There is a food in Japan known to the Japanese as “hamburg”. It’s important to not confuse it with “hamburger” which is totally different and what you can get at any fast food joint.
Hamburg is what my Dad used to call “salisbury steak”. Which, incidentally, is fully explained on Wikipedia.
Basically it’s ground beef with spices inserted inside, often served with an egg on top and/or other vegetables on the side. There are tons of different hamburg styles; recently I discovered “Texas Bronco” which is a restaurant that primarily serves hamburg. There are spicy hamburgs, spinach hamburgs, humongous one kilogram hamburgs… etc. The Texas theme of that place is hilarious.
It’s similar enough to what American’s are probably familiar with but I have to say it tastes really good and just different enough to make it feel a bit foreign. If you make it to Japan, give it a try. While Japanese food is obviously excellent here the big surprise for me was how good the world’s food is too. You can find excellent quality food much cheaper than I could in San Francisco. The Japanese take food seriously – at least half of TV programs are food topics, seriously – and the hamburg is a hit.