Fast-food burgers so rarely look like their marketing pictures. They always appear plump, juicy and fresh, but the actual burger at the restaurant looks like it got run over by a Segway. There’s one burger about to be served up by Burger King Japan that you might hope won’t look at all like its advertising picture. It’s a head-turning sandwich that seems better suited for Halloween than a quick lunch.
The Kuro Burger (“kuro” means black) sports a black bun and, more disturbingly, a slice of jet-black cheese. It’s the sort of burger you’d expect the villain from “The Ring” to be snacking on. It doesn’t stop there. A black sauce oozes around on top of the cheese, challenging your convictions of what a cheeseburger should look like.
Most of us associate black food with unwelcome occurrences like rampant mold, but there’s some food science behind the formulation of the burgers. The buns and cheese are made with bamboo charcoal to achieve the dark color. The sauce includes squid ink as an ingredient. The patty isn’t black, but it does use black pepper to keep it in line with the theme.
The Kuro Burger will come in two forms. The Kuro Pearl is just your basic black cheeseburger. The Kuro Diamond edition adds some cheery condiments like lettuce, onion and tomato. It really spruces up the look and reduces the fear factor to have some identifiable vegetables involved. Burger King Japan is using the tagline “New Kuro. 2 good to be true” to promote the burger. Except it is true.
The gothy-looking burger will be available at Burger Kings in Japan starting September 19, so you still have time to book your flight, get over there and try out this delicacy.
This isn’t the first time Burger King or other chains have used black as a burger theme. The European Quick restaurant chain debuted a “Dark Vador” burger with a black bun. It just didn’t go so far as to include black cheese and sauce. Given the opportunity, would you eat this burger? I totally would, but I’d want to be stuffing it up inside a Darth Vader helmet while doing it.
(Via Kotaku)
CNET