Prior to my scheduled departure to Japan, the wires were ablaze with news of an impending Nor'easter, so I headed down to Boston a couple days early and snagged a last-minute hotel room, in order to "beat the storm." (Johnny: 1. God: 0.) On my last night stateside, I flipped open the Hyatt Harborside at Logan Airport room-service menu and ordered the biggest cheeseburger they could make. Screw the cholesterol, I thought. I ain't gettin' a decent burger for a long time.

How wrong I was. Due to a college career fraught with insufferable, utopian, relentless Japanophiles, I'm wary of any statement that essentially says, "Oooh, it's so great here in the Land of the Rising Sun!" But damn, the people at Japanese fast-food chain Mos Burger have taken the burger art form in new directions. As an American bun-plus-patty connoisseur, it's embarrassing.

American innovation in the burger field has been constrained mostly to size and shape. You've got the three-layer, round McDonald's Big Mac, the square-patty Wendy's Double, and miniature "sliders" made famous by White Castle. My buddy Sam and I tried "sliders" for the first time last year. We learned that when a food is named after the unorthodox way it travels through your digestive tract, that's nature's way of saying, "Danger!"

Emergency antacid purchases aside, the U.S. burger landscape lacks excitement. Mos Burger, in comparison, is a jolt to the senses. Yes, as you'd expect, the Japanese burgers are smaller, more efficient, and more reliable than their American counterparts. But there's creativity here, too. Just take a look at their menu.

This first little number shows that our Japanese friends are really "thinking outside the bun"! Heh heh! Actually, they're thinking about the bun. I just thought of that joke while I was falling asleep last night and wanted to work it in. Point is, they changed the damn bun. It's rice. Don't worry, the rice burgers come in little burger-envelopes so you can eat them without making a mess. This one, seafood rice-burger, is my favorite. I love it so much, I'd eat it in one bite if I hadn't dislocated my jaw a few years ago trying the same trick with a McDonald's cheeseburger. You were right, Mom.

Here we witness Mos Burger's understanding of the burger-eating experience. Anybody can pile ingredients on a burger, but size alone only takes you so far. Going that extra step to maximize the feeling of decadence, Mos Burger provides a shiny ladle full of gratuitous barbeque sauce that you can pour on the sandwich as you eat, or just drink directly.

But maybe you're at the other extreme: burger guilt. Mos has the answer here, too. The lettuce burger. It doesn't taste any better than a normal burger, and the lettuce makes trying to eat one a slippery disaster (despite the "envelope"). In truth, it isn't very healthy, either, but it seems healthy. So feel free to ignore the mayonnaise and teriyaki sauce dripping off the sides. No Stairmaster for you today — you just ate a lettuce burger!

Congratulations to Mos Burger. You are the Admittedly Excellent Only-in-Japan Burger Outfit of the Day.

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posted by Johnny at 11:45 PM - Permalink

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