Posted by Nick Solares, December 2, 2008 at 10:15 AM
Borough Market
Middle Road, next to Northfield Farms stall #50, Borough Market, London, UK; map); boroughmarket.org.uk Cooking Method: Griddled Short Order:Griddle-cooked grass fed beef served on a large bap achieves a decent flavor but is not textural balance Want Fries with That? Not available, but there are plenty of fish 'n' chip shops in the area Price: £4 Notes: Thurs., 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Fri., 12 p.m. - 6 p.m.; Sat., 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Walking through a very busy Borough Market on a chilly Saturday afternoon in the late fall, I came across not one but two very long lines stretching out from stalls serving burgers. I managed to walk by the first one without distraction, but by the time I had reached the second one, located next to Northfield Farms butcher in stall #50 on Middle Road, curiosity got the better of me and I joined the line. There are many delicacies available in Borough Market to feed the hungry omnivore—wild boar sausage, pork pies the size of a baby's head, roast beef sandwiches, bangers smoked with thyme, not to mention a slew of ethnic treats such as bratwurst and chorizo. Can the burger stand amongst them?
Singapore-based food blog Noob Cook reviews R Burger in Bangkok, Thailand. The Japanese burger chain describes its offerings as "real healthy Japanese burger" and features unconventional combinations such as chicken with plum sauce, and yam and surumi with ginger sauce. There's only one burger actually made of beef on the Thai menu, which doesn't even appear on the Japanese menu; other burgers are mostly made with pork, fish, or tofu, and a special ingredient: collagen. All burgers are served on Chinese-style steamed buns.
Over a couple of months, food writer Daniel Gray of Seoul Eats ate at about 20 burger joints in Seoul to find the best the city had to offer. Anyone spending an extended amount of time in South Korea may want to check out his top ten burger recommendations, a post that includes the places you should avoid and some honorable mentions. My favorite honorable mention: "The Hamburger Dude Down the Street from What the Book" selling burgers for 2,000 won (about $1.34).
Posted by kenjialtci, October 24, 2008 at 10:45 AM
Editor's note: J. Kenji Alt is a serious, possibly crazy (in a good way) burger fiend, having attempted to make a Blumenburger and successfully eaten 12 burgers in eight hours. Now you can read his report about two of the most popular fast food burgers in Colombia and how they compare to their American counterparts. Learn more about Kenji in his Grilled interview or check out his blog, Goodeater.org.
I was recently down in Colombia killing ducks and going to my fiancée’s sister’s wedding and took the opportunity to research a story for the Boston Globe on Colombian street food. Being the hardcore burgervore that I am, I also wanted to use the opportunity to do a comparison of Colombian burgers vs. American burgers. But knowing all too well that there’s such a wide variance in opinion on what makes a great burger (and already holding a bias against your average Colombian restaurant burger because they almost always mix onions and spices into the meat—a big no-no for me), I was at a dilemma.
Colombia doesn’t have the types of restaurants or burger styles we consider normal in America. There’s no pubs serving 9-ounce flame-grilled patties, no ice-cream stands griddling up 4-ounce beach burgers, no diners steaming sliders. Instead, you’ve got big hacienda-esque restaurants with Italian-themed burgers with mozzarella and marinara, or small family-owned restaurants with menus consisting of arepas, mojarra, rice fried with soy sauce (arroz tai), alongside handmade meatloaf burgers.
I’m not saying I couldn’t find good burgers amongst all the other incredible food Colombia has to offer; all I’m saying is that I couldn’t think of a good benchmark to compare them to the American burger experience.
Sweet baby Jesus, yes. That's what I thought when I first watched this video of a burger/meaty sandwich bomb being made at a street cart in Caracas, Venezuela, and I didn't even know exactly what was being put on it. After getting the translation from AHT reader Pilar M., I still kind of wanted it, even though I thought it might kill me.
Here are the contents of the burger, appropriately named "La Diabla," or The Devilish: ketchup, mayo, mustard, onions, cabbage, shoestring potatoes, more ketchup, mayo and mustard, avocado, tomato, burger patty, chorizo, chicken, eggs and bacon, and a mountain of shredded Roquefort cheese. I know what I'm getting on my first trip to Venezuela. The video contains one utterance of "f**k" but is otherwise inoffensive, unless you're freaked out by excessively unhealthy burgers. Watch the video after the jump.
