Lotteria's Ramen Burger / ロッテリアのラーメンバーガー

Lotteria's Ramen Burger wasn't something I imagined
期待しすぎた、ロッテリアのラーメンバーガー

Lotteria is a Japanese-born hamburger chain and they collaborated with Men'ya-Musashi, a ramen shop, to create "Ramen Burger."
*Another ramen burger I tried before is here. Ramen Burger.

According to the website of Lotteria, they've been providing something new to the fast food field and taste with extra service.
The slogan is "Lotteria is unique and different," they'll pursue product development.
This year, they wanted to try a new genre and create Ramen Burger supervised by Men'ya-Musashi Shinjuku main shop.

Men'ya-Musashi opened the first and main office in Shinjuku in June, 1998, and currently, they have 12 shops in Japan.
They 2 types of ramen soups; one is used chicken and pork bone called "animal-type" (動物系), and the other one is "fish-type" (魚介系) made from bonito flakes and dried sardines.

I knew they started selling the burger on May 20, 2013, but I didn't have a chance to try.
Today when we're walking pass by one of the chain in Shinjuku, I decided to try since it's valid till June 12th.

The burger comes with a cup of soup.
Extra noodle called "Kae-dama" (替え玉) is 100 JPY, both tax included.

The ad said today they can provide up to 200 ramen burgers.
Apparently, they give free extra noodle today, but I thought just one burger would be enough so I didn't ask for more noodle.

Price is 634 JPY, it's because in Japanese it can be read as MU SA SHI in a different way to pronounce the numbers.

I heard it contains mayonnaise so I asked no mayo at the cashier.

After a bit, it's served.
The blue sticker on the wrap means it's prepared special <-- no mayo.
It's funny to have a burger with a soup and chopsticks.

It looks like it uses regular bun.
Ramen noodle is coming out from the bun.

The top bun seems it's floating so I removed it and found a big char siu, which was half fat and half meat.

First bite, the noodle was seasoned and the bun was normal bun they use for the burger, which was a bit awkward.

Noodle was soft but also it's grilled so that it had a nice brown crispy part.
However, it's not crispy all over so that it had actual ramen-ish texture.

Soup, I didn't like it at all...
I was expecting it'd be much tastier but it was more like salty fishy broth.
That made me think if Men'ya-Musashi serves such low-level soup at the actual shop or they "supervised" and created this weird soup for Lotteria.

I tried dipping the noodle into soup to see if it makes any difference, but as I thought, it didn't do anything and it was like I was dipping ramen into a thin flavorless brown soup.

The char siu too fatty and flabby so I had to spill out the fat and only ate the meat.
It had great flavor and the sweet soy sauce was poured over the ramen was the best in this burger.

When I came home, I researched what the concept was and also the details.
"This burger's patty is Lotteria's original ramen noodle made from domestic wheat. Ramen is already seasoned and grilled both sides to have different texture from the soft bun.
Char siu, a must-have topping for the ramen, was prepared with sweet sauce, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and bonito flakes to resemble Men'ya-Musashi's char siu which is soft and the flavor is soaked in well.
Lotteria's orignial mayonnaise gives an extra kick to the burger.
On the side, it's soup from Men'ya-Musashi's with bonito broth. This also has umami (tastiness) from seaweed and dried sardines so that it can be as a soup and also a ramen soup."

I see, the soup is actually from Men'ya-Musashi's ....
To me, it was too simple and didn't seem to have any umami in it.
The burger itself was acceptable but the soup just destroyed.
I still prefer the ramen burger that I found in Cinco de Mayo in Yoyogi park.