Burger stand near Tokyo’s most famous temple has local partners with more than 100 years of history helping the Square Burger stick out from the crowd.

They say nobody’s perfect, but with an average out to 4.9 out of 5 stars as of this month for Kadomasu-The Square Burger, the Tokyo restaurant’s Google user reviews say the place is about as close to perfection as you can get. This isn’t a case of the restaurant lucking out with a string of its earliest customers all coincidentally happening to like the place before a larger sample pool pulls ratings down, either, as those 4.9 stars are the average from across more than 2,000 customer reviews.

As you can probably guess from its name, the star of the menu at Kadomasu-The Square Burger is the Square Burger. To illustrate just how proud they are of the sandwich, the restaurant used to just be called Kadomasu, but since the Square Burger was added to the menu last spring, the management says that it’s been generating a huge amount of positive buzz on social media among foreign tourists traveling in Tokyo. Kadomasu-The Square Burger also says that over 80 percent of their customers are visitors from overseas.

Kadomasu (which also serves steak skewers, desserts, and drinks) is located in Tokyo’s Asakusa neighborhood, not far from the famous Sensoji Temple. For its patties, it uses A5-grade wagyu beef, but why are its burgers square? There’s at least a little wordplay involved — the “kado” part of Kadomasu is the Japanese word for “corner.” Being square, though, also lets the patties match the shape of the bread that’s used for the burgers.

Yes, that’s right, bread, not buns. As an Asakusa restaurant, Kadomasu wants to make a uniquely Asakusa burger, and they say they get their bread from local bakery Terasawa, which was founded in the neighborhood in 1950. The Square Burger’s bread is specially made for the sandwich, with golden sesame seeds kneaded into it for a nutty accent, and toasted on the restaurant’s flat grill with a generous amount of butter, cooked to achieve a crispness on its outer surface but a soft fluffiness closer to its center. Said bread is delivered to the restaurant, freshly baked, every morning, personally by Terasawa’s third-generation owner, Masahiko Terasawa, according to the management.

The partner for Kadomasu’s burger sauce has an even longer history. Sauce maker Tokiha Sauce has been part of the Asakusa neighborhood since 1923, and after a few extra ingredients are added to Tokiha’s vegetable-based Nama Sauce, it becomes the spread for Kadomasu’s Square Burger.

The Square Burger is served sliced for easier eating, cut into square quarters, naturally. A dollop of wasabi comes on the side for those that want to add some spiciness, and if you want even more decadent richness than the wagyu beef and buttered bread are going to provide, you can order it with cheddar cheese too.

Though Kadomasu-The Square Burger makes its stance very clear as to whether or not a sandwich has to have a bun in order to be called a burger, there are a few mysteries about the place. For starters, while its 4.9-star Google review average holds up as of this writing (currently from 2,028 reviews), aside from the press release images seen in this article, the only customer-uploaded photo of the signature sandwich floating around online seems to be the one on Japanese restaurant info site Tabelog here. Kadomasu-The Square Burger is also less than forthcoming about how much the Square Burger costs. The restaurant has no website (and thus no online menu), and its official Instagram account doesn’t list prices for its items. That’s not to say on-site customers don’t know how much they’re going to be charged for their sandwich, though, since there’s a signboard posted outside its entrance with prices listed. Photos taken at the restaurant in August show that the price at the time was 2,850 yen (US$18) for the Square Burger and 3,150 yen if you wanted it with cheese, though being in a tourist-oriented part of town, it’s possible that the price could have changed since then.

Restaurant information
Kadomasu-The Square Burger
Address: Tokyo-to, Taito-ku, Asakusa 2-7-13
東京都台東区浅草2丁目7-13
Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (weekdays), 9 a.m.-6 p.m. (weekends)
Instagram

Source: PR Times, Tabelog (1, 2), Google
Images: PR Times
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