While everyone else is rolling out tsukimi burgers, Dom Dom slips in a nashi burger.

Dom Dom is Japan’s oldest hamburger chain, and one of its smaller ones too. So you might expect them to play it safe with their menu, offering just the most basic of burgers, but in fact they do just the opposite, never failing to surprise us with their innovations.

We were especially startled, though, when Dom Dom announced its newest sandwich: a pear burger.

Yep, those are big, thick chunks of Japanese pear, or nashi, as the fruit is called in Japanese, on top of a pair of patties.

Since we found out about the Nashi Double Teriyaki Burger, we’ve been trying to logically deduce just how crazy the concept is. On one hand, pineapple has established itself as a viable hamburger component, so putting fruit in a burger isn’t entirely out of the question. At the same time, with neither hamburgers nor pears being recent arrivals to the culinary scene, you’d think that if this combination was going to work, someone would have tried it by now, right?

But hey, maybe this is just a case of no one thinking as far outside the box as Dom Dom does on a regular basis, or of not having the guts to bring this bold idea to market. Following its initial launch at just one Dom Dom branch in Miyagi Prefecture, the reaction from customers was so positive that all of the chain’s branches are now serving the Nashi Double Teriyaki Burger, which is priced at 770 yen (US$5.30) and went on sale August 31, right about the time that pears are coming into season in Japan.

Those big pieces of pear in the poster photo aren’t just marketing magic, either. Unwrapping our Nashi Double Teriyaki Burger, we saw that we had so much fruit that it was ready to spill out from the buns.

▼ Note that this isn’t sloppy preparation by the Dom Dom staff, as in Japan it’s usually the custom to keep the burger inside the wrapper as you eat it, so nothing spills out.

In addition to two teriyaki-glazed patties and mayo, there’s also lettuce, but the Nashi Double Teriyaki Burger forgoes things like tomato, onions, or pickles.

Okay, let’s dig in!

You know how sometimes when you try a new food for the first time, it might take your brain a second or two to figure out whether you like it or not? That didn’t happen here, as our taste-testing reporter Kohei was immediately blown away by just how good the pear burger tastes!

If you’ve never had a Japanese pear, they’re crisper, sweeter, and juicier than Western pears, almost closer to an apple, but without any trace of tartness. It’s a sweetness with a clean finish, and it made for a very satisfying combination with the stickier sweetness and salty notes of the teriyaki sauce. Even the mayo played nice with the pear and teriyaki flavors, which we hadn’t been entirely expecting.

Also amazing: the texture. The gentle crunch of the pear, with a burst of moisture as you bite through, mixed with the juiciness of the tender patties for an unprecedented mouthfeel. We suspect that the reason Dom Dom uses two patties for the Nashi Double Teriyaki Burger is that Japanese pears tend to be pretty big, and just one patty might not have been enough to provide the proper counterbalance to their crispness.

Now that he’s tried it, Kohei would go so far as to say that’s putting pear in a burger not only works, but works even better than pineapple.

The only downside is that the Nashi Double Teriyaki Burger will only be available for a limited, but unspecified, amount of time. There’s still time to try it for yourself, though, and should you miss the chance, you can console yourself with Japan’s other seasonal hamburger, the tsukimi burger.

Related: Dom Dom location list
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