Well Fed Network

Posted by Esther Rose on Well Fed on the Town.

An American favorite food, the burger, has long become a worldwide favorite. Its permanence can be seen in the popularity of McDonald’s and Burger King chain stores throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East. However, there are regional burger chains that have had great success by producing products that truly cater to local tastes.

One great example is Mos Burger. Mos who, you ask? Virtually unknown outside of the East Asian region, this burger chain has taken a “bite” of its competition – the big heavyweights, McD and BKing. The company got its start in the early 1970’s in Japan with a single outlet. It has now grown to more than 1600 stores, with several hundred here in Taiwan and several in Singapore, Hong Kong and a newly opened store in Thailand. Incorporating local flavors and tastes to their products, the Mos Burger Company were early developers of “Asian-fusion” fast food.

Although I have lived and visited Taipei nearly 5 times in the last ten years, I hadn’t heard of Mos Burger (their first store opened here in 1991) until last year. I was discussing my distaste of fast food burgers to my aunt when she popped up her head and asked “What about Mos Burgers? They’re delicious!” “A Mos-what-burger?” With that she directed me to the nearest outlet, instructing me to get the Rice Burger.

A burger made of rice? That definitely didn’t sound delicious. Well, as I soon found out, the burger was beef and bun was, well, rice. Called the Yakiniku burger, it is strips of grilled beef (in what I think is a bulgogi-esque marinade) in between two patties of rice. And my aunt is dead-right. It’s delicious. The tender strips of beef soaked in marinade complement the sturdy patties of rice. That doesn’t mean the rice is hard, rather it is stiffened with a mixture of barley and millet to give it structure. Otherwise the patty would fall apart immediately. The packaging, it’s wrapped in a thin Styrofoam like pouch, makes it easy to open and eat on the go. The biggest shortcoming is its size. I’d prefer something larger because I do find that I’m not quite full after eating just one.

The Yakiniku has been so popular here that even McDonald’s in Taiwan have created their own version of the rice patty burger for the local market. Unfortunately, I have yet to try the McDonald’s version, partly because right across my school doors is a Mos Burger stand. Being ridiculously close to where I spend 80% of my day, I have the good fortune of eating a Mos Burger most anytime.

Since one burger never quite fills me up, the other day I decided to try some of their other “non-burger” offerings. They recently added another salad to their menu, a seaweed version I wanted to try out. I had never tried any of their desserts, so I bought one of their chocolate “stick cakes.”

The salad is quite simple, a bed of iceberg lettuce, some tomatoes slices and corn with a heap of fresh curly seaweed. The seaweed was crunchy and added a different texture to the salad, but the most interesting taste was the dressing which was sweet with an added touch of vinegar. It brought all the ingredients together into a complete dish.

I’ve had a number of cheesecake-like desserts in Taiwan and have come away quite unimpressed with nearly all of them. They tend to be overly sweet and less cheesy than I prefer and baked without any crust. I was expecting this stick to be similar and happily proved wrong. What made this “stick cake” so delectable was the crumbly top layer of crust. It complimented what could have been a mouthful of cheesy chocolate. Instead, the crust and cheesecake melted pleasantly in my mouth.

Mos stands for “Mountain Ocean Sun” and their slogan is “Making people happy through food.” They certainly have made me happy; they’ve become my favorite fast food “burger joint.” It’s burgers that brought me there, but I’m going to stay for dessert now as well!

Extra Note: In addition to what I’ve eaten, Mos Burger also offers chicken and pork burgers, as well as chili dogs and chicken wings. I’ve been told that their outlets in Japan have even a wider range of offerings, so I can’t wait for my next trip to Japan.