We continue our tradition of pushing the limits of our local Burger King staff’s kindness by ordering a double Whopper topped with around 80 bucks worth of pickles.
Burger King (Page 5)
Some of you may remember us reporting on a new promotional campaign by Burger King for their new Big King 4.0 burger. Called the Big ( ) Discount it is assumed that bringing in a Big Mac or receipt from a Big Mac will knock 120 yen (US$1) off the price of a Big King.
However, aside from pictorial allusions nowhere do they explicitly state that it has to be a Big Mac. They simply offer a discount for a “big something-something,” so our reporter Seiji Nakazawa went to his local Burger King with a bag full of “big” stuff such as candy and Mr. Big albums in the hopes of big savings. You’ll be surprised how for it got him.
For companies in the fast food hamburger business, there’s no way of getting around the fact that they’re in competition with McDonald’s. So instead of trying to tiptoe around the situation, Burger King Japan has decided to try to tackle its rival head-on with the new Big King 4.0 sandwich, which Burger King has just introduced to the Japanese market.
If you’ve got burgers on the brain, the name Big King no doubt reminds you of McDonald’s Big Mac, and that’s fine with Burger King. As a matter of fact, thanks to an unusual promotion going on right now, Burger King will give you a discount on a Big King if you bring in a receipt showing you recently bought a Big Mac, or, even stranger, if you bring in the actual McDonald’s hamburger itself.
If you’ve gone on a few overseas trips, you may be familiar with the phenomenon of travel poo, wherein your stool takes on a different hue for a few days as you adjust to local ingredients. It’s far less common for the opposite to occur, but that’s what seems to be happening with Burger King’s black burgers, which have become a repeating success story in Japan.
Burger King is currently offering its darkly colored sandwich in the U.S. and the U.K., but many are reporting that while the company turned the burger’s bun black, the burger is turning their poo green. But what’s behind this transformation, and why didn’t it happen in Japan?
When Burger King Japan first brought out its black burgers, more than a few people were shocked, and even a little intimidated, by their sinister appearance. After diners got over their fear and tried them, though, they discovered they were pretty tasty, and they’ve now become a welcomed, sporadically appearing item on the chain’s menu.
Seeing how well that gamble played out, Burger King has decided to spin the roulette wheel once again, but this time they’re betting on red with two new sandwiches with crimson buns and cheese. So how do they taste? We decided to grab the pair and try them for ourselves.
When Burger King first rolled out its black hamburgers in Japan in 2012, we thought the company had gone insane. It turns out Burger King really is crazy…crazy like a fox. And not just any fox, but some sort of super-intelligent fox with an advanced degree in marketing, since the black burgers caught the attention of media outlets around the world and were such a hit that they’ve been brought back in multiple updated forms.
The black burgers will once again be returning to Japanese Burger King locations in 2015, but before they do, this summer the chain is debuting a line of bright red burgers with crimson cheese and something called “Angry Sauce.”
Recently our Southeast Asia correspondent Kowloon Kurosawa took a trip from his current residence in Cambodia to the neighboring country of Vietnam. Following standard RocketNews24 foreign travel protocol he soon made his way to a Burger King in Ho Chi Minh City.
However, what he found surprised even our cholestorol-hardened reporter. This Burger King has a special combo menu called Rice King. Not only that but it contained a teriyaki tonkatsu combo!
In Japan, the New Years is traditionally a time for eating osechi cuisine, and while tastes and lifestyles may be changing, come New Years Day, many people will be eating at least some of these special new year foods. And once all the new years festivities have passed, it’s quite understandable if some of the Japanese public ends up yearning for something a bit more oily and rich. Well, Burger King Japan has just announced a new series of menus that just may fit the bill in such a situation. It’s Burger King Japan’s new “cheese fondue” menu, featuring items that allow you to create fondues out of … you guessed it, hamburgers!
The moment it was unveiled earlier this week, dozens of English-language blogs and news sites slammed Burger King Japan’s new seasonal offering, suggesting that the very notion of a hamburger topped with berries and slathered with a sweet pink sauce sounded about as appetising as a sweetfish hotdog served with a side of sick.
Aside from the occasional slice of pineapple, it is indeed rare to find fruit slipped between a hamburger’s buns, but knowing how well meats like turkey and pork go with sweet and sticky glazes and sauces, we at RocketNews24 remained optimistic that Burger King was not in fact trying to kill us with its latest creation, and headed down to try it for ourselves.
And as it turns out, the Premium Berry burger is actually kind of awesome.
