Does "Samurai Mac Without Sauce Taste Like a 2,500-Yen Omotesando Burger"? Ryuji Tests It and Gives a Verdict

The first one they tried was the regular "Aburi Shoyu-Style Double Thick Beef," priced at 620 yen. Opening it up revealed plenty of meat, with cheese sandwiched in as well. Just from the look of it, Ryuji said, "The regular one has lots of sauce and looks tasty," predicting that the sauce was what made this burger good in the first place.

On tasting it, the sauce turned out to be close to teriyaki sauce, and on the sweet side. The meat and the buns were both rated as good. The staff agreed, saying "It's good" and "It's sweetish," but their reaction stopped short of calling it incredibly delicious, and the overall verdict settled on a calm "that's about what you'd expect for something in the 600-yen range."

Before moving on to the no-sauce version, Ryuji talked about how the X post was written. On X, exaggerating makes things go viral. Ryuji often does it too, since adding "the best of my life" gets things to go viral, and once even gave a French toast video the title "Like French toast that sells for 2,000 yen in Omotesando." So this post probably went viral with the phrase "2,500 yen in Omotesando" as well. Ryuji laughed that the viral formula was the same as their own.

The no-sauce version was ordered on a touch panel, which reportedly lets you adjust not only the sauce but also the amount of onion and cheese. This time, only the sauce was removed. Looking inside, there were no pickles either, so it was made up of almost nothing but meat, cheese and buns. Ryuji noted that online, some people say "It was true" while others say "I'll never do that again."

After the first bite, Ryuji almost blurted out "It's not good," but held off on a judgment, saying that if they gave their answer first, it would sway the staff's impressions. The staff's reactions were split. Opinions included "It's delicious," "It feels like a refined hamburger that doesn't rely on its sauce," and "You can really taste the meat," and one staff member even said, "I might actually prefer this one."

In response, Ryuji pointed out that without the sauce it was dry, and tried sprinkling on a little Seto no Honjio salt. Adding salt made it "sort of" edible. In Ryuji's interpretation, the sweet teriyaki sauce turns everything into teriyaki flavor and gets in the way of tasting the meat. Ryuji's take was that what the poster probably meant was, "The patty is good, so let's eat it in a way that makes the most of the patty." Ryuji personally, however, felt that without the sauce it lacked punch and felt less like a hamburger.

Ryuji thinks that if you want to savor the meat, the Double Cheeseburger is tastier. The Double Cheeseburger has mustard and pickles, so the saltiness is just right. Ryuji says they used to order it with only the ketchup removed. The Samurai Mac has neither pickles nor mustard, just meat and cheese, so removing the sauce leaves a different composition, according to Ryuji's assessment.

The first thing they tried was mayonnaise. According to Ryuji, this flavor structure is close to Burger King's Whopper. The Whopper has a light mayonnaise, and Burger King is basically mayonnaise-flavored, so Ryuji figured mayonnaise should work. There was also the reasoning that the dryness needed to be offset with some fat. Ryuji also floated the idea of adding garlic powder.

But when they actually added the mayonnaise, Ryuji took back the prediction, saying, "It's not mayo." It had just turned into a hamburger with mayonnaise on it. The staff also reacted with "It's greasy" and "It's better plain," and there was a joking exchange with the staff member championing the ingredients' natural flavor: "Don't go talking about the natural flavor of the ingredients while eating McDonald's."

After the mayonnaise missed the mark, Ryuji went back to the "cheeseburger theory" and chose mustard. The approach was to make up for the saltiness lost by removing the sauce with salt, and to combine that with mustard and black pepper. Ryuji said, "I overwhelmingly prefer this one."

When the staff asked whether it was different from the mustard that comes with nuggets, Ryuji answered that yellow mustard is different from the nugget sauce. Ryuji then mentioned having once recreated McDonald's mustard sauce, and demonstrated how to make it.

The proportions Ryuji introduced are as follows, and you make it simply by mixing.

• Mayonnaise: 1 tablespoon
• Yellow mustard: 1 tablespoon (the same amount as the mayonnaise)
• Honey: half that amount (half a tablespoon)

When the staff tasted it, they reacted with "Seriously McDonald's" and "Super McDonald's." Ryuji also said viewers could just get the sauce from the restaurant. Ryuji added that it really lacks a bit of acidity, and the original might be slightly thicker too. But Ryuji thinks this is fine, since a looser sauce does a better job of countering the dryness. The no-sauce burger spread with this was named the "New Samurai Mac."

The other version combined yellow mustard with Ajishio and black pepper, which Ryuji called the "Neo Samurai Mac Ryuji Version." Ryuji predicted, "I think it's probably better than the original sauce," but left the evaluation to the staff rather than judging it themselves.

The mustard sauce version was well received, with comments like "It's really good" and "You should go with this." Some said that when they first tasted it on its own it seemed a little sweet, but together with the burger it was just right, and others remarked that "it really does become the McDonald's flavor." One theory even emerged that ordering it without sauce and dipping it in mustard sauce might be the tastiest way of all.

The salt, mustard and black pepper version, without the honey and mayonnaise, drew reactions like "It's tangy and delicious," "It's for grown-ups" and "It goes well with alcohol." Ryuji said it basically goes with beer. The staff said that while the mustard sauce version earlier felt like "the taste of the sauce," with this one you can really taste the meat. Ryuji summed up that mustard and meat really do pair well. One staff member also said that if anything is Omotesando-like, it might actually be this one. That spun off into a joke that it was like a restaurant giving a spiel: "We deliberately leave out the ketchup," "We use only mustard because we want you to enjoy the flavor of the meat."

As for which was more delicious, Ryuji didn't rank them. For kids, the honey mustard sauce version; for a middle-aged guy like Ryuji, overwhelmingly the mustard version. The mustard version is refreshing with a nice tang, so with this sauce Ryuji could eat a whole burger, Ryuji said.

On the other hand, Ryuji didn't change the assessment of the version with just the sauce removed: "Not really great." The reasons were that it gets dry and loses its punch. Ryuji's final conclusion was that the Samurai Mac is bad with just the sauce removed, but becomes incredibly tasty if you add mustard sauce, or mustard plus salt and pepper.