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Gurakoro and Gurakuro came out on same day, filling fans\u2019 hearts with joy and filling their stomachs with gratin croquettes<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n When we found out that McDonald\u2019s Japan<\/strong> was bringing back one of its most popular winter menu items, the Gurakoro<\/strong><\/a>, we figured we had our lunch plans set for that day. Gurakoro is short for \u201cgratin croquette burger,\u201d<\/strong> and eating the sandwich with a deep-fried croquette filled with white sauce, macaroni, and shrimp<\/strong> is like devouring a cup of hot soup. Delicious, warming, and filling, it\u2019s pretty much all fans could ask for from a sandwich on a chilly winter\u2019s day.<\/p>\n However, our lunch plans suddenly got less certain when we found out that Japanese cafe chain Komeda Coffee<\/strong> was also getting ready to add a gratin croquette burger to its menu, and on the exact same day that the Gurakoro would be arriving at McDonald\u2019s. Komeda Coffee calls its gratin croquette burger the Gurakuro<\/strong>. It\u2019s kind of an odd name, considering that the Japanese pronunciation of croquette is korokke<\/em>, with an O, not a U, but Komeda\u2019s linguistic quirkiness is something we were willing to overlook, given the chain\u2019s reputation for excellent-quality food.<\/p>\n Now faced with a choice of two gratin croquette burgers, we did the only sensible thing and picked up both to taste test<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u25bc Komeda Coffee Gurakuro on the left, McDonald\u2019s Gurakoro on the right<\/p>\n And since we were already going to make this a two-burger lunch, we decided to go all-out and order the deluxe version of each sandwich. In the case of McDonald\u2019s, that meant the 490-yen (US$3.25) Koku Uma Beef Demi Gurakoro<\/strong>, which adds a topping of rich (koku<\/em>), delicious (uma<\/em>) demi-glace beef stew<\/strong> to to the croquette. Meanwhile, the upgraded gratin croquette burger from Komeda is the 730-yen Shrimp and Tomato Sauce Gurakuro<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Unwrapping both of them, we could see right away that Komeda\u2019s gratin croquette burger is massive<\/strong>. Not that McDonald\u2019s Gurakoro is a tiny sandwich by any means, but the Komeda Gurakuro looks to be about 50 percent bigger when viewed from above, if not double the size of its counterpart.<\/p>\n When looked at from the side, though, the sandwiches are about the same in thickness, and they\u2019re both very<\/em> thick<\/strong>. You\u2019ll need to open wide to get your mouth fully around either one, so that\u2019s just what we did as we went in for a bite, starting with McDonald\u2019s Gurokoro<\/strong>.<\/p>\n As of last year, McDonald\u2019s has increased the ratio of cheese they use for the croquette\u2019s filling, and there\u2019s so much inside that the cheese flavor is stronger even than the cream in its white sauce<\/strong>. It\u2019s extremely rich and delicious, but still did a great job tying the myriad flavors of theother ingredients together.<\/p>\n Though this is a fast food item, McDonald\u2019s croquette was freshly fried and crisp, and the shredded cabbage had an enticing crunch to it as well<\/strong>. The demi-glace was no joke either, full of flavor and tasting like a proper example of beef stew<\/strong>, not some cheap after-thought sauce.<\/p>\n The overall strength and heaviness of the flavors still impart an air of guilty fast food pleasures to McDonald\u2019s gratin croquette burger, but as all of the ingredients are high quality and delicious, it doesn\u2019t feel like a cheap substitute for something fancy, for a unique sensation of eating a guilty pleasure with a taste to be proud of<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Moving on to Komeda\u2019s Gurakuro<\/strong>, we had to pause for a second and once again marvel at just how big this thing is.<\/p>\n Unlike McDonald\u2019s croquette, Komeda\u2019s doesn\u2019t contain shrimp inside of it, but this top-of-the-line croquette burger does come with a shrimp and tomato cream sauce, which beautifully blends the seafood sensation with the tomato\u2019s gentle sweet and tart notes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The white sauce inside the croquette features no fewer than five kinds of cheese: Gouda, mozzarella, cheddar, Parmesan, and Edam<\/strong>. The combination feels rich and fancy, like the sort of thing you\u2019d get in a well-established restaurant with a long waiting list for tables, and the fact that it\u2019s actually something you can order as a takeout item makes the quality even more impressive.<\/p>\n So which sandwich do we recommend? Both of them, actually. The McDonald\u2019s Gurakoor is the one to go for if you\u2019re after a straightforward sandwich that really delivers a strong cheese flavor, while Komeda Coffee\u2019s Gurakuro feels more refined and complex<\/strong>. You can\u2019t really go wrong either way, though, but if you do opt for the Gurakuro, you might want to ask the Komeda staff to cut it into halves, or even quarter sections, to make it easier to eat.<\/p>\n Photos \u00a9SoraNews24<\/em> Gurakoro and Gurakuro came out on same day, filling fans\u2019 hearts with joy and filling their stomachs with gratin croquettes. When we found out that McDonald\u2019s Japan was bringing back…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/11\/2_59e476.jpg?w=640\")
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