What did Mark Zuckerberg eat at McDonald’s in Japan, and is it as great as he says it is?

We order everything Zuckerberg did, to see if it really is worthy of a Michelin star.

It seems that everyone is influenced by posts on social media these days, but when it’s someone with millions of followers, like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, a personal recommendation carries so much weight it’s enough to cause a firestorm.

So when Zuckerberg raved about McDonald’s in Japan on his social media accounts, everyone stopped what they were doing and zoomed in on the post, including our McDonald’s-loving reporter Seiji Nakazawa. And when the 39-year-old American billionaire claimed the food was so good it was worthy of a Michelin star, the post quickly went viral, with news headlines around the world reiterating his bold claims.

▼ “Japanese McDonald’s: 10/10. Give these guys a Michelin star.”

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A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

Our reporter, however, was left scratching his head. Having eaten at McDonald’s in Japan all his life, he knows it’s good but was it really Michelin Star good? Figuring he may not have been paying close enough attention, Seiji decided to head out and purchase everything Zuckerberg did at McDonald’s to see if it really was as good as he said it was.

▼ Behold, the Zuckerberg Set.

Zuckerberg ordered the following menu items:

• Egg and Double Beef Burger
• Shrimp Filet-O Burger
• Teriyaki Chicken Filet-O Burger

• McFries (Medium Size)
• Chicken McNuggets — 5 pieces (with mustard)

• Edamame & Corn
• Hitokuchi Churros — 4 pieces

• Minute Maid Orange Juice
• Coca Cola

In a reply to a question under his post about what the best item on the menu was, Zuckerberg rated his meal, albeit with his own interpretation of the names, as follows:

“Ebi Burger (so good 10/10), Double Burger with Egg (it’s a banger 10/10), Teriyaki McChicken (8/10), local McNuggets (great texture (10/10), Churros for dessert (8/10). Strong showing overall.”

According to this rating, Zuckerberg’s favourites were the Shrimp Filet-O Burger, the Egg and Double Beef Burger, and the Chicken McNuggets, which all earned a perfect 10/10. Out of everything on this nine-piece feast, there were a number of things Seiji hadn’t ever tried before — the only burger he’d tasted previously was the Teriyaki Chicken Filet-O — so he was keen to see if his review would align with someone from overseas trying them for the first time.

▼ So he started with the Egg and Double Beef Burger.

Upon first bite, the black pepper in the sauce sang out prominently, adding a good punch of spiciness to the meat patties. The sauce seemed to be the star of the show here, giving the whole burger a strong flavour compared to other burgers on the menu.

▼ Next, the Shrimp Filet-O Burger

The fried patty in this burger was stuffed with way more shrimp than expected, with Seiji describing it as “an amazing amount”. This gave it a wonderfully tender mouthfeel to contrast with the crunchy batter, and the aurora sauce added a great taste that complemented all the ingredients.

▼ This burger wins the award for best texture.

▼ Time to try the Teriyaki Chicken Filet-O Burger

When Seiji took a mouthful out of this burger, which Zuckerberg rated lower than the other burgers, he could understand the relatively poor review. Perhaps it was too ordinary, or maybe it was the lack of variety in the ingredients, but this was a bit of a ho-hum burger, which is only saved by its excellent salty sweet sauce.

Having tried the fries and nuggets numerous times, Seiji didn’t have much to say about them, other than they tasted as great as they always do. He’d never eaten the churros before, though, and after trying them he was surprised to find they were much crunchier than he’d expected, and had a very strong chocolate taste.

▼ The Edamame & Corn was another first for Seiji, and it was light and refreshing.

Reading through the many comments under Zuckerberg’s post raving about how good McDonald’s is in Japan, Seiji got a sense that compared to other countries, McDonald’s here gives more consideration to flavour and presentation. However, as a Japanese person, these types of meals are such an ordinary part of his everyday that Seiji couldn’t really understand why they would get so much love from people overseas.

In fact, the only real takeaway Seiji got from trying this selection of food was…

▼ …Zuckerberg sure eats a lot!