For a country known for its restaurants serving relatively small portions of foods, Japan sure seems to love all-you-can-eat campaigns (although occasionally, things don’t go quite as planned at these events). Well, if you love meat and lots of it, we have good news for you. Burger King Japan’s popular all-you-can eat Whooper campaign is coming back again this year, so get ready to have your fill of big, juicy hamburgers!!
Burger King recently launched two new hamburgers in Japan that feature black buns and cheese with matching squid ink black sauce. Ads, like the one above, made the burgers look pretty unappetizing. But the burgers, known as the Kuro Diamond and Kuro Pearl, look even worse in reality.
Here are some examples:
Regular RocketNews24 readers will no doubt already be aware that fast food chains in Japan like to mix things up every so often by giving their buns a splash of colour. In the past 12 months alone, we’ve seen McDonald’s present a Sakura Pink teriyaki egg burger in time for the cherry blossom, and last October Burger King rocked a Black Ninja Burger which sported charcoal-black buns and a huge tongue-like slab of bacon.
This week, Burger King has taken its worship of the darkness a step further with two more jet-black offerings: the Kuro Diamond and Kuro Pearl, which feature not just black buns, but slices of cheese and a tangy sauce that look dark enough to swallow any would-be diners whole.
Every now and again, the Japanese branches of McDonald’s roll out what they call the Big America burgers. Each one is named after a place in the US and has a subtle nod to the region through its ingredients, such as the chili-soaked Texas burger.
The thing is, in the U.S. we don’t call that a Texas burger, we call it a chili burger. Likewise, going into anywhere other than a Japanese McDonald’s and asking for a Broadway or Idaho burger is going to leave the staff confused and you hungry.
It’s always seemed a little strange that there’s no California burger, since that’s an established dish with a standard recipe, being avocado slices on a burger. Well, if McDonald’s won’t do it, Burger King Japan will, and even without a tip of the hat to the Golden State, their new lineup of burgers is packed with avocado.
Burger King Japan has just announced the “60th Anniversary ‘B’iKing Battle,” inviting anyone with the stomach and speed for eating seven Whoppers in half an hour to apply. Sounds pretty sweet, right? Maybe…we have a feeling the grand prize is the last thing participants will want to receive after polishing off two-days’ worth of calories.
Burger King has raised some eyebrows with its latest menu addition in China, called the “PooPoo Smoothie.”
The drink as similar to a Taiwanese boba tea, or bubble tea, and has pulp-like “pearls” inside that are supposed to “explode in your mouth upon consumption,” according to the Daily Meal.
It’s no surprise that the fast food market is a competitive one, particularly in Japan where restaurants go to great lengths to create the most unique items to bring in the customers.
This time, Burger King Japan has announced a new breakfast line-up of unique items not often found in fast food joints. At the head of this new seven-item menu is the wonderful Spam & Cheese for 260 yen (US$2.54).
And now, due to popular demand, we have the taste test you’ve all been waiting for: the King’s Dog from Burger King. Ever since news of the hot dog offering from the fast food burger chain was released, we’d been anticipating its arrival. Boasting an extra-large sausage 2.5 times the thickness of a regular Burger King hot dog, we bought one of each to really see how the King’s Dog weighs up.
Hot on the heels of McDonald’s Japan’s announcement of its spring-themed Sakura Teriyaki Burger, Burger King Japan has just revealed a new product of its own, and it looks to be quite the mouthful. This, ladies and gentlemen of the cholesterol-loving world, is the King’s Dog (and yes, that’s “dog” without an “n”, boys at the back), which packs in roughly five times the meaty goodness of a regular Burger King hot dog.
Even as someone who can always appreciate a tasty hamburger, there’s a quandary I face whenever I go out to satisfy my beef-based sandwich needs. Your standard burger gives you plenty of protein from the meat, some nice carbs from the bread, and even a scattering of veggies between the buns, but it’s hard to get your fruit fix at a burger emporium.
Or, more accurately, it was, until Burger King Japan started offering two hamburgers with slices of grilled apple. We traveled to one of Burger King’s branches in Yokohama to try both on the day of their release, but they weren’t the only discoveries waiting for us. So come along with us as we present the ABCs (apples, booze, and couches) that make Burger King different in Japan.
Thursday Throwback is your peek into the archives of RocketNews24. We’d hate for you to miss any of the quality quirky news from Asia and Japan just because you recently stumbled on our site. And if you’re a devout RN24 reader, thank you for your continued readership! Enjoy this blast from the past!
(Originally posted on April 19, 2012 by Steven)
Well that didn’t take long. Just yesterday we shared the story of how our own Mr. Sato capitalized on Burger King Japan’s current 15 bacon strips for 100 yen (US $1.20) promotion by ordering a Whopper with 105 bacon strips. While Mr. Sato managed to finish the burger, he didn’t seem to be in the best shape afterwards, falling into a meat-induced coma and then suddenly breaking out of it only to run out of the room with his hand covering his mouth.
