Image taken from Burger King's web site.Updated: October 24 with YouTube video of people eating it added.
Some things are so bizarre that you think they have to be a Photoshop mash-up or part of the Onion. When I learned about this, I thought it simply had to be a joke. Why would Burger King push Windows 7? Why would Microsoft want to ally itself with a fast food place to promote software?
Well, it turns out that it is no joke. From October 22 to 28, Burger King is selling a monster burger with 7 patties (each about 4 oz./113 grams) on an "American size" (13 cm/5 in.) bun. The catch is that they are only selling 30 of these burgers each day at the price of 777 yen ($8.50), but this is no surprise. They couldn't possibly make any money off of these if they sold an unlimited quantity of them at that price. After the first 30 people, the price is the usual price one would pay for having extra patties added to the burger (1450 yen/$15.88).
The burger comes in a paper wrapper with a Windows logo on the top and is about 10 cm/4 in. in height and 11 cm/4.3 in. in diameter. Word is that it has over 2000 calories. One person who sampled it said that it felt like eating a small animal in terms of the feel of the quantity of meat. It was also impossible for the writer (a Japanese person) to open his mouth wide enough to wrap it around the burger. Obviously, I won't be tracking down one of these as I don't even like hamburgers, let alone ones that are likely to lock my jaw if I try and eat one.
If this sort of food were offered in the U.S., everyone would be crashing down on both Microsoft and Burger King and talking about how this sort of excess contributes to the obesity epidemic. At the very least, it'd show up on This is why you're fat (I spoke too soon, it's already there!). In Japan, it's just something people chortle at, shake their heads at and about which they say, "those kooky Japanese".
A little update: The Shinjuku iLand Tower Burger King said they ran out of these (that is, sold the first 30 at 770 yen) by 9:00 am when they open at 7:00 am. They also said that some people then paid the full price (1450 yen) for them thereafter. I guess that once they got the idea in the idea in their heads that they wanted it, they just had to have it.