In Vancouver Magazine's list of 101 Things to Eat Before You Die, the Doug Special from local chain restaurant Vera's Burger Shack comes in at #20. The burger is served open-faced with double meat, double cheese, double fried onions, and a double scoop of chili. Seems like the only thing it's missing is bacon. [Tip o the hat to: George P.]
Posted by Robyn Lee, September 30, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Photograph taken by Harald Gottschalk
If you live Paris and want to get in on some Presidential election-inspired foods, head to the Hotel Concord La Fayette in Paris for Obama and McCain burgers. Chef Laurent Belijar modeled Obama's "O-Burger" after Obama's birth state of Hawaii by making a curried patty topped with pineapple carpaccio and a mix of coriander-flavored shrimp. McCain's "Elephant Burger" is southwest-themed, made of a tomato-flavored patty mixed with grilled lamb and guacamole and served with tomato salsa and nachos.
A burger without a wheat-based bun may not be a real burger, but using grilled rice patties instead of bread results in a sandwich that's delicious and safe for gluten-intolerant eaters. Maki Itoh has instructions for how to make rice burgers on her bento ideas blog Just Bento. Form rice into flat, dense patties and fry to a golden crisp. Although rice burgers and sandwiches may not catch on in the U.S., Mos Burger in Japan has a few sandwiches with rice buns on its menu.
It's unlikely you'll ever get to try a hamburger in North Korea, but just in case, Jakob Ohlsson wants you to know that 1) they exist, and 2) they're delicious. During a trip to Pyongyang, Ohlsson indulged in a hamburger topped with egg (the other choices being "regular" and "cheese") and experienced "handcrafted bliss" for only 1€:
It was a blessing. It was like visiting someone’s parent, who had once, maybe six years ago, seen a picture of a hamburger, and was now asked to re-create it. But where memory might have failed, competence reigned supreme. Since there is no import of burger bread, seasoning, etc, everything was made from scratch. No Heinz cheating or HP Sauce shortcuts. Only handcrafted bliss.
Those North Koreans don't mess around when it comes to burgers.
To read more about Ohlsson's trip to North Korean, check out his blog, Noko Process.
David Lebovitz may have been let down by the burger at Hippopotamus, but he should be able to fulfill his craving after looking through his readers' burger recommendations in Paris. With 19 restaurants to choose from, there may be some hope for homesick Americans and burger-loving Parisians.
L'Hippo's burger looks better than it tastes. Photograph taken by David Lebovitz
When Paris-based chef and blogger David Lebovitzhad a burger craving in the land of cheese and baguettes, where burgers tend to be "wildly overpriced and nothing more than a glorified, microwaved sandwich," he looked towards French chain restaurant Hippoppotamus. Despite the promising appearance and approval from a Parisian neighbor, the burger wasn't all that.
My friend and I rated the burger at l'Hippo a tepid 6 out of 10. Even though we ordered the same basic burger, her patty was a good bit...okay...a lot larger than mine [...] and the bun was stale, not fresh and toasty-brown..
But David doesn't mean to complain that much; "Because sometimes, a guy's just gotta have a burger." Besides, he seems to have accepted his fate of not being able to easily find a great burger in Paris.
It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit — the subversive, even,” said Hélène Samuel, a restaurant consultant (in Paris, France). “Eating with your hands, it’s pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it.
So quoteth the New York Times in an interesting, and to us purists, somewhat alarming piece on the rise of the hamburger as a culinary fad in Paris. We can either thank or blame French expatriates and New York chefs Daniel Boulud and Laurent Tourondel for popularizing the burger in their homeland. Their respective takes on the hamburger at Cafe Boulud and BLT Burger in New York City have inspired their fellow countrymen. “I think it’s shocking," Mr. Boulud said in the Times, "but at the same time the French are realizing that a burger is real food, it’s good."
Posted by Adam Kuban, November 2, 2007 at 12:15 PM
Editor's note: This is the latest in a series of posts from A Hamburger Today reader Leonardo U. It's a snapshot of burgers in Venezuela and is quite fascinating. Enjoy! —Adam
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEONARDO U. | Continuing on my Venezuelan burger pilgrimage (which started here), I take you to Chipi’s. In the late nineties, the chain was at least six locations strong all over Caracas. It had more than 200 employees and its own production facility outside of Caracas in charge of providing quality control and feedback to the chains. These days, it seems that Chipi's has dwindled. Nevertheless, the one I visited delivered surprising quality, despite the location's outward appearance.