Surely we thought Mr. Sato had finally learned his lesson that consuming stacks of bacon is a task better left to professionals. So imagine our surprise when he came in the office holding a plastic bag sagging under the weight of a 1,050 bacon strip Whopper.
MOST POPULAR
Now
Station of despair: What to do if you get stuck at the end of Tokyo’s Chuo Rapid Line
Japanese government will check and judge new baby name pronunciations, presents guidelines
This downtown Tokyo cafe is like a time machine that takes you back 50 years into the past
Studio Ghibli showcases traditional craftsmanship with new wallet range
The best Christmas Market in Japan? Yokohama event is top choice for travellers
Totoro towels gently glow in the dark to set the Ghibli nighttime mood in your home【Photos】
Starbucks Japan releases a new Frappuccino that looks and tastes like a floral bouquet
Tokyo’s downtown Chuo Line now has first-class Green Car carriages for no additional cost to ride
Major Japanese city is abolishing extracurricular activities at all of its middle schools
The new Ranma 1/2 anime is here! So is it worth watching?【SoraReview】
Weekly
Japanese company develops classy heavy metal band frames for glasses
One of Japan’s rarest sweets is a sell-out hit that looks and tastes like frost- Studio Ghibli showcases traditional craftsmanship with new wallet range
Mysterious light-up rainy night-sound Totoro figure doesn’t actually show a scene from the anime- Major Japanese city is abolishing extracurricular activities at all of its middle schools
- This downtown Tokyo cafe is like a time machine that takes you back 50 years into the past
Over 800 Studio Ghibli anime world paintings compiled in beautiful new hardcover art book【Pics】
Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke plushies show a softer side of formidable Ghibli characters
Shakey’s is back! All-you-can-eat pizza chain returns to downtown Tokyo’s Shinjuku
Studio Ghibli tea blends contain ingredients inspired by My Neighbour Totoro
Monthly
Possessing Harry Potter’s Sword of Godric Gryffindor is now illegal in Japan
Uniqlo announces first-ever collaboration with horror manga master Junji Ito【Photos】
J-pop mega star Ado reveals she’s been living in the U.S., may not understand language acquisition
Starbucks Japan is calling it quits with paper straws
Studio Ghibli releases new range of cardigans for anime fans
Japan’s most popular castle raising ticket prices by up to 200 percent for non-local tourists
Furikake rice seasoning sales are soaring, which is bad news for Japan as a whole
Studio Ghibli heroine cardigans give you warmth and strength to face everyday challenges
Eight unforgettable hot springs, as recommended by Japan’s “Professor Bath”- Japanese company develops classy heavy metal band frames for glasses
Yearly
McDonald’s new Happy Meals offer up cute and practical Sanrio lifestyle goods
Foreign tourists on Shinkansen bullet train break suitcase etiquette, angering local passengers- Possessing Harry Potter’s Sword of Godric Gryffindor is now illegal in Japan
[Deleted] Article written for April Fool’s Day 2018
Japanese government to make first change to romanization spelling rules since the 1950s
Foreigner’s request for help in Tokyo makes us sad for the state of society
Japanese convenience store Family Mart announces abolishment of eat-in spaces
Life-size vibrating Legend of Zelda Master Sword for sale from Nintendo【Photos】
Princesses, fruits, and blacksmiths: Study reveals the 30 most unusual family names in Japan
Studio Ghibli releases free-download board game — Here’s how to play it without reading Japanese
RECOMMENDED STORIES
Totoro towels gently glow in the dark to set the Ghibli nighttime mood in your home【Photos】
Starbucks Japan releases a new Frappuccino that looks and tastes like a floral bouquet
Tokyo’s downtown Chuo Line now has first-class Green Car carriages for no additional cost to ride
Major Japanese city is abolishing extracurricular activities at all of its middle schools
The new Ranma 1/2 anime is here! So is it worth watching?【SoraReview】
How to cook miso soup (the right way) in a few simple steps【RocketKitchen】
Our male reporter transforms into a beautiful Japanese courtesan at Tokyo photo studio
Japan has seven lucky taxis in Tokyo, and we just boarded one of them
Tokyo school teaches cross-dressing men, transgender individuals to move and speak femininely
Japanese city paints well-known prostitution street bright yellow, adds fish art【Video】
Japan has an awesome one-person bento box rice cooker, and here’s what we made with ours
World’s first real ramen in a can now available at Japanese vending machines
Doraemon found buried at sea as scene from 1993 anime becomes real life【Photos】
-
