Prediction: Burger King Japan's Red Cheeseburger Will Be Pretty Good
Last year, Burger King Japan brought back its bizarre Kuro Burger—a black burger with black sauce and black cheese—for the third year in a row. I ate it, and it tasted slightly better than it looked (not saying much). The Kuro Burger is coming back again this year, but BK Japan is also trying out a new freakshow sandwich: The AKA (Red) Samurai burger, featuring a blood-red bun and cheese, and red ANGRY sauce.
Prediction: It will be pretty good.
The basic problem with the Kuro Burger was a patty that tasted like it was made mostly of pepper, and an infusion of bamboo charcoal that had nothing to offer but its color. The AKA Samurai Beef has solved those problems:
What you’re seeing here is a bun and cheese colored with tomato powder, not coal, and a miso-based sauce flavored with doubanjiang—a spicy, fermented red pepper sauce found mostly in Szechuan food. Burger King’s press release claims it’s “spicy enough to get angry.”
The Kuro’s tangy black sauce was alright, but didn’t have enough kick to overcome the Olympic-sized swimming pool of mayo it was drowning in. If ANGRY sauce meets mayo, so be it: spicy mayo is a real thing. (Also, every fast-food red sauce I tasted in Japan would be a tremendous upgrade to America’s dollar menus. It’s statistically likely that BK didn’t mess this one up.)
The AKA Samurai Beef also looks like it comes with a regular burger patty, which beats the microwave Salisbury steak in last year’s Kuro.
So, sure, I’d eat it. But I also ate a black burger with slimy black cheese and squid ink sauce, so take that recommendation with a grain of salt and a whole lot of pepper. Uuuuughhhh, so much pepper.
This red menace arrives July 3 in beef and chicken flavors, and the new Kuro—with improved cheese, which was the only part that didn’t need improvement—follows in August.