The total price for everything came to 3,090 yen (US$20.55), which is the most Seiji has ever spent at the chain. When it was all laid out in front of him, he felt like he was at a McDonald’s party.

Seiji’s idea of a good McDonald’s meal is far more humble by comparison, but hey, he’s a guy with arguably less refined tastes and a much thinner wallet. Zuckerberg, on the other hand, currently ranks fourth on the Forbes list of billionaires, so perhaps his palate is far more sensitive to the intricacies of fast food and Michelin star restaurants.

Either way, to Seiji, McDonald’s in Japan is just McDonald’s, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s curious to know, though — what do you think? Do you rate McDonald’s as highly as Zuckerberg? If you do, let us know in the comments below and be sure to share your recommendations!

Related: Instagram/@zuck
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Ninja Soba Goemon: A Japanese restaurant that’s like a ninja hideout

Because shadow warriors need to eat noodles too. 

There are many soba restaurants in Japan where you can eat buckwheat noodles, but one particular restaurant in Gunma Prefecture is particularly special for a number of reasons.

Firstly there’s the name, Ninja Soba Goemon, which conjures up images of Ishikawa Goemon (1558-1594), the Japanese bandit who stole from the rich to give to the poor. This folk hero was said to have been born in Iga Province, home of the legendary ninja, where he learned the art of ninjutsu, and after various adventures and exploits, he met his demise when he and his son were boiled alive in an iron tub after a failed assassination attempt on a warlord.   

▼ Round iron tubs are now called goemonburo (“Goemon bath”) in Japanese, and this restaurant has one of them outside the front door.

Eating at Ninja Soba Goemon is like eating in a ninja hideout, as the building has loads of traditional features that lure you in. Once you’re inside, you’re met with another cauldron to remind you of the legendary bandit’s demise, and this one is even more realistic, with steam rising from it as it boils away to make noodles.

▼ Boiling noodles, not ninja.

While the restaurant’s name and setting are unique in the way they transport you to another world, the meals themselves are special too.

▼ The main options here are soba and udon, but the real drawcard is the all-you-can-eat condiment buffet.

For a lot of diners, spices and condiments are integral to enhancing the flavour of noodle dishes, and while most restaurants might give you a few condiments on the side or at your table, Ninja Soba Goemon lets you pick and choose from a wide variety of options, so you can customise your dishes in different ways during every visit.

Diners can choose to sit at either the counter or at a table in the tatami room section, but the all-you-can-eat condiments are only available to those at the counter.

We ordered a plain cold soba with the condiment buffet included for 850 yen (US$5.65). The choice for toppings was extensive, covering fried eggs, wakame seaweed, grated radish, and green onions.

Pouring a little of the noodle broth into our side bowl, we added a tongful of each of the different toppings inside, placing them carefully around the bowl for a delicious display.

With our customised dipping broth now ready, it was time to pick up a mound of noodles and, like true connoisseurs, hold back on dipping them, instead trying them first on their own to assess their taste.

Thin, flat, smooth and chewy, these were excellent noodles, and we couldn’t wait to find out how they would taste with our dipping broth, which contained all the condiments.

This mixture was far more flavourful than our first mouthful, with the fresh greens and plump wakame creating a refreshing spring-like aroma. With this sauce, every slurp of the noodles became more and more delicious.

The grated daikon radish added a kick of spiciness, imparting a light aftertaste that was highly addictive. Not only did it taste great, but the fact that you can  go back for more condiments at any time allows you to eat and slurp to your heart’s content without ever having to worry about running out.

After finishing the noodles, staff provide you with some hot soba water to add to the remaining sauce so you can enjoy it as a flavourful soup. With so many ingredients in the sauce, this turned out to be one of the best things we’ve tasted in a long time and as the condiments vary depending on the day, we can’t wait to go back for more on our next visit.

Like a shadow warrior’s hideout, Ninja Soba Goemon is a hidden gem with exciting discoveries inside, so next time you’re travelling through Gunma, perhaps to visit the birthplace of the Japanese daruma, be sure to add this restaurant to your itinerary!

