Koreans love to eat and they don't like to spend a lot of money doing it, so it was natural that fast food chains started taking over the country and infiltrating their diets. As a people, they are also pretty particular about the things they eat. It seems that once they get an idea of how something should be eaten or used, it's difficult to stray from it. In the western fast food franchises, that has resulted in completely new Korean menu items and destroyed Koreanized versions of the classics. McDonald's, BK, KFC, even Popeye's all have a handful of awful meal options available. Not surprisingly, the American chains' Koreanized menus don't even come close to offering the amount of weird/sick ass shit that Korea's homegrown fast food franchise, Lotteria offers to its hungry clientele.
Don't get us wrong, Koreans are culinary geniuses when it comes to Korean food, it's only when they try to prepare non-Korean dishes that things go awry. Case in point: Burgers and Sandwiches. It's actually amazing how well they can screw stuff up in this department! While the use of random sea-creature-meat is a little strange, it usually means a fried patty which generally ain't too bad. For us, the main transgression is their use of sauce. Nothing is worse than a dry burger or sandwich, sure, but here they just apply too much. And it's not that it's too much of one sauce that can easily be scraped off, it's too much of two or more sauces (and at least one of which shouldn't even be there in the first place). We're not talking about mustard or ketchup either. It's more along the lines of different combinations of Koreanized versions of mayo/sandwich spread, teriyaki, cole slaw dressing, tartar sauce, nacho cheese, thousand island, honey mustard, sweet chili and various other sauces made with lots of sugar and/or fruit. Things have a tendency to get pretty wet and pretty weird!
Our original solution was to only order the fried, bite sized things or the soft-serve cone and ignore the rest of the menu. When a Lotteria opened up near our apartment, we decided to really give it a sporting chance. This second time around, our solution to the sauce problem has been to risk the dry burger and simply order everything without sauce-uh. Ideally, we could just use ketchup, but for some reason their 'liberal with the sauce' attitude doesn't extend to ketchup packets. An order of fries comes with one packet. If you ask for extra ketchup, they give you one more packet. Even after repeated negotiations at the counter, you still can't get a satisfying amount of ketchup...but that's a whole other issue!
Memory, All alone in the moonlight, I can dream of
the old days. Life was beautiful then,
I remember the time I knew what happiness was.
- The Fried Bits -
(the safe menu items)
치즈스틱
Natural Cheese Sticks
('Natural' is exactly the word we'd choose to describe
breaded and deep fried processed cheese!)
Lotteria's official English description of the Natural Cheese Sticks: "Breaded mozzarella cheese deep-fried to perfection for a soft yet crispy dessert."
Finally, we've got the support of an entire corporation: Cheese sticks ARE a dessert!
크런치새우
Crunch Shrimp
Lotteria's description: "soft shrimp-fish for soft yet crispy dessert"
It's true, they are 'soft yet crispy!'
Squid Ring
Fast food calamari!
Lotteria's description: "made of cuttlefish for the special type of dessert"
If in their own description it says that they're "made of cuttlefish," why do they call them Squid Rings? Details...
Two new menu items!
한우레디버거
The Hanwoo Lady Burger
We couldn't figure out what was ladylike about the Hanwoo Lady Burger. We thought it was going to be a lady-sized version of a bigger burger because that would make sense. That wasn't the case. It was the same size as any other burger on the menu. The only differences we could find were that the patty was square and there were bits of [what we guessed were] rice cake in the meat. Very feminine!
Believe it or not, the Lady Burger didn't even last a month before getting taken off the menu. It was that popular!
유러피언프리코 치즈
The European Frico Cheese
Come on out lil guy...
In it's full glory
Lotteria's description: "By putting the Netherlands FRICO smoke cheese’s patty, it emphasized product differentiation of cheese’s taste."
Dissection (upside down)
The black olives and the 'mozzarella' cheese disc are what make it European, clearly. Everyone knows those come standard on all burgers in Europe.
As with the Lady Burger, and most every other item on the menu, it wasn't good, but it wasn't terrible. Edible and in front of us...
Here's the recipe, make your own!
오징어버거
The Squid Burger
Many Lotteria locations are open 24 hours and none serve breakfast, so the entire menu is available at anytime of day, unlike the Western chains, which would be SO awesome if only there was something delicious on the menu. One night while complaining to our friend's Sam and Eunjeong about this issue and about how awful Lotteria is in general, they suggested we give the Squid Burger a try. Being two eaters we respect, when Sam & EJ said it was "spicy, fried and delicious," we took their advice and tried it.