I spotted this place while walking through a mall in a central Caracas neighborhood called La Castellana. It looked like a Wendy’s or McDonald’s knock-off, so I disregarded it. After asking around about it, though, I received good feedback. So I go into the restaurant and see a lot of people of varying classes—always a good sign. My eyes gravitate to the two flame broilers between the ordering line and the waiting area. There's also a salad and sauce bar that takes one entire wall of the restaurant—all to top your cooked-to-order burger once it’s ready. The salad bar boasts a selection of about 20 sauces, various types of potato chip garnishes, and pickled toppings—in addition to the usual lettuce and tomato fare.
Says AHT reader Dave, in the comments of the previous post: "I actually had one of these last week during a vacation in Paris. It's pretty good for a fast food novelty item. It is definitely fromage-d out. For some reason the Coca-Cola in France is tastier as well."
Dave also passed along the link to a photo of L'Spider Homme Burger. Check it out! Its bun has a web pattern (above). Kinda reminds me of the buns made to look like soccer balls last year around World Cup time.
Mon dieu! Friend of AHT Graham Holliday sends us a tip on this Spider Man special going on in France's Quick burger chain. "You getting Spider Man burgers in NYC?" he asks.
Tommi Tómasson is the burger baron of Iceland and has "made and lost two fortunes flipping burgers in Reykjavík." He currently owns Hamborgara Tómasar in the country's capital. "We have had many celebrities come, even our President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and his wife Dorrit have come," Tómasar said. "Also Björk [right]. But mostly Tommi’s Burger Joint is a classless place where everyone can come and feel that he or she belongs."
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right: "McDonald’s best-kept secret may be that it offers free Wi-Fi with every meal.... Gamers using Nintendo DS systems currently account for 25% of the Wi-Fi traffic in its restaurants."
"White Castle is inferior." So says Beverly Scott, who is among 20 people inducted into the Krystal Lovers Hall of Fame this year. I think her story, recounted here, is weak, but Krystal probably liked her stance on Whitey's. An even better story is the hall of famer who routinely flies 150 miles ten times a year to pick up a couple dozen Krystals.
Here's a nice reader email from São Paulo, Brazil:
It's hard to say, but the best burger I ever ate was not in the U.S.. It was in São Paulo, in a place called St. Louis (burgers and dogs). There is no Shake Shack or Burger Joint or Le tub for them. Just terrific ground sirloin, melted real cheese, toasted bun, cucumber relish, heirloom tomato slices, pickled onions, and a touch of jalapeño. It's worth the airway ticket. The worst part is that they don't have restaurants in U.S. I add a photo of the burger I ate [left]. —L. Cintra (a Boston chef cooking in Brazil)
Thanks, Mr. Cintra! That's a beautiful photo. Very iconic.
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 22, 2006 at 1:00 AM
From yesterday's Wall Street Journal:
Beef, grown domestically, costs more than other meats in China, and consumers here consider it a luxury good. McDonald's is playing on its upscale image, as well as on traditional Chinese views that eating beef boosts energy and heightens sex appeal. The word "beef" in Chinese has connotations of manliness, strength and skill.
The burger chain's TV commercials are even racier than the print ads. In one spot, a man and a woman eat Quarter Pounders, and close-up shots of the woman's neck and mouth are interspersed with images of fireworks and spraying water. The actors suck their fingers. The voice-over says: "You can feel it. Thicker. You can taste it. Juicier."
Did you know Bryan Adams used to wash dishes at a North Vancouver restaurant noted for its unique burgers? Here's the story ...
Last night, I wrote the following email:
Dear Tomahawk Restaurant,
Several weeks ago, one of A Hamburger Today's readers sent in a photo of her Skookum Chief burger, proclaiming it the best burger in North Vancouver. I posted her photo on my site, and, lo and behold, just this evening I get a comment from another reader—one of your former employees, in fact—who said, "What a surprise to see the Skookum featured on the web! I used to work at Tomahawk in 1980 and I tell you, the burgers are GREAT! The urban legend is that Bryan Adams used to work there as a dishwasher! Ah, the memories!"
So, I'm wondering, Tomahawk Restaurant, to the best of your knowledge, did Bryan Adams ever work there?
And today, I received this reply from Tomahawk owner Chuck Chamberlain:
Yes, it is true Bryan Adams worked here at the Tomahawk as a dishwasher. I also had the pleasure of working with him. He informed me that he was only working to save enough money to buy a guitar and some spare strings, as he was going to be a rock and roll star. And the rest is history.
