SORA NEWS


 

McDonald’s wants you to be aware that the Gohan Kara Dabuchi really is kara.

McDonald’s Japan took its sweet time getting into the rice burger business, basically letting its rivals have that section of the Japanese fast food market to themselves for decades.

Burgers with rice replacing their buns finally came to the Golden Arches last year, though, and since then McDonald’s has been following Japanese foodie-protocol by periodically spicing things up with special seasonal rice burger offerings.

This month, the spicing-up is happening literally, with the release of the Gohan Kara Dabuchi, whose name has quite a bit of linguistics to digest. Gohan is the Japanese word for “rice,” kara is a shortened and more emphatic alternate of karai/”spicy,” and dabuchi is a condensed version of daburu chizu, or “double cheese,” making Gohan Kara Dabuchi essentially equivalent to “Spicy Double Cheese Rice Burger.”

 

“Hold on a second, there was a spicy McDonald’s Japan rice burger that came out last month!” you say, as though we, of all people, would ever forget such important information.

Yes there was, with the Delicious Spicy Shrimp Rice Burger, which uses akatogarashi, Japanese red pepper powder. However, the Gohan Kara Dabuchi stands to be several steps spicier still, since it gets its fiery kick from habanero chilies.

Sandwiched between two discs of grilled Japan-grown rice are a pair of all-beef patties and several habanero slices ready to scorch your flavor receptors. You might notice that even the slices of cheese look spicy, and are, thanks to having habanero powder mixed in.
 

▼ The Gohan Kara Dabuchi, flanked by the Garlic and Black Pepper Chicken (left) and Delicious Spicy Shrimp Rice Burger (right)


 

The Gohan Kara Dabuchi is priced at 440 yen (US$3.85) by itself or 740 yen as part of a set with a drink and fries. It’s on sale for a limited time and only available after 5 p.m. as part of McDonald’s Japan’s “Yoru Mac” (“Night Mac”) menu, and the chain does ask customers who are not accustomed to spicy foods to “please be cautious.”