Frozen Food Review: Rice Burger

After experiencing Momoishi's second heavy snowfall last night, I'm now willing to concede that winter has officially begun. As such, I've been spending the majority of my time holed away in one room of my un-insulated apartment with my kerosene heater running full-blast, only venturing elsewhere when motivated by those concerns essential to life. As one might expect, the preparation of food in my kitchen has become an especially unpleasant task (for example, I noticed today that a bottle of olive oil in my pantry has frozen solid). This being the case, I have decided to begin exploring that staple of the bachelor diet: frozen foods. Luckily, Japan is blessed with a bounty of such items, only a small percentage of which are recognizable. In what will hopefully become an ongoing series (a la my Japanese frozen pizza reviews), I have decided to document my adventures in the freezer aisle.

Product: Rice Burger (yakiniku flavor)
Price: about $1.60

Burgers in Japan come in many varieties. While a few establishments (namely Mos Burger, Freshness Burger and of course, McDonald's) serve burgers on buns, just as many restaurants (if not more) serve them bunless, on a platter. Occasionally, these bunless burgers are adorned in other various ways (Big Boy subsidiary Milky Way, for example, serves what you might call a beef cordon bleu-a hamburger stuffed with cheese and ham). Another popular hamburger variant (available at Mos Burger and many other chains) is the rice burger, although it's really a burger in name only. Although the content can range from various meats to seafood, the "bun" is always the same: two patties made of rice. When purchasing the frozen variety, I generally choose the yakiniku flavor, which is stuffed with pork and onions.

Open it up and you're greeted by the white, microwavable bag pictured below.
After 2 minutes and 30 seconds in the microwave, the rice burger is ready to go. Below, we see the finished product.

While not very filling (in terms of size, it's somewhere between a regular White Castle burger and a McDonald's), the microwavable rice burger is satisfying in it's own way. The soft rice patties provide a nice alternative to a real bun and the yakiniku-style pork is flavorful without being overpowering. With an extremely simple and fast preparation, it's easy to recommend as either a snack or as part of a larger, preservative-filled meal.

Final Score: B+