Restaurant information
Ninja Soba Goemon / 忍者そば 五ヱ門
Address: Gunma-ken, Maebashi-shi, Mitsumatacho 1-44-18
群馬県前橋市三俣町1-44-18
Open: 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. (counter seats); 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m., 5:30-8:30 p.m. (tatami room seating)
Closed: Tuesdays, first and second Monday of every month
Website

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Japanese teacher beats up student for making fun of his body by calling him anime character name

Board of Education hands down punishments to teachers fighting, dating their teenage students.

With anime being more popular than ever, you can probably walk through just about any junior high school in Japan and overhear students saying an animated character’s name as they talk about their favorite series. The circumstances were a little different, however, on a day in January at Kawachinagano Municipal Middle School in the town of Kawachinagano, Osaka Prefecture.

During a break between classes, a third-year student (who would have been either 14 or 15 years old) called a 38-year-old male teacher by the name of an anime character because of similarities in their physique. The exact name the teen called the teacher hasn’t been publicly stated, but it wasn’t intended as a compliment, according to the Osaka Prefectural Board of Education, implying that the teacher is likely either obese, gaunt, or short.

When the student called the teacher by the anime character’s name a second time, the educator became enraged, grabbing the teen by the front of his shirt and shoving him to the ground, then punching him in the side of the torso and head, near the temple.

This wasn’t the first time things had gotten physical between the two. In May of 2023, an incident occurred in which the teacher put the same student he’d later punch into a “lightly tight” headlock. Since starting work at the school in the spring of 2022, the teacher had been repeatedly made fun of by male students because of his physique, something other school employees were reportedly aware of but did not see as a problem.

Seeing a teacher raining blows on one of their classmates, other students informed other teachers at the school of what happened. The teen suffered light bruises and did not require hospitalization, and the teacher has since apologized to both him and his parents, saying “I was unable to control my anger, and did something inexcusable to a student.” On February 26, the Board of Education announced that the teacher will be docked 10 percent of his pay for three months.

▼ Somewhat ironically, smart-mouthed students and short-tempered teachers brawling in the classroom is one of those things that’s a lot more palatable in anime than it is in real life.

During the same round of disciplinary notices, the board handed down an identical punishment to a 36-year-old teacher at the all-girls Neyagawa Municipal Junior High School in the town of Neyagawa. This was in regard to an incident that took place in December of 2022 in which the teacher took a third-year student for a two-hour drive in his car, during which he held her hand and had her pat his head while they were waiting at signal lights. When asked what possessed him to do such things, the teacher said “I wanted to reward her for reaching her target score in her end-of-term tests, and for her to study hard around New Year’s for her high school entrance exams.”

▼ If that’s really all he wanted to do, seems like a simple “Great job kid, keep it up!” would have sufficed.

It all goes to show that it’s important for schools to hire teachers who can maintain a proper, professional relationship with their students, in a nice, healthy medium where they like them enough to resist any urges to beat them up, but without liking them so much that they want to date them.

Source: Sankei Shimbun via Yahoo! Japan News, Mainichi Shimbun
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Pakutaso (1, 2)
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Ghibli Park opens final area to first visitors, with stunning new attractions and shops 【Videos】

Anime settings come to life in the Valley of Witches, with amusement park rides and hot dogs in cat paws! 

Back in 2017, Studio Ghibli announced plans to open a theme park in Aichi Prefecture, and roughly five years later, in November 2022, the park finally opened its doors to the public.

It was only the first area to open, though, and after another year of waiting, visitors were welcomed into the second area, dedicated to the world of Princess Mononoke. Now, the park is about to open the third and final area of Ghibli Park, and members of the press were the first to step inside for a preview on 28 February, ahead of the official 16 March opening date.

This last section of the park to be revealed is known as Valley of Witches, and is dedicated to the studio’s witch-centric anime movies: Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Earwig and the Witch.