Amazing. Rock on, Tomahawk. Rock on, burgers. Rock on, Bryan Adams.
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 7, 2006 at 2:36 PM
I thought I had mentioned Canadian burger blog the Burgers of Winnipeg before, but it looks like I haven't.
Now I have. And it's been added to the links at left.
The site is published by Angelo De Francesco, and its origin story, according to a story in the Winnipeg Free Press, is as follows:
"My original intent was to create some sort of art piece on my wall at home—a series of photographs of a burger gradually disappearing bite by bite—but I couldn't afford the frames."
So Mr. De Francesco put the pix online and started documenting his burger meals. He's usually pretty laconic in his entries but has been getting more verbose in his more recent posts.
The Free Press story also mentions:
The blog, he says, is a precursor to his ultimate goal: a souvenir calendar featuring this city's 12 premier patties.
We'd like to offer some advice to Angelo: Flickr + Qoop = your dream calendar. WHAMMO!
Seems like the story behind this pretzel burger is that it's the cover shot for an upcoming issue of Accents magazine. The photo is blogged from Flickr, and the caption there says:
The cover story, "Take Away Denglish" is about the growing use of English words in the German language, something the magazine thinks "just doesn't work," hence the "pretzel burger."
Thanks to Udo Snack in downtown Stuttgart for letting us mess with their burgers.
Click through and check out Flickr user Chrys's other burger pix, one particularly handsome one shot through the lens of an old Kodak Duaflex.
GIO Address: 1725 Market Street; Halifax, Nova Scotia [map] Phone: 902-425-1987 Website:giohalifax.com The Skinny: $15 Kobe-style-beef burgers
As a non-native New Yorker, I still experience sticker shock here and there when I go about my daily business. The price of pizza has never fazed me, but burgers took some getting used to. With fancypants burgers routinely ringing in above $12 (sometimes WAY above), it's downright quaint to see a columnist from Halifax, Nova Scotia, marveling at a $15 Kobe-style-beef burger:
Next time you are in the mood for a hamburger, try Halifax 's real home of the whopper — Gio.
"Everybody enjoys a hamburger, but I wasn't just going to do a burger," said chef Ray Bear, whose $15 Kobe Long Burger is the highest priced burger Spare no Expense was able to find in the city....
[Bear] serves the six-ounce burger on a multi-grain bun, with double smoked bacon, aged cheddar, pickled red onions, and homemade ketchup made from dried apricots and cranberries. It comes with a side of crisp, sweet potato french fries. The pan-seared and oven-baked meat literally crumbles in your mouth, mixing with the smoky flavour of the bacon, sweet tanginess of the ketchup, and sharpness of the cheese. It tastes brilliant.
As of today (August 21, 2006), $15 Canadian translates to US$13.41. Maybe I should move AHT corporate HQ to Canada. I've always liked the sound of Halifax.
Boing Boing mentioned Flickr user art.reyu's Engrish photo set last week, which prompted me to click through for a look. Lo and behold, I find this gem.
TOMAHAWK RESTAURANT Location: 1550 Philip Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. [map] Phone: 604-988-2612 Website: tomahawkrestaurant.com
Friend of AHT Tangiene P. of Vancouver, B.C., took this photo. She says, "Here is the 'Skookum Chief Burger' from Tomahawk restaurant in North Vancouver. It has wieners, ham, egg, burger patty, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and onion."
Though she didn't state it explicitly, the subject line of her email was "The best burger in North Vancouver."
That's a honkin' load of meat, T.P. Thanks for the pic.
UPDATE: Making what looks like a great burger even better, a tipster tells us that Tomahawk uses fresh, organic beef from the Blue Goose Cattle Company in British Columbia.
AHT loves our readers. They send us great e-mails and, occasionally, cool pictures and stories about burgers in places most of us have never been. Like this photo gallery from Matt Yanchyshyn and Didier Henrion in Senegal. I received these photos from them quite a while ago, and they probably thought I'd never run them, but voilà! Matt, who publishes the African-music blog Benn loxo du taccu, may even have some Parisian burger news for us at some point. —The Management
Detail of Donald Chawarma sign.
