Black bun burgers are an unfortunate trend, with most attempts at the gimmick failing
horribly. As many restaurants around the world have discovered, it’s very hard to make
a burger with a black bun look appealing to the general public. A lot of them decided
that adding some ridiculous ingredients would make their black bun sandwiches stand out
from the crowd. So with all these mostly failed attempts, let’s look at 10 black bun fast
food burgers you never knew existed.
Kuro Burger
The Kuro Burger from Burger King is the kind of thing that you would only find in Japan,
not specifically for its black bun, that’s been done before in many different places,
but for what gives the bun its black color. The word kuro is the Japanese word for the
colour black, hence the burger’s name. This limited time burger was released by Burger
King in Japan to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the fast food restaurant relaunching there.
This burger consisted of the regular toppings found on most hamburgers (lettuce, cheese,
pickles) but it also came with the added bonus of black ketchup and a black bun. Sometime
later there was another release of the Kuro Burger - the Kuro Pearl and Kuro Diamond which
also included black cheese. You may be wondering what was added to make these things black,
and if you guessed an ungodly amount of food coloring, you would be wrong. The bun had added bamboo
charcoal to give it its black color, whereas the ketchup used squid ink, both of those
ingredients sounding like something you would probably only find in food from Japan. One
would hope that a weirdly black burger would at least taste good, but from reviews found
online, it was far from tasty. Pictures of the hamburger taken from customers who actually
ordered it make the burger look even more unappetizing than just the idea already does. A
lot of people found the color just downright off-putting, and who can blame them? When people think
of a delicious hamburger, they don’t tend to think of black buns and sauces.
Ikasumi Burger
This was McDonald’s Japan’s answer to Burger King’s black burger, except they
released theirs for a Halloween promotion, and only in limited stores in Tokyo. McDonald’s
released this burger with a black bun, squid ink sauce, fried onions and some chipotle
sauce on top of two burger patties. The only saving grace in terms of this burger looking
more edible than the Burger King version, is the fact that McDonald’s decided to use
regular colored cheese, making it look a little more appetizing than the black cheese
used on the Kuro Pearl and Kuro Diamond Burgers. Reviewers said it was a bit better than the
Burger King version, but still wasn’t anything special when it came to taste or presentation.
Appearance and presentation are usually considered important things when it comes to food. Burgers
with strange colored buns historically don’t go over well, no matter how many times it’s
attempted or what colors are tried, people seem to like their buns to just be the same color they
are supposed to be. It was a good effort from McDonald’s to compete with Burger King,
making their black burger just a bit cheaper than their competitor, but even with a lower
price, these burgers didn’t go over that well, and are at no risk of returning as a
regular menu item any time soon.
Hakooka Burger
This black bunned burger is a lesser known one for a lot of people, having been released
by a fast food place that is only in Kuwait, called Humbah. It’s not a main stream
fast food place like McDonald’s or Burger King, but it seemed to be taking some notes
and attempting to follow their footsteps when it comes to gimmicky hamburger buns. This
small burger place released a black bunned burger inspired by The Dark Knight, or at least that’s
what it was advertised as. Whatever the inspiration, clearly this burger place had not heard about
how unpopular strange colored burger buns were, or they probably would have just skipped
this gimmick all together. There are few reviews for this burger that can be found online,
but the ones that are able to be found are for the most part at least positive. The small
number of reviews indicates that there probably weren’t many people who actually went and
tried the hamburger. It looks like it’s just a regular hamburger for the most part,
no strange toppings to be found, aside from the color of the buns. There’s no indication
of what gives this hamburger bun its black color, so one can only guess what was used - either
way it doesn’t look half as off-putting as some of the other black bun burgers out
there, so they at least have that going for them.
Dark Vador Burger
This burger was released by a fast food company named Quick, which has over 400 restaurants
internationally. The Dark Vador burger was added to the menu in celebration of the re-release
of the Star Wars movie “The Phantom Menace”, along with three other themed hamburgers loosely
named after ideas from the Star Wars franchise. The other burgers all featured normal colored buns,
with varying flavors created by the burger patties and the sauces, but they wanted to
make one that stood out more, and so they attempted the age-old black bun trick. This
burger was made to be a bit on the spicier side, which alone would have been enough to
make the hamburger a unique menu item, but instead Quick decided that they needed to
take it one step further and join in on the black hamburger bun gimmick. Reviews stated
that this hamburger was actually pretty tasty, putting aside the weird black color of the
buns, so at least they got the taste right, even if the color wasn’t necessary. This
limited time hamburger went over a lot better than most restaurants who attempted the black
bun thing, but still didn’t sell as well as it probably would have if they’d just
kept the buns the way they’re supposed to be.
Black (And White) Burgers
McDonald’s has tried to create success from black hamburger buns more than once, and each
time it doesn’t go over as well as they probably thought it would. This time around,
they decided to not only include a black hamburger bun on their menu, but also a white hamburger
bun, both of which looked like a McDonald’s burger that had been left out for far too
long. These two hamburgers came as a package deal, but they both included different meats
as their main ingredient, the black burger consisted of pork and the white one consisted
of chicken. This menu item was released for a limited time by McDonald’s China, and
they didn’t review or sell very well. Both hamburgers looked weird in general, but the color of
the buns especially made people avoid ordering this particular item. Both hamburgers featured
sesame seeds on top that were colored the opposite of the buns, making the buns look
even more questionable. Despite having yet another black bun burger not work out in their favor,
this wouldn’t be the last time that McDonald’s would attempt to sell a sandwich with a black
bun.
