So long fried onion rings…and hello fried renkon slices?

When grabbing fast food, sometimes our brains sort of go into auto-pilot and we don’t really read the whole menu before ordering. On a recent visit to Freshness Burger, one of Japan’s most popular hamburger fast food chains, we took a good long look at the menu and noticed something odd…or rather, we didn’t notice something ordinary.

There were no onion rings.

Really. None at all. The Freshness Burger menu has no onion ring side orders, nor does it have any onion ring-inclusive combo sets. This isn’t because Japan doesn’t like fried onions. They’re a popular ingredient for tempura, after all, and onion rings are readily available at other burger chains. They’re just not on offer at Freshness Burger.

Doing some checking, we found that onion rings, or “onion fry,” as Freshness Burger called theirs, left the chain in 2022, with the company citing severe drought conditions in Canada (where Freshness Burger sourced its onions from) and pandemic-related supply chain issues for the moratorium, and they never came back.

However, while Freshness Burger no longer offers this burger joint mainstay, they do have an intriguing alternative, which they call “renkon fry.”

So what’s renkon? Lotus root!

▼ Renkon/lotus root, in pre-fried form

We decided to give them a shot, so we placed an order and after a five-minute wait for them to cook, we had a bag of fried lotus root slices in front of us.

There were five pieces in the bag, each about 7 millimeters (0.3 inches) thick, giving them a nice, substantial feel.

Unlike the thick batter of onion rings, the renkon fry recipe uses no batter at all. Taking a bite, though, we found that it doesn’t really need any. The thickness of the slices lets the outer layer develop a nice bit of crunch when deep-frying, while the inside of each slice retains a softer yet still firm consistency that comfortably crumbles as you chew.

Most importantly of all, Freshness Burger’s fried renkon slices are delicious. The seasoning is simple, just a light dusting of salt which lets the lotus root’s natural vegetable-like sweetness and umami notes shine through.

The renkon fry is priced at 340 yen (US$2.35), admittedly a little expensive for a fast food side order, but that’s actually the same price that Freshness Burger charges for a regular-size order of French fries (the chain as a whole prides itself more on quality ingredients than rock-bottom prices), and there are also various combo meals that can save you a few yen on them too.

So after eating the renkon fry, do we no longer miss Freshness Burger’s onion rings? That’d be going a bit far, since the two side orders really do light up different flavor sensors. However, with the lack of onion rings as a preexisting situation, we’re very happy to have Renkon Fry here, and we’ll have to make sure to eat a whole bunch during hay fever season.

Related: Freshness Burger
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