Matt says: Here are some photos of a couple of our favorite burger joints in Dakar, Senegal. My friend Didier snapped a couple photos of the storefronts today. Senegalese burgers are a special breed: They are stuffed with a fried, scrambled egg; french fries; lots and lots of mayo; a kind of sweet ketchup; fried onions; and the usual fixings. My mouth is watering just thinking of these beasts that I used to tackle a couple times a week. Chez Donald makes particularly incredible/disgusting creations. It's the last place open downtown for food and has a record-poor hygiene history to go with its super-fantastic-tasting burgers.
Didier says: Comme promis, here are a few pics of the finest "burger places" in Senegal. As Matt said, I think Donald is the finest one around, but here's a photo of the also well known "Ali Baba burger (and everything greasy)" place. And the new KFC that just opened here (shown below; I guess it stands for "Kayar Fried Chicken.")
New Zealand chain Burger Wisconsin on the origins of its curious name: "We are called Wisconsin because you invented the burger, and we made it better.... 'Wisconsin' to New Zealanders would mean burgers first and an American state second." [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
"I'm way too hungry to settle for chick food." AdJab loves Burger King's new "Manthem" commercial. [AdJab]
"Menu warning: Stay far, far away from the [Jack in the Box] Bacon 'n' Cheese Ciabatta Burger — unless you want to consume 1,140 calories and 79 grams of fat (31 grams from saturated/trans fat). Gross." [Dallas Morning News]
Posted by Adam Kuban, February 21, 2006 at 11:09 AM
The first food item I smelled in Amsterdam was pizza, but the first honest-to-goodness Dutch treat I ate was a Febo burger.
I was told in earlier comments to skip the burger and try the "specialitje, little deep-fried meatloafs, or a kroketten," but I just couldn't pass up the burger. (How am I going to fill the pages of AHT otherwise?)
Febo (pronounced FAY-bo) is a chain of automats that serve low-priced prepared items behind columns and rows of plastic doors. You browse the selections, drop your euros in the slot, open the door, and Bob's yer uncle, you've got your grubby little handen on a warm, if not hot, food item. For longtime New Yorkers, Febo would conjure up the world of the Horn & Hardart automats of yore, the last of which closed in 1991.
I can't say that the Febo burger was good. Let's just say it hit the spot after a long flight, hotel check-in, neighborhood recon, and a boat tour of Amsterdam's canals. And I can't quite say that it actually tasted like a hamburger, though it did taste like something familiar. I'll leave it to future samplings to determine exactly what.
Febo doesn't appear to be the only one in the automat game, though. I observed two outposts of Smullers on the way from the city's Centraal Station to the hotel. Both had similar offerings, but on first impression, Smullers seemed a bit cleaner. (The Febo I stopped at was also patronized by several of our pigeon friends.)
What they also had in common was a confusing change machine. To operate the automats in both franchises, you need coins. If you only have euro notes, like me, you'd think you'd be able to zip them through one of the in-store changers for €1 coins. But the changers didn't appear to take notes, instead breaking your €1 coins into €0.20 coins for items that cost, say, €1.80. Tomorrow (or later tonight after a nap), I'll hit up the front desk here for a stash of coins and try some other Febo offerings.
After all, there's one just across the street from where I'm staying.
Posted by Adam Kuban, February 14, 2006 at 11:52 AM
Shanghai's SH magazine pits 16 burgers against one another in hopes of finding the best burger in the city. Their choice in the final round between Luna and the Rendezvous Cafe?
While we enjoyed the Luna burger on our second visit, it had little over the Rendezvous—which, crucially, is a a steal at half the price. Rendezvous is therefore the undisputed burger champ (although we'll probably have another scrumptious New Heights burger after pay day). Congratulations to the Rendezvous Cafe.
Other burgers SH deems battleworthy: New Heights number five A Future Perfect Malone's Big Bamboo Burger King Windows Scoreboard Tapas Bar 239 KABB Moon River Diner Arch Blue Frog O'Malley's
We would have given you the addresses, but the text in the online version was too small to make out.
Big in Japan right now—at least in Tokyo—is the Sasebo burger.
Sasebo is a port city that has long been home to a U.S. Navy base. And what's one of the United States' biggest cultural exports? That's right.
It didn't take long before Sasebo's native residents put their own spin on the classic American lunchtime treat, and, recently, the Sasebo-style burger has become a sensation in Tokyo. This, according to the Asahi Shimbun:
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.
But what is a Sasebo burger, exactly?
[Big Man head honcho Yutaka] 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 [Sasebo tourism commission representative Mihoko] 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 what does a Tokyoite say about the Sasebo burger? Chorickr, who graciously let us use his beautiful burger photos in this post, says, "It was really good, oishi katta desu, and HUGE! That made me happy. Really."
