Japan is pretty much the best when it comes to food. I think we can all agree on that. American-style fast food, on the other hand? They kind of suck at that.
My experience at McDonald’s was pretty bad, but MOS Burger — a McDonald’s-esque fast food chain that’s pretty huge in Japan — was outright terrible.
I ordered the MOS Burger, which features a patty made with a blend of beef and pork topped with chopped onions, tomato, mayo, and “piping hot meat sauce.”
The patty is pretty awful. It’s got that distinctively hot-doggy texture you only get from bottom-of-the-barrel frozen patties, and a neither-here-nor-there flavour that’s just puzzling. Like, what’s this supposed to taste like? What’s the goal here? It’s a beef/pork blend, but neither meat contributes much flavour, so you wind up with a generic, mystery meat flavour that’s deeply unsatisfying.
The toppings are fine, at least. The most assertive flavour here is clearly the meat sauce (well, they call this a meat sauce on their English website, but I didn’t notice any meat in it — I’m not sure if that’s a translation issue or what).
It kind of reminds me of a cross between salsa and chili. It’s a bit overpowering, but the patty is terrible enough that it needs to be overpowered.
The other toppings are fine, as is the bun.
I got the burger as part of the onion potato set, which comes with fries and a couple of onion rings. Neither are particularly good. The onion rings were weirdly dry, and the fries were undercooked.
On the plus side, you can sub out your drink in the set for soup, which I’m glad I did because it was easily the highlight of the meal. I got the corn soup, which was thick, creamy, and exceptionally corny. It wasn’t anything too special, but it was a clear step up from everything else.
Location: 4-chōme-1-５ Kotoni 2 Jō, Nishi-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 063-0812