Reality Check: Burger at Lotteria in | Serious Eats https://aht.seriouseats.com/2013/05/print/reality-check-ramen-burger-lott...

Reality Check: Ramen Burger at Lotteria in Japan JAY FRIEDMAN

We've given you a preview of Lotteria's Ramen Burger, and even shown you how a guy ate one with ten extra portions of ramen. Now it's time for a review.

Lotteria is a fast-food chain in Japan (with other outlets in East Asia) serving up its special Ramen Burger for a limited run, just until mid-June. I was lucky enough to be in as the promotion started, hitting up a location that o�ers only 100 burgers per day (some shops sell only 50). I was excited to try this. Ramen and burgers

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are two of my favorite foods. Combine them, and what could go possibly wrong?

Just about everything.

Actually, the individual components aren't bad. The chashu is moist and tender enough, with a layer of and good pork �avor. It's braised in soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and bonito �akes, with a sweet tare sauce added. The ramen "patty," which is boiled and lightly charred, comes from Menya Musashi—a quality ramen chain in Tokyo with its �agship in Shinjuku. Hiding beneath the noodles is Japanese mayonnaise, almost always a welcomed ingredient. The bun itself is simple and soft, exactly what I want for a burger, in contrast to brioche buns, which can both get in the way and fall apart. On the side is a cup of "special soup" with bonito �avoring.

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Put it all together, though, and the sandwich is sad. The carb-on-carb action falls �at, bland in comparison to the more readily available yakisoba sandwich with its fried noodles, pickled red ginger, and yakisoba sauce seeping into the soft bun. The chashu is too small, not making its presence felt in enough bites. And I didn't know what to do with the soup. Dip the sandwich, au jus-style? That's too awkward. Dip some excess noodles, tsukemen-style? That pulls too many noodles from the burger. Turns out, I later learned, that the soup is just for drinking. (Unless you do kaidama, ordering extra patties at 100 yen apiece, which you then dip in the soup.)

I think Lotteria's Napoli Panda Burger (with spaghetti and cheese) might be a better bet. It retains the beef patty, with tomato and cheese adding umami that's missing in the Ramen Burger. And it's half the price of the Ramen Burger, which at 634 yen (634 in Japanese is mu-sa-shi, in honor of the noodle source) is pretty expensive for a fast- food product. For that money, I could almost buy a regular bowl of ramen at Menya Musashi, not far from this particular Lotteria. Gomen nasai (I'm sorry).

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