Japanese food scientists—and god, does it fill our hearts with a spicy mix of fear and glee when we get to start an article with those three words—have struck again. A synergy-minded Tokyo burger chain—J.S. Burgers Cafe, with four convenient locations in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, and directly over a swirling vortex into the eldritch realm of bad culinary ideas—has announced a new specialty menu, pegged to the upcoming release of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters.
At first glance, the new menu is a little underwhelming, in what’s probably not an intentional nod to the lackluster response that greeted the movie’s original trailer. After all, we’ve seen black buns before, thanks to the mad burger minds at Burger King. The “black olive-anchovy paste” that tops the “G.B. Burger” is a nice touch, though, represting a confident step forward in the field of burger-ruining science. And it’s worth remembering that the dyes used for staining bread black have a startling tendency to turn customers’ poop green. Just like Slimer!
Speaking of good ol’ Onion Head, the company is also offering up a “Slimer Smoothie,” which stands out as the only major menu item that’s not thematically appropriate, in that it doesn’t look like eating it will immediately kill you and turn you into a ghost. (The company is doing its best, though, covering the thing in candy to offset the nutritional value of whatever vegetables are hiding around the edges.) There’s also the “Black Chili Chips”, which is a pretty grandiose name for plate of normal-looking nachos.
Finally—in a potentially literal sense—there’s the “Marshmallow Mad Burger,” a massive conglomeration of processed sugar and Oreo cookie creme that stretches the Earthly definition of “dessert”. Although it’s topped with a jelly that brings to mind the mood slime from Ghostbusters 2, this Tower O’ Diabetes is clearly modeled after the original film’s Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who, coincidentally, was also a teetering pile of carbohydrate despair, wished into existence by a well-meaning fool.