past overwhelmed
They've cut labor costs to the bone just to hit this price — if you're still calling it expensive, you won't be able to eat out anywhere
Probably people who never eat out — like shut-ins mooching off their parents or something?
Not my problem
Expensive is expensive
My paycheck sure hasn't changed
Bikkuri Donkey
You can choose from a small beef side dish, natto, and more
Raw egg can be swapped for a soft onsen egg
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Nakau’s parent company, the Zensho Group, is a major restaurant conglomerate that also owns Sukiya, Hamazushi, and others. The backdrop to this whole discussion is that, amid an industry-wide wave of price hikes, Zensho has managed to hold the line at a ¥390 price point in the first place. What split opinion on the thread wasn’t the price itself, but whether the cost of eating out should be weighed against the time and effort of cooking and cleaning up — revealing a values gap between the home-cooking crowd and the eating-out crowd. Some also pointed out that ¥390 menu items are often run by a single staffer per shift, a detail worth keeping in mind as the labor-cost-cutting reality behind that low price — something that’s easy to miss just from reading the replies. Some posters equated the mixed rice bowl with “neko-manma” (a homestyle rice dish topped with bonito flakes and soy sauce), but the name and exact makeup of that dish vary by region and shop, making it an easy point of confusion.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Newsflash+) thread “This is exactly what I wanted! Nakau’s ‘breakfast-only ¥390 menu’ delivered more satisfaction than it looks — it was truly the ideal breakfast!“
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