Black Bun Frog Burger
Another very strange, and very morbid, limited time menu item to come out of Japan, this
sandwich is exactly what the title suggests. Not only is the bun black, but in the middle
of those daunting black buns, you’ll find a nice set of fried frog legs. As if black
buns weren’t enough to turn people away from trying a sandwich, the Orbi Yokohama
museum in Japan decided to make their sandwich even less appealing by including frog legs
that stick way out of the bun. Even if you were adventurous enough to try this hamburger,
it would be hard to even try to eat it, since a lot of the frog legs are sticking out of
the bread. Luckily this burger was not only a limited time item, but it was also limited
to only being sold at the museum. The menu item was created to promote one of their limited
time exhibits, and hopefully the weirdness of the sandwich was enough to draw people
in, because it probably wasn’t a very popular menu item for people to actually order. There
aren’t really any reviews of it online, but it’s easy to imagine that it probably
wasn’t their top selling menu item - the pictures of it just don’t look appealing
at all, which is partially the fault of the black bun and partially the fault of the frog
legs hanging off the black bun.
Kuro Ninja Burger
As if the poor sales of the first Kuro burger weren’t enough, the next year Burger King
made yet another black bunned burger, this time even worse than the previous Kuro burger.
This one comes with a hash brown as a topping, along with an unnecessarily long piece of
floppy bacon that just looks bizarre. Burger King Japan seemed to think that the low sales
numbers of the original burger were due to the plain flavor and lack of original ingredients in
the rest of the burger, and not because of the black buns, so they added more and re-released
this limited time menu item under a slightly different name. The reviews for this burger
were unsurprisingly as bad as the original release of the Kuro burger - the additional
toppings didn’t seem to appeal to their customers like they thought it would. Who
can blame them? No one wants to eat a burger with a black bun, let alone one that has a
disturbing looking piece of very long bacon on it. Sadly, this would not be the last time
that Burger King in Japan would release a Kuro burger, because they seem to love continuing
to put out menu items that have failed in the past. We can only hope that one day they
will learn from their previous mistakes and stop releasing hamburgers with black buns.
Black Bun Burger From Dubai
The black bun burger trend seems to have no limits as to where it will pop up, but not
all of them seem to be that terrible. There’s a local burger place in Dubai called Salt,
and from online reviews, their simply named black bun burger seems to be a hit with the
locals and tourists alike. If you have ever dreamed of eating a black bun burger on the
beaches in Dubai, Salt is apparently the place to go, with people praising its atmosphere
and delicious gourmet hamburgers, which includes reviews of the black bun burger as
well. Salt has proven that not every black bun burger needs to be gimmicky and having
just a simple and well-made hamburger between those off colored buns is enough to sell
the item on its own. The black bun burger is actually one of Salt’s most popular selling
items - maybe Burger King and McDonald’s should take some notes from Salt for their
inevitable future release of yet another black bun hamburger. At least this local Dubai restaurant
was able to show that if you actually take the time to make a good hamburger instead
of slapping random ingredients on, even a black bun won’t deter people from eating
it.
First Order Burger
This is yet another black bunned burger that was inspired by Star Wars, this time
it was done by Disney themselves to celebrate the opening of a Star Wars themed attraction
at one of their parks. A Star Wars themed restaurant was opened, named the Galactic
Grill, and on the menu at this new themed restaurant, along with several other gimmicky
Star Wars themed items, was a black bunned burger named after one of the groups in the Star
Wars movies. Apparently Disney couldn’t think of a better way to represent the First
Order than to create a black bun hamburger with a couple of spicy items as toppings - not
a very innovative idea, many other companies have done this exact same thing. This particular
hamburger with a black bun looked a lot more appetizing in real life than most of the other
attempts other companies have taken, which is at least one thing they had up on most
of their competition. The burger had a slight spicy theme to it, offering fried peppers
and a spicy lime sauce, along with the black bun that so many others have attempted to
sell before. Disney seemed to at least halfway be on the right track with the black bun burger
- theirs wasn’t as unnecessary as some others who have tried to create a black bun sensation.
The burger didn’t get any rave reviews, but it also didn’t flop. It was a pretty
average burger all in all, so it wasn’t a terrible decision on Disney’s side of
things, but it definitely wasn’t a huge hit either.
Black Bun Crab Burger
The last burger on this list isn’t actually a hamburger in the traditional sense- this
one was offered from a local restaurant in Russia named Wave Burgers and More, and instead
of the traditional beef patty, this one was made from crab. That wasn’t the only different
aspect of this hamburger, the black buns on this sandwich made it stand out from other
menu items, and surprisingly in this case it was actually a good thing that it stood
out by using a black bun. Aside from the crab patty and the black bun, this sandwich seems
to be pretty average, with regular toppings such as lettuce and tomato. Reviews found
online state that this sandwich was a favorite menu item of quite a few customers, and for a good
reason - it was made with fresh ingredients and it was made simply instead of trying to
use complicated ingredients to draw people in. Quite a few people left reviews saying
that this sandwich was one of the best they had ever eaten, and from the pictures they
took of the food it actually looks appetizing despite the odd color of the buns. It looks
freshly made and high quality, unlike the customer pictures of its fast food counterparts,
showing that the black bun on sandwiches doesn’t always have to look off-putting. Sadly, the
restaurant is no longer in operation, so if you had plans to go and give it a try yourself,
you will be pretty disappointed.
Stick around and tap that screen to check out one of our other great videos. And if
you’re here for the first time, we’d love it if you subscribed to our channel. Go ahead
and swat that subscribe button and ding that notification bell.