Classy Food Review: The Peanut Butter Royale from Burger King

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I turned 38 years old last week. This milestone has brought on a change for me. It’s time to start getting serious about my life, my career, my responsibilities. I need to take care of myself and my family, not waste my time messing around with immature pursuits. It’s time to grow up, be a man, and embrace this new chapter…

But the day before I turned 38, I found a new burger at Japanese Burger King. You know 37-year-old Gregg had to try that thing. Behold!

The Peanut Butter Royale

For the most part, Burger King in Japan is just like Burger King in America. The burgers taste the same, except for when there’s a cool special one, which is just about the only time we go there. The Peanut Butter Royale, if the advertising was to be believed, was a burger with bacon and peanut butter on it. There was also a version with a chicken patty, and one with jelly. We skipped the jelly one and got the other two, then took them to the only place to review food: a laundromat.

Video review of the Peanut Butter Royale from a Japanese laundromat

They call it that because of the metric system.

I was expecting it to be gross. I love peanut butter and I love burgers, but sometimes when you mix two things you love, it doesn’t work out well. I like dogs and I like adult websites, but I absolutely do not want to watch an adult website featuring dogs. Certain things are best left on their own.

However, the first bite of this guy was pretty good. It tasted like a delicious burger, with a bit of a sweet tang rather than an overpowering peanut butter taste. The sauce was thin, not sticky. I enjoyed it. But would I want to eat an entire one?

Full burger review

After getting home, we examined the burger more. There was indeed bacon on it, although you couldn’t really taste it. Dipping my finger in the sauce and trying it, I confirmed that it did not taste like peanut butter, more like a sweet BBQ sauce with maybe a Thai peanut kick, but definitely not PB.

This is perhaps unsurprising. Japanese people don’t really do peanut butter, at least not how we do it in America. We can buy Skippy at our local supermarket, but most Japanese shops only sell something called peanut cream, which is a translucent sugary spread (sometimes mixed with whipped cream to make it really puffy) with a highly artificial peanut and sugar flavor. Eriko liked the peanut sauce on this burger, but that’s perhaps because she doesn’t have a purists’ view of the greatest foodstuff on Earth.

We finished the burger, and it was good, but something was not quite right. The sauce was okay, but it just…. wasn’t weird enough. Luckily, we had another one to try.

The Royale Chicken

It looks like I spilled my coke all over it.

This sandwich was essentially a cheeseburger with a chicken patty on top, doused in that sweet peanut sauce. After trying a couple bites of this, I finally zeroed in on the problem: it tasted just like a Burger King burger.

You know that Burger King flame-broiled taste. It’s different from McDonald’s or Wendy’s or any other burger chain. They have a distinct odor and flavor that brings back BK Kids’ Club memories. That unmistakable Burger King burger taste is mighty, and NOTHING can overpower it: not bacon, not a chicken patty, and not some weak-ass sauce. No matter what kind of toppings you pile on, it will always taste like a Burger King burger.

The verdict: is the Peanut Butter Royale worth going out of your way for?

The Peanut Butter Royale, despite its novelty and sweet peanut sauce, tastes just like a Burger King burger. You might as well get any burger at BK, because they’re all essentially the same, so go with your favorite and skip the limited-time-only deals.

There are of course a lot of places in Japan to get a good burger, and plenty of spots in Kobe we love. If I want a quality burger, I’ll hit up one of those. But if I’m feeling dirty and just have to have that one-of-a-kind black-lined flavor that only Burger King can provide, you’ll know where to find me.