Freshness Burger: adventures in the "quality, noun" school of Japanese dining

Freshness Burger is a chain of slightly fancier than average fast food restaurants in Japan. They allegedly have a veggie burger. Allegedly, this is what it looks like. It consists of tofu, lettuce, tomato and AVOCADO. This is the closest I’ve gotten to an avocado in Japan: looking at the picture on the menu at Freshness Burger. I have come to the unfortunate belief that the vegetable burger does not actually exist. Every time I get up to the counter and ask for “bejitabaru bagaa wo hitotsu onegaishimasu” the girl does this adorable thing where she nervously smiles and makes an x with her pointer fingers and covers the vegetable burger on the menu before saying “sorry, sold out.” Every time this happens I sigh and order the fried potatoes. I have come to the following conclusion: the vegetable burger only exists on the menu to sell the fried potatoes. Freshness burger lures in the weary vegetarians with the promise of the cheap burger-like meal they’ve been missing so long and then forces them to buy either the fries or onion rings when they actually get to the counter. The avocado is probably the giveaway. Of course they don’t have avocado.

A trip to Freshness Burger is not a complete disappointment, however, because once you have procured your fries you can hit up the condiment bar.

As you can see, the condiment bar allows you to “taste original with the spice in the world!” They have some sort of intense garlic sauce that makes my mouth water and produce bad scents just thinking about it. I will use freely indeed.