▼ Two of the highlights in this area are Howl’s Castle, which emits smoke several times an hour…

▼ …and Gütiokipänjä, the bakery from Kiki’s Delivery Service, where visitors can purchase baked goods on the ground floor.

▼ This video shows what the structures look like in real life.

No detail has been spared in bringing these anime worlds to life, through not only the beautiful buildings but the interiors, which mimic the colours and lighting from the films.

The Okino Residence, from Kiki’s Delivery Service, for example, has two stories to explore, with the “witch’s shop” on the ground floor replicating the flower-filled space where Kiki’s mother makes potions, and Kiki’s bedroom upstairs giving us an insight into the day-to-day life of the Okino family.

The Hatter Hat Store is just as captivating, giving us a chance to step into Sophie’s workshop and actually purchase hats, as well as original candy in cute tins.

▼ Upstairs is the Witch’s Bookshelf, a bookstore with books related to witches and magic.

The Witch’s House is the home of Earwig, or “Aya” as she’s known in Japanese, the main character from Earwig and the Witch. The building contains a library, bathroom and kitchen, as well as Earwig’s bedroom and Bella Yaga’s workroom, which is filled with mysterious magical ingredients.

While the interiors are gorgeous, there’s a lot to do outdoors as well, with ride-on play equipment designed to look like a “mobile amusement park that comes to the village once a year“. This includes a merry-go-round featuring vehicles, animals, and characters from films like Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke.

▼ This ride costs 500 yen (US$3.33) for children aged 3 to 12 (free for children under 2), or 1,000 yen for adults.

There’s also a “Flying Machine“, inspired by the world of Laputa: Castle in the Sky, with Laputa and the Tiger Moth in the middle of it all.

▼ Tickets for this ride cost 500 yen, and can be used only by children aged 3-12, although one accompanying adult can ride with a child.

▼ Take a look at the merry-go-round and Flying Machine in this cued-up video below!

Next to the Flying Machine is Airplane Tower, a playground for children modelled after the home of a character who dreams of flying.

The streets in the valley are lined with stone walls that give the impression of a former village, and there are wastelands and old wells nearby. There’s also a clock tower with an eye-catching roof decoration of two witches flying on broomsticks, which rings its three bells to announce the time to the village, and visitors can climb the tower to get a panoramic view of Howl’s Castle.

▼ Moving on to the gourmet side of things, we have a sit-down restaurant called the Flying Oven…

▼ …and a food stand called Hot Tin Roof, where you can buy hot dogs with cat paw buns!

▼ For shopping, we have a store called “Witch Coven 13“.

Visitors to the area certainly won’t go hungry, with a bakery, food stand and sit-down restaurant to choose from, and judging by the cued-up videos below, they look so good we’ll want to visit them all.

▼ Take a look at what’s for sale inside the bakery here:

▼ The Hot Tin Roof cat paw hot dog looks just as good in real life as it does in the photos!

▼ The Flying Oven serves hearty meals inspired by European cuisine, including a Napolitan Quiche for 1,850 yen.

▼ The Witch Coven 13 store is filled with an array of exclusive goods, although cameras weren’t allowed entry on the day.

With the opening of this new area comes a new range of tickets, giving you entry to different areas and different buildings. Visitors from March onwards can purchase an “O-Sanpo Day Pass” — “o-sanpo” or “sanpo” means “stroll”, and “Sanpo” is the My Neighbour Totoro opening song — that allows you to enter all areas of the park.

The standard O-Sanpo Pass is priced at 3,500 yen (US$24.07) for adults on weekdays and 4,000 yen for weekends (children aged 4-12 pay half price and children 0-4 enter for free), and gets you entry into all the areas, while the Premium O-Sanpo Pass (priced at 7,300 yen for adults on weekdays and 7,800 yen on weekends) comes with the extra benefit of being able to enter the following five buildings:

• World Emporium (Hill of Youth)
• Satsuki and Mei’s House (Dondoko Forest)
• The Okino Residence, Howl’s Castle, The House of Witches (Valley of Witches)

Tickets, which are sold for set time slots, must be purchased in advance, so be sure to check out the official site online. Though the Premium O-Sanpo Pass might seem a bit pricey, after seeing what Howl’s Castle and the Witch’s House looks like, we think it’s worth the investment.

