Burger Police

⭐⭐⭐

🍔 Hamburger / 📍 Himonya

📓 Visits: 2 (2023)

With much skepticism I visited Burger Police for the first time in January 2023, almost two years after it opened.  A night there's a cover charge of 550 yen and if you book via Omakase you have to pay the 390 booking fee.  That's nearly 1000 yen before you've eaten anything.  Crazy.

On my first visit I chose the Yamayuki Tuna Burger and the Shio Burger.

The shio burger is topped how every burger should be: with salted butter and nothing else.  It was properly meaty, like decent steak.  There was a little gristle.

The tuna burger was packaged with seared tuna and had deep flavour.

I couldn't pick a winner.  Both burgers were served with greaseless wedges (not served when the restaurant first opened) which had really good flavour from the potatoes.  Even the sauerkraut was excellent.  At lunch each burger came with a choice of hot or cold tea.  I visited on weekday lunch in winter without a reservation and had a choice of seating.  So no reservation fee, no cover charge and a 'free' drink at lunch.  I was sure I'd be back but the restaurant is a little out of the way and far from any station so I was never going to be a regular.

I visited again towards the end of the year and it was very different.  First of all the Yamayuki burger was removed from the menu in summer.  Secondly, burgers no longer come with tea or coffee at lunch.  An English menu is available now (reproduced below).

I've heard that the appetizers and salads are actually quite good but they're of no interest to me.  If they were to you then there are fewer choices than there were before.

So this time I went for the shio burger again.  On the positive side the burger had a beautiful crust and the bun was delicious.  But the meat was lacking in fat.  All the grease ran out to the bottom so it wasn't until you were just finishing the burger that it tasted at its best.  The burger tasted like it had been seasoned with cheap salt rather than sea salt and there were two large pieces of gristle.  The wedges were greaseless again but this time a bit dry and the potatoes were not great.

Staff are nice and service is very good with food arriving in less than 10 minutes on both visits.  But too many disappointments second time for me to go all the way back.  No choice but to give my wallet a flogging at Aldebaran next time.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1317/A131702/13255370/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.65

📱 Booking: 🟩 Easy.  Next day for 2-4 diners via Tabelog or for lone diners or same day by phone.  On both my weekday lunch visits I just walked in.

📍 Location: 

Himonya 4-24-16.  10 mins North-West from Toritsu-daigaku station.
Map data ©2023 Google

📅 Visit December 2023

Shio Burger 1,980

💴 Damage: 1,980
⏱️ Time taken: 25m

📅 Visit January 2023

Shio Burger 1,980
Yamayuki Burger 1,980

💴 Damage: 3,960
⏱️ Time taken: 35m