Who put this kimchi in my burger?

Greetings

A couple posts back we provided a glimpse into a Korean McDonalds and now it's time for Shayne and Jo to look at a homegrown fast food joint, Lotteria.

Well, actually, according to Wikipedia "the company first established itself on February 1972 in Japan but currently Lotteria in South Korea is more popular than it is in Japan".

So "tomatoes, tomatoes". We'll consider it a Korean establishment as most Koreans seem to.

You might recognize our friend Soon Tae (from both of the Seoul blogs) and think "gee, their friend from Seoul visited them". But you'd be wrong. We took these photos when we were in Seoul and are only now getting around to posting them. Anyway, on with the show.

Lotteria is the most popular fast food restaurant in Korea beating even the impenetrable McDonalds.

It did this by introducing lines of Koreanized fast foods such as Kimchi Burgers and Rice patties.

Here ya go...a nice shot of the menu.

If you zoom in you can see such items as :

• the herb porkcutlet
• the squid burger
• the teri burger (Jo's note: ???)
  
• the rice bulgogi burger
• and of course, everyone's favorite, the classic Mega Big Paprika

This was actually our first time visiting a Lotteria and did it in part to be adventurous but also to document the trip for you, our beloved readers (all two of you).

That being said we were pretty excited and went a little crazy with the ordering.



A shot of Jo and Soon Tae pondering their options.

Jo went with the Bulgogi Burger (to compare it to the one she tried at McDonalds) and I went with the Mega Big Paprika. We also ordered a few other things to truly experience the pleasure of Lotteria.


The food looks normal enough at this stage.


A shot of my Mega Big Paprika. It was big enough, but unfortunately I don't remember what paprika tastes like well enough to fully know if the burger lived up to its name or not. It could have been closer to a Big Fennel or a Big Tarragon for all I know. Overall I'd give it 4 dried squids out of a possible 5.


Next up was Jo's bulgogi burger. I think that there must be something about bulgogi that just doesn't translate well to fast food. It looks about as good as it tasted. Overall, another big let down. Jo gives it 2.5 dried squids. (Jo's note: it was much better than the McDonalds variety...in that it tasted like beef.)


Ah, who doesn't love a good squid ring? These were actually pretty tame but they were definitely delicious. (Jo's note: they tasted exactly like Cap'n Highliner) I was hoping they would come with the heads still attached or even alive...but no such luck. 4 Dried Squids.

I don't actually remember what Soon Tae was eating, but this is a great photo so I had to include it.

But dear readers, we saved the best for last. The next photo really captures what Lotteria is all about.

A strange hybrid of Korean and American goodness all rolled into one.


Yes, don't adjust your monitors. You are seeing that image correctly. That's a kimchi-filled patty on a rice bun. Really, there's no bun. There's just rice pounded together to form what looks like a bun. It's quirky but it's original. And ya gotta' love that.

It actually tasted really good too and we ate it on top of our own meals. Which either speaks to how good it was or how big of pigs we are. I'll leave that for you to decide. 5 dried Squids.

Bravo Lotteria, Bravo.

Well... there you have it. A little taste of Korean/Japanese fastfood goodness.

Cheers

Shayne