▼ Howl’s Castle has so much to see inside, and the outside world even flips to a different scene to give you the sense that you’ve been transported, like in the movie.

▼ The Witch’s House is complete with a peep hole in Earwig’s bedroom.

▼ And while we’re at it, let’s take a final peek inside the Hatter Hat Store as well.

Tickets for 16 March, when Valley of Witches opens, will go on sale at 5:00 p.m. (JST) on 9 March. With so much to see and do in this new area alone, a visit to Ghibli Park is definitely worth adding to the itinerary, and with the adorable new Catbuses transporting visitors around the site, it’ll be a fun day out for the whole family!

Source, images: PR Times
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Do Mister Donut’s sakura doughnuts taste as good as they look?

Each doughnut represents a different stage of the cherry blossoms in bloom, so we eat our way through all of them to find our favourites. 

On 28 February, Mister Donut, Japan’s leading premier doughnut chain, added four delights to their menu for a limited time to celebrate the upcoming cherry blossom season.

Called Sakura Mochitto Doughnuts, with “mochitto” referring to their chewy texture — this range is particularly unusual as it represents the four stages of the blossoms, from bud to fallen petals. With each doughnut having a unique beauty of its own, we were keen to find out if they tasted as good as they looked, so we picked up all four for a taste test.

▼ Let’s begin with the first stage of the blooms — “Tsubomi“, or “Bud“.

The first thing to catch our eye was the beautiful pink sakura design on the paper bags, and when we plucked out the bud, we could see it was a tasty shade of brown, thanks to the soybean flour dusting.

▼ The back of the bud, however, was soybean flour-free, coated in a sweet glaze instead.

Tearing into the bud revealed a hidden secret — a beautiful cherry blossom-flavoured dough, representing the flower inside the bud waiting to bloom.

Plump, chewy and sweet, yet subdued in flavour due to the simplicity of the ingredients, this was a beautiful introduction to the sakura series.

▼ Next up, we have the “Gobuzaki” (“Half-bloom“)

With a slightly more eye-catching appearance than the bud, this doughnut does a great job of representing a flower that’s about to unfurl all its petals, with a dusting of iced sugar and a strawberry chocolate dip adding extra beauty and sweetness.

▼ The true highlight, however, is the Sakura-flavoured whipped cream filling, which imparts a strong sakura taste in every mouthful.

▼ Moving on to the next stage of the flowering process, we have the “Mankai” (“Full Bloom”).

This is the pinkest of them all, with sakura-flavoured chocolate flakes scattered all over its surface to represent the dazzling nature of the flowers in full bloom. It’s also the strongest in terms of sakura flavour, with a thin layer of glaze beneath the chocolate flakes adding an extra hit of sweetness.

▼ The final stage is the “Maizakura” (“Dancing Sakura”)

“Maizakura” refers to the way the petals dance on the wind as they fall from the trees at the end of the season, and the arty topping represents this dance, with a flurry of petals against a backdrop of branches, now exposed at the end of the season.

Things are equally beautiful inside, with a ring of sweet adzuki red bean paste giving it a pop of Japanese flavour, which pairs beautifully with the cherry blossom flavoured doughnut.

After tasting all four stages of the blooms, our favourites were the final ones, the Mankai and Maizakura, but we were excited to work our way through all the stages, as each one lit up our imagination and our taste buds at the same time.

The doughnuts are on the menu for a limited period until late March, priced at 183 yen (US$1.22) for takeout or 187 yen for eat-in, except the “Bud” doughnut, which is a little cheaper, at 162 yen for takeout or 165 yen for eat-in. Alternatively, you can pick up all four in the “Sakura Mankitsu Set” (“Cherry Blossom Full Enjoyment Set“), only for takeout customers, priced at 711 yen.

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