Matsuya's Official X Account Reviews Test-Sale Item 'Mala Cheese Hamburg Steak'

On the night of September 2, Matsuya’s official X account (@matsuya_foods) posted that it had eaten the store-limited test-sale item “Mala Cheese Hamburg Steak.” The post positions it as the “second test-sale item,” continuing from the taste-test report for “Rich Beef Curry and Rice” posted the previous day, September 1.

A Bowl Layering Melting Cheese Over a Sichuan Pepper-Spiked Mala Sauce

The photo accompanying the post captures a white bowl bearing the Matsuya logo from a near-overhead angle. A grilled hamburg steak sits soaking in a soup-like mala sauce that spreads from deep red into orange, topped with a heaping mound of melting white cheese and what appears to be shredded orange cheddar. The seared patty peeks out from the red sauce, giving a presentation that instantly conveys the contrast between the spice and the dairy.

The post text puts the heat front and center, calling it “a must-try dish for spice lovers, with an authentic kick of heat that really hits you,” and adds a suggested way to eat it: “We also recommend adding the side menu item ‘Extra Cheese’ for an even bigger cheese boost.” The “Extra Cheese” mentioned here is an existing topping already on Matsuya’s side menu, not something newly introduced this time — it’s positioned as a suggestion for boosting the portion using an existing regular item.

Four Test-Sale Lines Launched Together on September 1

On the official site’s store-limited page, “Mala Cheese Hamburg Steak” is listed together with “Mala Tofu Beef Bowl” as a single combined entry, covering 70 stores with sales starting at 10:00 a.m. on September 1.

At that same 10:00 a.m. on September 1, the same store-limited category also saw the simultaneous test-sale launch of “Rich Beef Curry and Rice” (70 stores), “Spicy Garlic Chives and Egg Rice with Choice of Egg” (70 stores), and “Devil Chicken” (limited to 1 store), bringing the total to four lines running in parallel alongside the mala pair. Of these, the official X account introduced a taste test of “Rich Beef Curry and Rice” the previous day, September 1, and this post on September 2 covers “Mala Cheese Hamburg Steak” — a pattern of featuring items that launched around the same time on a rotating, day-by-day basis.

Menus Bearing the “Mala” Name and Matsuya’s Past

“Mala,” which delivers a numbing heat through Sichuan pepper and chili peppers, is front and center in this round’s store-limited pair. Looking back through Matsuya’s announcements, though, the “Numbing-Spicy Mala Pork Steak Set Meal” was released about a year earlier, on August 28, 2025. That item starred pork steak and is a different product from this time’s beef bowl and hamburg steak, but it shows that the numbing-heat lineup had appeared before.

As for “Mala Tofu Beef Bowl” and “Mala Cheese Hamburg Steak,” this post is a follow-up to the release announcement issued on August 27, which had already revealed the set-meal pricing starting at 830 yen and the rollout across 70 stores in 28 prefectures.

A Taste-Test Post Following the Usual Format

The post opens with the emoticon “( ¯꒳¯ )” alongside “Itadakimashita” (“I had some”), and places a single emoji each for the heat (🔥) and the cheese (🧀) — following the familiar format of the official account’s “eating report” posts. There’s only one exclamation mark, at the very end, keeping things understated, and the post is composed as a short summary of the two highlights: the heat and the cheese. It closes with a note pointing readers to the other item in the same test-sale pairing: “‘Mala Tofu Beef Bowl’ is also on sale, so please give that a try too.”