Japaneats その4 - ファーストフード (Fast food)

Let's face it - there will be gloomy days during 梅雨 (つゆ - tsuyu - the rainy season) when you just want to veg out and eat junk food. Fortunately, you can kill your ハンバーガー (hamburger) cravings in true Japanese style. Whether it's a burger place you won't find at home or an imported chain, let's have a look at what's on offer. Loosen your belt, grab some napkins and pull up a plastic stool for today's Japaneats.

Japanese chains

モスバーガー (MOS Burger) - apparently an abbrieviation of "Mountain Ocean Sky"

(Can you spot the use of "W" I talked about earlier?)

モスバーガー is possibly the most famous Japanese hamburger chain. It's well known for its rice burgers - hamburgers with toasted rice cakes instead of buns. The 金平 (きんぴら - kimpira) バーガー, for example, is finely chopped up vegetables (mainly 牛蒡 - ごぼう - gobou - burdock root) and 青海苔 (あおのり - aonori - seaweed) sandwiched between two crisped patties of rice. It tastes much better than it looks!

This is probably the healthiest, most Japanese hamburger you could imagine, so make sure you up the calorie count by getting an "オニポテセット" (onipote setto). This is a Japanese contraction of "onion" and "potato", meaning fries and onion rings - a モスバーガー specialty. セット ("set") is the Japanese word for "value meal" or "combo", basically - it's used everywhere and usually means "with chips and a drink".

If you prefer something a little more standard, you could try the titular モスバーガー or モスチーズバーガー (Mos cheeseburger). In both cases, they have a big thick slice of tomato, thinly diced onions, a beef patty and a big scoop of ミートソース (meat sauce - similar to bolognaise).

It's delicious but very messy to eat, which is probably why everything comes wrapped in paper pockets! モスバーガー isn't as cheap as a lot of places, but it's definitely worth trying at least once.

ロッテリア (Lotteria)

Less famous than モスバーガー but still rating a mention is ロッテリア, a surprisingly cheap burger chain with a few Japanese inventions of its own. Its speciality is probably the 海老 (えび - ebi - prawn) バーガー - a fried prawn patty with plenty of tartare sauce, but it also has several takes on the てりやき (teriyaki) burger, including one with an egg on it. I'm not sure how well this works!

More recently, ロッテリア seems to have started pushing the チーズバーガー envelope, with what they call the 絶品 (ぜっぴん - superb/unique) チーズバーガー. This is a completely unapologetic, meaty cheeseburger that can be upgraded with as many patties as you want, all the way up to the terrifying タワーチーズバーガー ("tower cheeseburger"). This is probably the opposite of the 金平バーガー.

True to its name, it features ten beef patties and ten slices of cheese; it's even made the news and shown up on several talk shows. This burger will get you through the gloomiest days 梅雨 has to offer; it's also guaranteed to annoy anyone who insists that all Japanese food is healthy.

ファーストキッチン (First Kitchen)

ファーストキッチェン is a fairly cheap chain that specialises in ベーコンエッグバーガー (bacon and egg burgers) as well as パスタ (pasta), ホットドッグ (hot dogs) and ピザ (pizza). It's also a good place to go if you have a craving for ポテトフライ (poteto furai - french fries); they have what they call フレーバーポテト ("flavour potato"), ポテトフライ with seasonings on them like cheese, BBQ, じゃがバター (jaga bata- - buttered potato) and consomme. If that's not enough フレーバー for you, you can help yourself to a surprising array of free sauces to make sure you use up your salt allowance for the week.

Imported chains

ピザハットとドミノ (Pizza Hut and Domino's)

For those new to Japanese ピザ, there seems to be a strange preoccupation with ツナ (tuna), コーン (corn) and マヨ (mayo) as toppings, sometimes together. There is also サラダピザ (salad pizza) , which is exactly what it sounds like, as well as the occasional poached egg popped in the middle. If a サラダピザ isn't going to kill your craving, you'll unfortunately have to get your wallet out and fork out for one from ピザハット (Pizza Hut) or ドミノ (Domino's). Takeaway pizza in the sense we know it is astonishingly expensive here; it costs about 2500 yen (approx. $30) for a medium and upwards of 4000 yen (approx $50) for a large. The reason might be the amount of ingredients that are prohibitively expensive in Japan - サラミ (salami), チーズ (cheese) and ベーコン (bacon) in particular.  Having said that, the quality is amazing.

Pizzas here even come with a little plastic brace that stops the lid from squashing your dinner! Even if you don't intend on ordering one, I would definitely recommend having a look at the online menus to see some of the brilliant pizzas you can choose from.

マクドナルド (McDonald's) と ケンタッキーフライドチキン (Kentucky Fried Chicken)

The two star imports have two things in common, the first being nicknames to help get your mouth around them. Most people shorten マックドナルド to マクド ("makudo" - like "Maccas") and ケンタッキーフライドチキン to ケンタッキー ("kentakki-"). The other similarity is that they're almost identical to their Australian counterparts, so I won't go into too much detail beyond saying you're never far from a ビッグマック (Big Mac) or チキンフィレサンド ("chikin fire sando" - chicken fillet burger) if you're feeling homesick. There are a few local specialties, of course - マクド has its てりやきマックバーガー ("Teriyaki Mac Burger") and えびフィレオ ("ebi fireo" - prawn filet) while ケンタッキー boasts the 和風チキンカツサンド ("wafuu chikin katsu sando" - Japanese style chicken cutlet burger). I like to think of these as Japan's answer to the Aussie Burger (sans beetroot).

So there you go - don't feel guilty if you find yourself upsizing your セット in Japan - you're still sampling the local flavour. Even culture has to have a day off every once in a while and I'm sure it likes to sit in its pajamas and eat ファーストフード as much as the rest of us. Make mine a W!