The Gabuttø Burger

The Gabuttø Burger, according to the place that serves Gabuttø Burgers, is a "special blend of ground beef and ground pork. By adding pork we have achieved a juicier meat patty than traditional all-beef patties." Could be. The patty was tender and flavorful, especially with the addition of the demi-glace sauce that comes with a regular Gabuttø, making it something like the teriyaki burger that Mos Burger serves, but not quite the same. I see that Gabuttø also offers something it calls a teriyaki burger, which may be much closer to that much-liked Mos creation. (Much liked by me.)

I noticed the Gabuttø stand at the Mitsuwa food court in Arlington Heights some time ago, but never got around to trying it until Saturday when Ann and I were there. It's a brightly colored stand, mostly red and yellow, located between a coffee-and-tea shop and a stand that serves tonkatsu and the like. Gabuttø has about a dozen varieties of burger, and offers "flavored fries," which are much like you'd get in a lot of places, with one difference.

The novelty of the fries is that you add the flavoring yourself, not in the form of sauces, but from individually labeled shakers the shop provides -- shake one and out comes a flavored seasoning: original, wasabi, garlic and butter, corn soup flavor, ranch, sour cream and onion, nacho or curry. I tried the original. The concept was a little more interesting in conception than execution, since it took a lot of shaking to make the fries only a little more flavorful, but the seasoning was good, once I figured that out.

I checked later to see whether this is a chain I've never heard of. The one in Arlington Heights seems to be the only one, but maybe they dream of franchising.

What's with the ø? I don't believe the proprietors are Danish or Norwegian -- it seems they're Japanese, or perhaps Japanese-Americans -- and at their web site they use the phrase "støre infø," and "flavøred fries," so my guess would be that it's just a way to distinguish the name. I didn't ask. Maybe the next time I go, very likely for the teriyaki burger and a different seasoning on my fries, I'll ask.