Despite humble origins on the steppes of Mongolia or in Germany, the hamburger as we know it is a distinctly North American phenomenon. The ground beef 'n' bun combo we adore rates with rock n' roll, baseball, apple pie, and gratuitous shopping as one of the true-blue trademarks of the USA.
Having highlighted the burgers of Vietnam, Japan, and Finland, among other international bucks on our beloved site, I was wracked with curiosity over whether there was any place on Earth where hamburgers could not be found. Whether it's a veggie Mickey D's in Mumbai or a grass-fed one-pounder in Buenos Aires, burgers are surely represented in It's a Small World–esque dimensions. The aforementioned chain's aggressive expansion even connotes corporate imperialism to many in the international arena.
But what about Cuba? The defiant land that resists Western imperialism for unfortunate dictatorial communism to the dismay of so many, has nary a commercial enterprise on its tropical pelt. With a U.S.–imposed embargo along with a state financial structure guaranteed to keep most Cubans from venturing into the surrounding world and most private enterprise out, could hamburgers have penetrated the lush natural paradise and decaying colonial hell that slumbers 90 miles below Miami?
With a little research, I learned there are more than 1,000 pizzerias on the island, but according to the University of Washington–Tacoma, "Typical 'American' foods like hamburgers and fries are not common in Cuba." In John T. Edge's instant classic Hamburgers & Fries, the author includes a chapter called "Fidel's Fritas," about the Cuban street food arguably based on our hamburgers. Fritas are a classic native combination of beef and nuts now widely available in the U.S. in Miami. Frita vendors were a way of life in Cuba, at least pre-revolution.
What if I took a "hypothetical" trip to Cuba? What might I find? Landing in Havana, I was whisked into Old Havana, the scene of calamitous revolution, seemingly still occurring; a full-on assault of colonial grandeur from all-sides that is broken, graying, and sagging. A city of infinite beauty with Spanish monuments, cathedrals, and meandering coastlines, dotted with Soviet-era structures, unique homes, and Che murals. It's a wonderland of new faces: beautiful, smooth, and ancient, showcasing the stunning intertwinings of Africa, Spain, Asia, and the Americas.
¡Que lastima pinche bueys! The hardcore burger aficionados at A Hamburger Today are used to suffering slights and jeers for our obsession with all things burger, but hamburger discrimination just reached shocking new heights.
During a recent jaunt through the Mexico City International Airport, an immense travel hub where McDonald's surely holds a presence, Big Brother 'Burglar and I spotted this hateful sign lingering near our gate. It caused me much sadness and consternation, and in the case of big bro, furious anger. Knowing the diverse citizens of Mexico City share our general hankering for hamburgers, we place the blame on a hateful flight administration determined to stamp out burger use.
Whether their fascist plan to rob us of our passion and replace our diets with soylent green will work, we are fighting hard to spread the word that the burger war is bubbling with antiburger propaganda such as this. First they come for our buns, then they come for our burgers—finally, they'll come for us.
Vancouver's Moderne Burger Reopens After Fire Yesterday we called for retaliation against Canada in the Bigger-Burger War. Today we're making an effort at detente by highlighting Moderne Burger in Vancouver, British Columbia. Moderne came to our attention in the same way Japan's MOS Burger did: through our Flickr photo strip at left. A photo of '50s-style stools (right) caught our attention while looking at the AHT main page. We clicked through and saw that the photographer, Roland Tanglao, had posted a set of photos from Moderne, excited that his favorite burger joint had reopened on Tuesday after a fire there on February 21.
As we clicked through Mr. Tanglao's photos, his enthusiasm for the place proved catching. Apparently, he's not the only one who's wild for it. Other Moderne fans placed signs somewhere near the joint, pleading for it to reopen:
Customers' notes made the paper:
Even Roland and his wife, who we gather have a baby Tanglao, got in on the signage action, writing a note on a banner outside the restaurant. Looks like the baby's old enough to eat solid food and mom and dad want to make him a moderne (little) man:
But what makes Moderne so good? Mr. Tanglao explains:
All burgers are fresh and hand-made. No mass produced burgers. Just pure honest to goodness beef. The fries are cut when you order And the shakes are beautiful and thick. About their only other concession to the 21st century is the inclusion of veggie, turkey, salmon and chicken burgers. The rest of the menu is pretty much standard diner fare: burgers, shakes, cherry cokes, vanilla cokes, etc....
