Andrew's First Hamburg Set

As Enoshima (the island) was mobbed with tourists - and to be honest, filled with scary seafood - we crossed the bridge back over to the mainland to grab a quick lunch at a city convenience restaurant (aka fast food) place that my dad had eaten at with Amy and Rich on a previous visit.


I don't ever remember seeing these restaurants when I lived in Japan, but I'm beginning to notice them everywhere, especially since there's now one in Machida. They're apparently known for their flavored potato fries, which was a little annoying when we were ordering. All we wanted was plain fries, and we couldn't explain that to the cashier with our limited language skills, so Andrew and my dad went with BBQ fries since that was the only recognizable flavor. I chose consumme, thinking the fries looked plain in the picture and I was pretty sure it was a type of French potato soup - in case you were wondering, the other flavors were hot chili, jagabata (apparently their most popular flavor but what the heck is it?), mental (?) butter and cheese. Unfortunately, everything was written in Japanese inside the restaurant, and we didn't see this sign with all the flavors until after we had ordered, otherwise I definitely would've gone for another flavor!


I was able to order one of my favorite sodas, C.C. Lemon, Andrew went with a Pepsi and my dad's beer somehow didn't make the order (they kept telling us it wasn't a part of the package meal and I kept trying to explain to them that we wanted to order a beer a la carte):

At first, Andrew looked horrified at what Japanese put on their hamburgers (just kidding, I just happened to catch him with an odd expression):

But after biting into the burger that was topped with cheese, bacon, an egg, tartar sauce and ketchup, he decided that it was edible:

All sets of the fries came in a bag doused with flavored powder that you were supposed to shake around. They were OK, but there was a little too much powder, and consumme kind of tasted like the chicken flavoring that comes with ramen.

Andrew had definitely noticed that there were a ton of Japanese restaurants offering "hamburgs" but now he truly had an understanding that these were not your typical American burger, especially in terms of toppings!