Name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it should still go in your belly.
Japan loves seasonal foods, and not just at fancy gourmet dining establishments. Even fast food joints roll out limited-time menu items that use ingredients associated with the season and/or are designed to satisfy customers’ cravings during a specific time of year.
For example, each winter McDonald’s Japan brings back a special croquette burger that’s basically a warm, comforting stew in sandwich form. This year they’re adding an extra-tempting version to the lineup, and it gets an extra-long name: the Fuwatoro Tamago Noko Demi Gurakoro.
Yes, it’s a name so time-consuming to say that it sort of runs contrary to the entire concept of “fast” food, but each and every part of Fuwatoro Tamago Noko Demi Gurakoro is important. Let’s start at the end with “gurakoro,” a mashup of the Japanese pronunciations of “gratin” and “croquette,” since this is a burger with a croquette filled with the mixture of macaroni and white sauce that Japan calls gratin. There’s also shrimp inside the croquette, which seems like an odd thing to exclude from a product name where brevity clearly wasn’t the goal.
“Fuwatoro tamago” means “fluffy egg,” since that’s one of the key additions that sets the Fuwatoro Tamago Noko Demi Gurakoro apart from McDonald’s regular gratin croquette burger. “Noko” means “rich [flavor],” and last, “demi” here is short for “demi-glace sauce,” which replaces the simpler, sweeter croquette sauce in the sandwich’s standard version with a more sophisticated seasoning with a hint of truffle flavor.
For those to whom the Fuwatoro Tamago Noko Demi Gurakoro sounds like a bit too much (in terms of name and ingredients), McDonald’s is also bringing back the regular Gurakoro/Gratin Croquette burger, which sticks to the basics of croquette and cabbage and is also the less expensive option at 370 yen (US$2.65), 50 yen cheaper than the Fuwatoro Tamago Noko Demi Gurakoro.
Both go on sale November 30. Oh, and if you’re planning to order the deluxe one in Japanese, the phrase to tell the clerk is “Fuwatoro Tamago Noko Demi Gurakoro wo hitotsu kudasai,” so you might want to take a deep breath before you start.
Source: McDonald’s Japan via Otakomu
Images: McDonald’s Japan
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