McDonald's Pork Tatsuta (product information)

Image from McDonald's Japan

I'm not sure how aware people outside of Japan are of the "chicken tatsuta" which is seasonally available in Japan, but it became so familiar to me that I took it for granted that "everyone" would know what it was. This is akin to my assuming everyone knows what Cap'n Crunch cereal is and how it is regarded and will get jokes about it chewing up the roof of your mouth (and being the most awesome of sugar cereals in the universe).

For those who don't know, this is a common, but inconsistent offering at McDonald's Japan that usually includes a formed chicken patty (formed from what sort of chicken parts, I'm not sure) that is cooked with ginger and served with a special sauce and cabbage. Currently, a special version of the chicken tatsuta has a sauce that includes yuzu (Japanese citron) and daikon (Japanese radish), though regular version of this sandwich just includes some less exotically augmented mayonnaise with ginger and soy sauce.

McDonald's Japan released a variation on this burger on May 31 with pork kicking the venerable chicken version off the bun. The pork version uses an onion ginger sauce and will set you back 506 calories. That's a bit weightier than the 389 for the regular chicken tatsuta and 417 for the special new limited edition version. Most of that is coming from the whopping 33.4 grams of fat in the piggy version (17.4 grams are in the special chicken version). I'm betting it's plenty juicy and tasty, but not necessarily any healthier than a Big Mac which has 30.7 grams of fat and 557 calories. Still, no one is hitting the golden arches because they think it's health food. Eat, drink, and make merry with your fries, for tomorrow, you can diet.

Kameda Seika Yakibuta (Roast Pork) Snack

I've been having problems finding new and interesting sembei at the market. There's a ton of new stuff around, but none of it really seems truly new. There's still the remaining dribble of the wasabi-flavored sembei fad. There are also nori and soy flavors, and black bean varieties. I've had the last two before, and they were fine, but I was looking for something new and more interesting.

I figured that Family Mart convenience store always has something interesting on hand, and the two appealing options (both from Kameda Seika) were umeboshi (sour pickled plum) and roast pork. I was in the mood for something more savory and less likely to make me pucker, so I bought the pork sembei snack for 105 yen (about a dollar).


These smell like a mixture of pork and soy sauce and a sweet smell which is difficult to pin down. Each component carries a different element of the roast pork. The puffs taste like Kix cereal, if Kix puffs were sweeter, tasted nutty, and carried a hint of bacon. The flat chips resemble spicy, very well-cooked bacon with added soy sauce. In fact, the flat chips by themselves are great and I could have done without the sweet puffs. That being said, when you eat them together, you do have an approximation of a glazed roast pork with a bit of hot red pepper tossed in.

These were on the borderline between indifferent and happy ratings. It's not that I didn't like them or happily consume all 178 calories of the 42 gram (1.5 oz.) bag all at one time. I just found the sweetness too much. If Kameda Seika sold a bag of only the spicy, flat bacon-flavored chips, I'd likely have given this a very happy rating rather than a grudging "happy" rating.

Variety Friday: McDonald's Cheese Katsu Burger

There are a variety of sites which love to point out how horribly bad for you various American dishes are. One of them is "This Is Why You're Fat", but there are also articles on various health sites about the horror of menu items at "family restaurants" (Appleby's, Denny's, etc.) as well as the wide host of fast food joints.

Sites like "This Is Why You're Fat" are full of extreme examples of unusual menu items or concoctions that most people eat infrequently or have never seen or heard of before. The implication, based on the title of the site, is that people are overweight because they eat stuff like this, presumably on a sufficiently regular basis to pile on pounds. While it's entertaining to look at the absurd concoctions, they really have nothing to do why most people are overweight.

The assumption about bad food worldwide is that America is responsible for the worst of it and to whatever extent it has spread, it's all America's fault. This doesn't take into account the fact that it takes two to tango, as it were. American fast food or restaurants offer the food, but locals have to choose to eat it. No one is forcing it down the throats of unsuspecting victims. They're voluntarily consuming foods of suspect nutritional value.

