`We don't consider the hamburger a foreign food. For us it's our traditional regional dish.' MIHOKO ONIYAMA Representative, Sasebo tourist commission

It is a few minutes before 10 a.m., and the shopping mall is still empty, yet the crew at Big Man is already at battle stations. The grill has been greased, the bacon sliced and the first load of eggs fried-and just in time too. When the doors to the food court fly open, a swarm of diners makes a beeline for the counter and the delicacies beyond.

Such was the scene one day last week at Tokyo Panya Street, a bread-themed food park recently opened at LaLaport shopping mall in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture. Elite bakeries from all over Japan have been brought together to create Tokyo Panya Street: One business from Kyoto specializes in curry-filled buns; another from Hokkaido offers melon-flavored ones; but the undisputed star attraction is Big Man, hailing from the naval base town of Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture, Kyushu. It isn't actually a bakery at all.

It's a hamburger shop, although not exactly the fast-food type. Since it opened Feb. 24, its customers have sometimes had to wait for as long as three hours to get served. And wait they have, because Big Man doesn't serve regular hamburgers. It serves Sasebo burgers, and that makes all the difference.

``I had an idea we might be a hit,'' says Yutaka Ogura, the head honcho at Big Man, as he wipes sweat from his brow, tongs still clutched in hand. ``But I didn't think we'd be this big a hit. The line goes around the court until closing time.''

A hamburger is just a hamburger, says Ogura, but to bite into a Sasebo burger is to bite into a unique piece of Japanese culinary history. Sasebo and the shipyards there were practically destroyed during World War II. At the start of the Korean War, the U.S. Navy moved in, bringing not only big ships and big equipment, but also American-style food to the town.

There are, according to the Sasebo tourist commission, some 20 ma-and-pa hamburger restaurants in town. Some date back to the 1950s, bouying the city's claim to be the first town in Japan with hamburgers. (In comparison, McDonald's arrived in Tokyo in 1971.)

``We don't consider the hamburger a foreign food,'' explains Mihoko Oniyama of the tourist commission. ``For us it's our traditional regional dish.''

It's a tradition the city is banking on. Last summer, Sasebo held its first hamburger festival, an event planned during the city's centenary celebration in 2002. The city, says Oniyama, also ponied up money for Big Man's Tokyo area debut, which it sees as good PR. Namco Ltd., the developers of Tokyo Panya Street, invited Big Man to the big city after taste-testing all the burgers available in Sasebo, adds the official.

Big Man's Ogura got into the burger business 35 years ago, spurred on by a friend who'd visited America and come back with wondrous tales of beef consumption to tell.

``He told me that we Japanese should eat more meat,'' recalls Ogura, who used to be a baker.

``Back then Americans were eating seven times more meat than we were. We'd been raised eating fish like sardines. I thought I had to do my part to help us catch up.''

Ogura serves up a regulation Sasebo burger, featuring a patty of Japanese beef, a fried egg, cherry wood-cured bacon a la Canadienne and lettuce, onion and tomato-everything locally produced. He and his crew make up to 800 of them a day, yet the owner insists that his burgers aren't fast food.

``This is slow food,'' says Ogura. ``There's time put into it, and it requires patience ... It's a handmade burger.''

Three hours might be an infinity by Tokyo standards, but for Sasebo officials, the wait may not be long enough.

``I was slightly concerned to see Mr. Ogura working as fast as he was,'' says Oniyama, who showed up in Tokyo to monitor Big Man. ``Rushing them may cause the quality to slip-which is worrisome. We want people to come to Sasebo for the flavor, so we don't want to give the wrong impression.''

So far, the city has no plans to set up other Sasebo burger joints outside of town. ``If there are too many, then people won't have to come to Sasebo to eat them,'' says Oniyama.

There is, however, another place to find Sasebo burgers in the Tokyo area. Zats Burger Cafe, a chain of three shops in the Nakano and Koenji neighborhoods of western Tokyo run by Hiroshi Yoshimura, a Sasebo native, also offers the real deal.

Three years ago Zats tied up with Log Kit, a five-decade-old shop in Sasebo, to bring the regional taste to Tokyo. Last month, the hamburgers were featured at a department store exhibition for Sasebo products.

Japanese beef, Kyushu kurobuta ``black pig'' bacon, ``red yolk'' eggs and home-made mayonnaise are some of the burger's components, but what's most remarkable is the size. There are both regular and jumbo burgers, measuring about 75 and 150 centimeters wide respectively. According to Yoshimura, the regular burger is a Tokyo modification-back in Sasebo the jumbo is considered the regular. Tokyoites can deal with the size, he says, but not so well with the time.

``Here people are used to places like McDonald's, there are no private hamburger places like in Sasebo,'' Yoshimura says. ``People think that a hamburger is something that appears the moment you order it. At first people used to complain that it took too long. This is slow food. It takes time to prepare; there's love put in it. It's something you don't want people to eat in 30 seconds.''

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Big Man is inside the LaLaport shopping mall, a 5-minute walk from JR Minami-Funabashi Station on the Keiyo Line. Open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. See < www.lalaport.net > for details.

Zats Burger Cafe (03-5938-9911) is located at 4-24-11 Koenji-Minami, Suginami Ward, a 3-minute walk from JR Koenji Station on the Sobu line. Open from 12 p.m. to 5 a.m. Two other shops are located near JR Nakano station.(IHT/Asahi: March 12,2005)