Ok. Here is one of those "life in Japan" posts you ordered:

That up three is Yoshinoya, which a gyudon shop. Gyudon is thinly sliced beef on top of rice with some onions and stuff in there. It is delicious and fast and costs about three bucks and so is usually filled with young single men. But now they are freaking out. See, they use only American beef, which has apparently crossed over to the "mad" side of the beef world. So now this massive chain restaurant has no supply for their main (only) dish. In fact I read this morning that a quarter of American beef exports go to Japan.

Anyway, to counter this they have introduced a whole bunch of new menu items including chicken-don and curry-don (though most people I have talked to said the curry-don is just the regular curry meal served in a more-difficult-to-eat fashion). They are still serving the beef - apparently they have about a three month stock of it - so I will be ok for now, but I am getting a little panicky about the gyudon-less months to come. This is the stuff crisis-type drama movies are made of.