LYNNWOOD — Sure, there’s the Godzilla Attack burger.
And the Ninja Deluxe. And the Mt. Fuji.
But Katsu Burger doesn’t just slap Japanese-themed names on burgers. The restaurant, which last month opened a location in Lynnwood, fuses Japanese ingredients into a burger-joint menu.
Beef, chicken, pork and tofu patties are deep fried and slathered with wasabi mayonnaise and tonkatsu sauce. Fries get sea salt or seaweed flakes.
Milkshakes come in flavors like green tea, chai and kinako and black sesame.
Husband and wife Tom Jung and Stephanie Kang were devoted to Katsu Burger before they bought the business a year ago. Their college-age son and nephews discovered the eatery in Georgetown in south Seattle.
The family would trek at least once a month to Katsu Burger from their home in Edmonds.
“I was a big fan of Katsu Burger,” Stephanie Kang said. “I was going there for years but then one day it was closed.”
The couple have a background in restaurants — Tom Jung has been a sushi chef for 25 years and they are the former owners of Sushi Kanpai in Seattle. So they contacted Katsu Burger’s owner, Hajime Sato, who told them he felt that he couldn’t run the restaurant like he wanted so he shut it down.
Jung and Kang purchased the business complete with all of the recipes last summer and reopened the original location. In November, the couple opened a second one in the Factoria area of Bellevue.
Last month, they opened a third in Lynnwood at 3333 184th St. SW, No. B, next to the Regal Alderwood Stadium 7 movie theaters and Asian grocer H Mart. They’re employing about 10 people in Lynnwood and looking to add more.
Jung and Kang have kept the menu intact, saying that Sato “worked really hard creating all of these burgers and recipes.” They figure that they want to add a couple of wrinkles. They’re working on a seafood burger at the moment, testing out shrimp, crab and salmon variations.
For Kang, her favorite menu item is the burger called Ohayou Gozaimosu or Japanese for “good morning.” The burger mixes beef, egg and bacon with Japanese mayo and tonkatsu sauce.
“It’s really good,” Kang said. “When people come in, they say, ‘I’ll have the burger I can’t pronounce.’”
So far, the Lynnwood site has proved to be a good choice, thanks in part to ample parking and H Mart shoppers dropping by, Kang said. The couple hadn’t intended to open a third location so fast. But the lease became available in Lynnwood and it was just too good to pass, Kang said. And it’s close to their home.
“I live in Edmonds,” Kang said. “Edmonds, Lynnwood, Shoreline — that’s my neck of the woods, I live here and I shop here.”
They’ve already seen posts on the restaurant’s Facebook page asking when they will open a location in the south end of the Puget Sound.
“We’d like to expand a couple of more here in Western Washington,” Kang said. “When I don’t know, but that’s in our plan.”
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