Japan's Freshness Burger in Singapore

I've seen outlets of Freshness Burger on pretty much every trip to Japan, but never bothered to go in, despite how inviting the name and green decor seemed. After all, why waste one's precious time there eating hamburgers when there was so much else to eat? Well, these guys finally opened an outlet in Singapore at the new Nex Mall (23 Serangoon Central #B2-48, 6634-4439). We were in the neighborhood this afternoon and stopped by.

It was disappointing. In my mind, the term "Freshness Burger" conjured up thoughts of a tasty Niman Ranch patty and loads of fresh veggies. And while these guys definitely had the latter (the thick and firm tomato slice in particular being very impressive), the taste otherwise was simply boring, with none of the grilled fat aroma that I was looking for, despite how neatly assembled the thing was. The fried Hokkaido potatoes were a letdown too, in part simply because they brought them to us cold.

I'm sure that part of the problem was simply that I was expecting a proper American burger, and I should know that I shouldn't do that. Instead, I should be expecting Japanese food from the ground up (just as no one should expect proper Italian food at a place like Saizeriya). In the spirit of that, I also got one of their tofu burgers, but even then, I nearly splurted out swear words when I bit into one.

I was expecting them to use firm tofu to mimic a beef patty but instead they used silken tofu, which was so delicate that the thing just made a mess. As a tofu dish on its own, it was actually nice and light. But I couldn't help but think of it as a burger, which just made me cringe. Given my similarly bad experiences with places like Mos Burger and R Burger, I guess that I'll have to turn to some other shop to change my impression about Japanese burgers.