I’ve made it abundantly clear that I LOVE JAPANESE FOOD!
Having said that does not exclude the possibility of occasional cravings for the tastes and textures of cuisine from the homeland.
I’ve already praised R-H Bagels, an excellent LOCAL restaurant, a leisurely bike ride from our house, for its New York-style bagels.
And I’m sure I’ve mentioned that Masumi and I make a pretty darn good pizza right here at home. We even bought a pizza oven, so we can get those required high temperatures!
What I haven’t mentioned are my shameful failures at recreating a truly genuine, mouth-watering hamburger experience, despite more tries than I want to confess to. The problem mainly seems to be the bun. I’ve even resorted to croissant burgers, since I simply cannot find a decent hamburger bun or good approximation of one. I’m over-simplifying, of course, maybe to let myself off light. Okay . . . it’s more than just the bun. It’s getting the hamburger itself right as well. Apparently, I’ve lost my touch! Boo hoo!
This has driven us over the 14 years we’ve been together, in a desperate search for a truly great American-style hamburger. One that oozes bloody juices, clogs the arteries just sitting on the plate, and creates visions of one of the few things the U.S. actually still gets right these days.
Our first breakthrough arrived somewhat unexpectedly, though the only reason I didn’t expect it is because I didn’t stop to think about it. Actually, it should have been obvious. This was during a summer holiday in 2016.
Because the main island of Okinawa, in particular the major city there of Naha, is overrun by Americans — the whole island, much to the outrage of the locals, hosts numerous U.S. military bases — we found a spectacular hamburger joint called Gordie’s. Gordie? Actually, in all my years in the U.S. I can honestly say I never met someone who called himself ‘Gordie’. There was a legendary hockey player when I was growing up named Gordie Howe. But he was Canadian. Whatever.
Gordie’s in Okinawa is pretty cool! I highly recommend it.
But let’s face it. Okinawa is not exactly convenient.
A little more convenient, but still not that convenient, is a hamburger restaurant we found in Himeji, a place called Lamp’s Bakery. This was late 2018 when our friend Alex Malherbe came back for his second visit to Japan.
Certainly, Himeji is a great place to visit and we’ve been there together at least three times. BUT it’s over two hours away. This has made it incumbent on us to find something a little closer to home.
There are two hamburger cafés right in town. We won’t talk about them. You know why.
But hope springs eternal! (Or is that infernal?) Because . . .
In nearby Sanda — about a 30 minute drive — right downtown near the main JR train station, is Alto Hamburgers. Don’t have a photo right now. It’s a tiny restaurant, seats maybe 16 people. Interesting story behind it. The place is owned by college students, who crowdfunded the whole project, and obviously did their homework. They have a number of very good deluxe hamburgers — bacon, avocado, mushroom, of course cheese, teriyaki, etc. — but in my book, the real draw is their onion rings, which are to die for!
Having lavished all this praise on Alto, I now confess that while it puts up some serious competition, the real #1 hamburger slinger is a restaurant/antique shop/farm way out in the country — which says a lot considering how far out in the country Tambasasayama is — in Kasuga, a forty-minute drive from our house, but one well worth every second of it.
Ladies, gentlemen, gays, lez, bi, trans, double-transitioned, pan, non-binary, non-indexed, no-preference, self-cancelers, and protoplasmic virtue signalers from every whispered and howling corner of the human genome, let me introduce you to Locasse Farm Lab!
And there you have it! Driven by my desire to recapture the joy of devouring an American hamburger, our search is a success. Let’s hope that Alto and Locasse remain in business for the foreseeable and my arteries don’t gunge up with saturated the meat-based calking compound delivered by their HMDs — hamburgers of mass destruction.