The thing that most people don't realize if they've never been abroad or paid attention to foreign food (a group of people that presumably doesn't include my readers as you're clearly interested in foreign food) is that each country has its own versions of the type of monstrosities that you see in the U.S. This includes huge over-sized food items which look like they're designed for an army to eat. Some restaurants offer 4.5 lb. (about 2 kg.) tonkatsu (fried pork cutlets) meals or parfaits (ice cream layered with fruit, cream and sauce) that are 3 feet (91 cm) high in Japan. These items, like those in the U.S. which are grotesque, are mainly on menus for attention and publicity, but occasionally people buy them and eat them. If you don't believe me, do a YouTube search on scrawny professional glutton "Gal Sone". You'll find her scarfing down some restaurant's freak concoction somewhere and still looking like she weighs all of 90 lbs.

In addition to the oddities, there are also a lot of nutrition bombs which are seasonal or regular fare formulated especially for the market they're being sold in. Enter the McDonald's Cheese Katsu Burger. This is a heavily breaded, fried sliver or two of pork wrapped around a piece of processed cheese and served on a bun with tonkatsu sauce, mayonnaise and a few scraps of lettuce. There's very little with which to recommend this sandwich. It's clearly designed to offer the least amount of protein while still being legally allowed to call it a pork cutlet. It's a relatively small burger and is about 500 calories with a lot of fat.

The fact that this type of "burger" is marketed to suit Japanese tastes shows that Americans aren't the only ones who favor food which is really bad for them. It also shows that American business isn't the only one taking advantage of peoples preference for tasty garbage over healthy cuisine. McDonald's may be a U.S. business, but the Japanese branches and the direction they take are controlled by a Japanese man, Den Fujita. Mr. Fujita is known for running the business as a "one man show" and making decisions and choices according to what he feels will suit the market. So, if you're going to blame anyone for feeding junk like this cheese pork cutlet burger to the Japanese, blame him.

Yahoo! Majimori Corn Snack Tonkotsu Rich Miso

This is the second of two Majimori corn snacks based on ramen flavors. The first variety was "brown oil, garlic, and pork bone" flavor and I was rather fond of it. As I mentioned in the previous review, this product is a collaboration between several companies - Maruchan, Yahoo Japan, Frito-Lay and Tokyo Web Week 1.

Tonkotsu is the Japanese word for pork bone so both of the Majimori flavors are made with pork flavor. Since ramen is often flavored with pork, this is no surprise. By the way, ramen in Japan is sometimes the same sort of dried out noodles with salty flavor packets that is so common in Western countries, but the really good stuff is sold at food stands or restaurants and it's rather far removed from the cheap stuff college students use to fortify them when they've spent too much on beer and are looking at providing themselves with sustenance on a few dollars they found crammed under their roommates dirty socks.


The bar that is set for matching good ramen is significantly higher than the bar with living up to really cheap, dehydrated ramen. Since the first variety that I tried lived up to the complexity of the flavor, I fully expected this one to as well and I wasn't disappointed. Once again, all of the elements of well made ramen were there.

If you open the bag and give it a good sniff, you can smell cabbage, corn and a bit of a spicy, oil smell which is reminiscent of sesame oil. The interesting thing about the corn aroma and taste is that it is not the processed corn snack variety. It's the actual taste and smell of corn kernels. The cabbage flavor is also very present as is the taste of oily pork. The finish on them is one of spicy heat.

Unlike the brown oil pork and garlic flavor, the first bite has complex and rich flavors. You don't need to keep eating for the flavor to build its way up. I liked this, but the thing about both of the Majimori flavors is that they so successfully carry the oily flavor of ramen broth and this makes it less appealing for me personally. I imagine this is great for lovers of oil infused with rich, dense flavors, but it's just not my thing. I'd certainly give these another try if I was in the mood. Given my particular tastes though, that mood is unlikely to come around very often.