One great example is Mos Burger. Mos who, you ask? Virtually unknown outside of the East Asian region, this burger chain has taken a “bite” of its competition — the big heavyweights, McD and BKing. The company got its start in the early 1970’s in Japan with a single outlet. It has now grown to more than 1600 stores, with several hundred here in Taiwan and several in Singapore, Hong Kong and a newly opened store in Thailand. Incorporating local flavors and tastes to their products, the Mos Burger Company were early developers of “Asian-fusion” fast food.

Although I have lived and visited Taipei nearly 5 times in the last ten years, I hadn’t heard of Mos Burger (their first store opened here in 1991) until last year. I was discussing my distaste of fast food burgers to my aunt when she popped up her head and asked “What about Mos Burgers? They’re delicious!” “A Mos-what-burger?” With that she directed me to the nearest outlet, instructing me to get the Rice Burger.

A burger made of rice? That definitely didn’t sound delicious. Well, as I soon found out, the burger was beef and bun was, well, rice. Called the Yakiniku burger, it is strips of grilled beef (in what I think is a bulgogi-esque marinade) in between two patties of rice. And my aunt is dead-right. It’s delicious. The tender strips of beef soaked in marinade complement the sturdy patties of rice. That doesn’t mean the rice is hard, rather it is stiffened with a mixture of barley and millet to give it structure. Otherwise the patty would fall apart immediately. The packaging, it’s wrapped in a thin Styrofoam like pouch, makes it easy to open and eat on the go. The biggest shortcoming is its size. I’d prefer something larger because I do find that I’m not quite full after eating just one.

The Yakiniku has been so popular here that even McDonald’s in Taiwan have created their own version of the rice patty burger for the local market. Unfortunately, I have yet to try the McDonald’s version, partly because right across my school doors is a Mos Burger stand. Being ridiculously close to where I spend 80% of my day, I have the good fortune of eating a Mos Burger most anytime.

Since one burger never quite fills me up, the other day I decided to try some of their other “non-burger” offerings. They recently added another salad to their menu, a seaweed version I wanted to try out. I had never tried any of their desserts, so I bought one of their chocolate “stick cakes.”

The salad is quite simple, a bed of iceberg lettuce, some tomatoes slices and corn with a heap of fresh curly seaweed. The seaweed was crunchy and added a different texture to the salad, but the most interesting taste was the dressing which was sweet with an added touch of vinegar. It brought all the ingredients together into a complete dish.

I’ve had a number of cheesecake-like desserts in Taiwan and have come away quite unimpressed with nearly all of them. They tend to be overly sweet and less cheesy than I prefer and baked without any crust. I was expecting this stick to be similar and happily proved wrong. What made this “stick cake” so delectable was the crumbly top layer of crust. It complimented what could have been a mouthful of cheesy chocolate. Instead, the crust and cheesecake melted pleasantly in my mouth.

Mos stands for “Mountain Ocean Sun” and their slogan is “Making people happy through food.” They certainly have made me happy; they’ve become my favorite fast food “burger joint.” It’s burgers that brought me there, but I’m going to stay for dessert now as well!

Extra Note: In addition to what I’ve eaten, Mos Burger also offers chicken and pork burgers, as well as chili dogs and chicken wings. I’ve been told that their outlets in Japan have even a wider range of offerings, so I can’t wait for my next trip to Japan.

But what is “Okonomiyaki”? It is mostly easily described as a savory pancake made up of shredded yam, flour, cabbage and egg. Often ingredients such as onions, meat (pork, beef, seafood), and pickled vegetables are added. It’s topped with nori flakes, sweet mayonnaise and Okonomiyaki sauce (a thicker and sweeter version of Worcestershire sauce). Generally it is cooked at the diner’s table on a hotplate (similar to one used in Teppanyaki). My first Okonomiyaki experience was in a small low end restaurant in Kyoto, a major city in the Kansai region of Japan, where this dish originated. I must admit it wasn’t a very good culinary experience. I remember eating an overly oily, salty seafood pancake whose taste was drowned by the mountain of mayonnaise poured over it.

When my friend in Singapore recommended eating Okonomiyaki I hesitated, but agreed, hoping that a more upscale destination would produce a more delicious outcome. Nanjya-Monjya is located on the ground floor of the Waterfront Singapore complex, tucked nicely into the building away from the noise of the streets. Patrons can be seated in semi-private rooms that are bordered with dark wooden slats, curtained doorways and with a central hotplate built into the table. The quiet atmosphere reminded me of the temples I visited in Kyoto, where one can walk around the grounds without hordes of tourists buzzing about.

My friend, her companion and I found ourselves in one of these rooms and quickly took to scanning the menu. Aside from the various types of Okonomiyakis, there are an array of appetizers and sides you can order. We settled on an avocado-salmon sashimi dish, lightly fried tofu, and braised eel as well as two Okonomiyakis (beef and seafood).

Wedges of fresh avocado paired brilliantly with fresh salmon slices, doused with just a bit of vinegar, herbs, onion and spice—what could have been overdone was simple yet delicious. It’s a dish I’d love to recreate at home.

Our tofu was fried just enough to have a thin crisp outer layer and soft inner core. The sauce of the braised eel dish was slightly salty and it was the most underperforming dish of the evening. But it didn’t matter as the highlight of our evening were Okonomiyakis that rectified my previous experience.

Unlike my first time, when the Okonomiyaki cakes were pre-prepared and re-fried on a hot plate in front of me (obviously I’ve learned from that mistake), our waiter at Nanjya-Monjya brought to our table two bowls of fresh ingredients: beef, seafood, shredded yams, diced green onions, chopped cabbage, nori flakes and flour. After oiling the hotplate, he started grilling the beef and seafood. While that cooked, he mixed together the rest of the ingredients with fresh eggs and arranged them into pancake shapes on the hotplate. Then, he added the beef and seafood on top of the Okonomiyakis and flipped the giant pancake over to allow them to cook through. I took my first bite into the beef Okonomiyaki and it was a performance on my tongue. The outer layers of the pancake were crispy but not burnt. The inner part of the pancake was soft but still firm. The scallions added depth to the cabbage and yam filling. We had the option of topping them with mayonnaise, which we declined and enjoyed our Okonomiyakis with just a reasonable dose of sauce and nori flakes that added a complementary amount of salty flavor.

Like its culinary cousin, Teppanyaki, Okonomiyaki is as much a performance for the diner as it is a gastronomic delight. The process of watching the dish take shape from a bowl of ingredients to a savory pancake makes it all the more delicious. Therefore, I think my first experience with Okonomiyaki in Kyoto was lacking not only in taste, but in the excitement of watching the dish take shape. Nanjya-Monjya provided a serene atmosphere, a delicious Okonomiyaki and bit of entertainment to an evening in Singapore.