Gurakoro and Gurakuro came out on same day, filling fans’ hearts with joy and filling their stomachs with gratin croquettes.

When we found out that McDonald’s Japan was bringing back one of its most popular winter menu items, the Gurakoro, we figured we had our lunch plans set for that day. Gurakoro is short for “gratin croquette burger,” and eating the sandwich with a deep-fried croquette filled with white sauce, macaroni, and shrimp is like devouring a cup of hot soup. Delicious, warming, and filling, it’s pretty much all fans could ask for from a sandwich on a chilly winter’s day.

However, our lunch plans suddenly got less certain when we found out that Japanese cafe chain Komeda Coffee was also getting ready to add a gratin croquette burger to its menu, and on the exact same day that the Gurakoro would be arriving at McDonald’s. Komeda Coffee calls its gratin croquette burger the Gurakuro. It’s kind of an odd name, considering that the Japanese pronunciation of croquette is korokke, with an O, not a U, but Komeda’s linguistic quirkiness is something we were willing to overlook, given the chain’s reputation for excellent-quality food.

Now faced with a choice of two gratin croquette burgers, we did the only sensible thing and picked up both to taste test.

▼ Komeda Coffee Gurakuro on the left, McDonald’s Gurakoro on the right

And since we were already going to make this a two-burger lunch, we decided to go all-out and order the deluxe version of each sandwich. In the case of McDonald’s, that meant the 490-yen (US$3.25) Koku Uma Beef Demi Gurakoro, which adds a topping of rich (koku), delicious (uma) demi-glace beef stew to to the croquette. Meanwhile, the upgraded gratin croquette burger from Komeda is the 730-yen Shrimp and Tomato Sauce Gurakuro.

Unwrapping both of them, we could see right away that Komeda’s gratin croquette burger is massive. Not that McDonald’s Gurakoro is a tiny sandwich by any means, but the Komeda Gurakuro looks to be about 50 percent bigger when viewed from above, if not double the size of its counterpart.

When looked at from the side, though, the sandwiches are about the same in thickness, and they’re both very thick. You’ll need to open wide to get your mouth fully around either one, so that’s just what we did as we went in for a bite, starting with McDonald’s Gurokoro.

As of last year, McDonald’s has increased the ratio of cheese they use for the croquette’s filling, and there’s so much inside that the cheese flavor is stronger even than the cream in its white sauce. It’s extremely rich and delicious, but still did a great job tying the myriad flavors of theother ingredients together.

Though this is a fast food item, McDonald’s croquette was freshly fried and crisp, and the shredded cabbage had an enticing crunch to it as well. The demi-glace was no joke either, full of flavor and tasting like a proper example of beef stew, not some cheap after-thought sauce.

The overall strength and heaviness of the flavors still impart an air of guilty fast food pleasures to McDonald’s gratin croquette burger, but as all of the ingredients are high quality and delicious, it doesn’t feel like a cheap substitute for something fancy, for a unique sensation of eating a guilty pleasure with a taste to be proud of.

Moving on to Komeda’s Gurakuro, we had to pause for a second and once again marvel at just how big this thing is.

Unlike McDonald’s croquette, Komeda’s doesn’t contain shrimp inside of it, but this top-of-the-line croquette burger does come with a shrimp and tomato cream sauce, which beautifully blends the seafood sensation with the tomato’s gentle sweet and tart notes.

The white sauce inside the croquette features no fewer than five kinds of cheese: Gouda, mozzarella, cheddar, Parmesan, and Edam. The combination feels rich and fancy, like the sort of thing you’d get in a well-established restaurant with a long waiting list for tables, and the fact that it’s actually something you can order as a takeout item makes the quality even more impressive.

So which sandwich do we recommend? Both of them, actually. The McDonald’s Gurakoor is the one to go for if you’re after a straightforward sandwich that really delivers a strong cheese flavor, while Komeda Coffee’s Gurakuro feels more refined and complex. You can’t really go wrong either way, though, but if you do opt for the Gurakuro, you might want to ask the Komeda staff to cut it into halves, or even quarter sections, to make it easier to eat.

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