Lotteria's description: "made with tatar sauce and a bonny cuttlefish"
By 'tatar sauce' they mean 'tartar sauce' but we're just as clueless on the 'bonny cuttlefish' part of the description, because again, why are they calling it a Squid Burger?
We're not even sure how to describe the patty in this burger. It's texture is similar to a hash brown, and there might even be some potato in it, we're not really sure. We do know there are chunks of squid (or cuttlefish) and peppers in it and a hefty amount of red pepper flakes that give it it's heat. It's crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside and mighty tasty! Good find, Sam & EJ!
야채라이스 불고기 버거
Vege. Rice Bulgogi Burger
Lotteria's description: "Get joined together mixed vegetables and bulgogi’s patty it matched Korean’s taste and made with Bob as it is lotteria’s traditional menu, could eat each meal"
Nothing traditional about this thing. And who/what the f**k is Bob!?!? Judy's theory is Bob is "bap" the Korean word for rice.
By far, the weirdest burger on the menu.
We always give Lotteria the benefit of the doubt and the first time we try a burger we order it the way it's intended to be served, sauce and all. In the case of the Vege. Rice Bulgogi Burger, while the sauces were the major offenders, that first time will for sure be the only time we ever order it.
'Bulgogi,' literally meaning 'fire meat,' is a common Korean meat dish cooked over an open flame. It's generally made with marinated beef, mushrooms and onions, but chicken and pork variations are also fairly common. A very tasty dish. In the Korean burger world, 'bulgogi' doesn't translate quite so deliciously. The bulgogi patty, is a nasty processed pork concoction, with strong, filthy burp producing qualities. The bulgogi patty also never comes without bulgogi sauce. Duh! Bulgogi sauce is a completely Korean invention. It's that middle ground (if there actually was a middle ground) between teriyaki and BBQ sauce. It's tangy and sweet in all the wrong ways. On the Vege. Rice Bulgogi Burger, the bulgogi sauce was heartily applied to stick the top rice patty to the meat and mayo was used to stick the bottom rice patty into place. Like the bulgogi sauce, Lotteria's mayo is sweet as well. Imagine mixing mayonnaise with condensed milk, and that's pretty close to what they're sloshing onto the burgers. Surprise, surprise, the two sauces and the processed patty did not combine to form something delicious.
콘샐러드
Corn Salad
Lotteria's description: "Fresh lettuce and vegetables topped with salad dressing."
Do you see any lettuce? Neither do we. And by 'vegetables' they actually meant onions and imitation krab... Also, the 'salad dressing' was in fact just Lotteria's sweet mayonnaise. Needless to say, the Corn Salad was not a treat. Cool paper spoon though!
The latest addition to the Lotteria family and an old classic!
불새 버거
Bulgogi & Shrimp Burger
Surf & Turf (in burger form)
From top to bottom:
Left Side Right Side
Bun Bun
Thousand Island Thousand Isand
Lettuce Lettuce
Bulgogi Sauce Tartar Sauce
Bulgogi Patty Shrimp Patty
Onion Onion
Bun Bun
Turf Half: There's no getting past the bulgogi patty. It's just bad meat. And it wasn't complemented by the mixture of bulgogi sauce and thousand island either.
Surf Half: This half of the burger was it's saving grace. The fried shrimp patty was delicious, just a larger Crunch Shrimp. Did it need both thousand island and tartar? No. It wasn't bad, but it would have been much better with only tartar sauce or no sauce.
빅비프버거
Big Beef Burger
This burger actually hit the menu while we were in the process of compiling photos for this post. It was almost as if the folks at Lotteria headquarters knew they had a couple of tough critics tearing through their menu. From all of our previous Lotteria burger experiences, we were pretty skeptical when we ordered the Big Beef, but were blown away once we tried it. It was actually a normal and delicious burger with normal ingredients and only ketchup and mustard. We didn't even know they had yellow mustard at Lotteria until we tried this. The only screw up they made on the Big Beef (aside from the obvious heap of iceberg) was sweet pickles, but both were easy fixes.
"Just when I thought you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this...and totally redeem yourself!" - Harry Dunne
Normally, after eating a burger at Lotteria, we'd leave filled with regret and foul tasting bulgogi burps. Thanks to the new Big Beef, those days are over!
"Make today the best day of your life
Anywhere anytime
in joy lotteria"