The food is first rate: the burgers are juicy and good and the shakes refreshing. And the ambiance is just right. Cool vintage style paired with vintage 50s and 40s big band music. If you close your eyes, it's easy to imagine you are back in the 40s and 50s.
Sounds good, and the burger (above) looks crisp-juicy, just the way we like 'em. We'd be eager to hear whether Baby Tanglao ever got that first burger his parents promised him.
MODERNE BURGER Location: 2507 W. Broadway, Vancouver, BC (b/n Trafalgar and Larch) Phone: 604-739-0005 Website:Moderne Burger
A Compacted History of the Bigger Burger War Call her the face that launched a thousand shits. In February, 100-pound college girl Kate Stelnick (right) finished the six-pound burger at Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, and a minor media storm whipped up around her. Catching wind of that, a New Jersey diner upped the ante with a 12.5-pound burger. In a dangerous game of brinkmanship, Denny's came back with a 15-pound burger.
Then a South Carolina grill got into the fracas, offering a 19-pound burger gigantic enough to leave its rivals shocked and awed—and its customers stopped up.
But now the ugly melee is going international, with a Canadian greasy spoon among the latest combatants to go nuclear in the Battle of the Bulging Burger. Ian's Kitchen & Soda Shoppe in Kingston, Ontario, threw its best minds into top gear and they emerged from the bowels of the skunk works with a burger that tips 20 pounds without toppings. (Three and a half pounds of Denny's 15-pounder are from toppings.) From AZCentral.com:
[Restaurant owner Ian] Sarfin's creation — which took more than three hours to cook Thursday morning — weighs almost 21 pounds.
"You're looking at an 18-inch diameter bun (and) there's a pound of cheese, there's a pound of onion, there's a pound of pickels, there's two pounds of tomatoes and five cups of sauce," said Sarfin. "Once you add it all together, you're looking at about 30-35 pounds total weight." ...
Sarfin said his hamburger — the equivalent of just over 100 quarter-pounders — is designed to feed 20 or 25 people.
To carry our mixed metaphors a bit further, it looks like this burger promises to be one helluva bunker buster, at least to those pooper-troopers stationed in the latrine.
A Hamburger Today likes to think we have friendly relations with our neighbors to the north, but we cannot stand for this steal-the-flag gambit on the part of wily Ontarians. Work should begin immediately on a bigger, better, 50-pound U.S.-based sandwich capable of deterring our enemies from such hostile acts of hamburgerism. We humbly propose a name for this next-generation whopper of a weapon: The Colon Pow!
Lucky Pierrot, a Japanese fast food chain, has put a whale burger on the menu at its ten restaurants, all based on Hokkaido, the country's northern island and one with strong ties to whaling.
"We fry minke whale meat and the burger really tastes like beef," [Lucky Pierrot] manager Miku Oh said.
"We have decided to add a whale burger to our menu due to strong demand from our customers and feel very thankful to the whales for allowing us to make the burgers," she told [Agence French-Presse].
Despite a 19-year-old international ban on whaling, the whale meat comes from whales killed under a special "research" clause. And this small chain is not the only one trying to rekindle a taste for whale meat. Some schools in Japan are, too:
Earlier this year, most schools in Wakayama, Japan's western whaling heartland, resumed whale lunches which had gone off the menu amid global anti-whaling campaigns.
Hoping children will take a liking to whale, the schools have served the meat in burgers and marinated it in sweet and sour sauce.
You may have noticed the little strip of photos in the left-hand column over there. Recently, we recognized the logo of MOS Burger in one of them and clicked through to the photo-sharing site Flickr, from which the feed originates.
MOS Burger is a Japanese chain that cooks up some tasty little sandwiches. Their signature burger, from what I remember when I visited the Land of the Rising Sun a couple years ago, has a special mildly spicy tomato-based MOS sauce liberally slathered on (top). It is delicious.
MOS, which stands for Mountain Ocean Sun, serves its burgers in origami-like waxed wrappers that are more akin to bags or envelopes than the square sheets of paper we're used to here in the States. By the time you're finished with the sandwich, enough of the sauce has usually found its way into the closed-end of the wrapper that it can be used as a piquant dipping sauce for the fries—a trick we learned from our friend Justin, who was living in Japan at the time. It's a tip we now pass on to you, if you happen to live there and are reading this blog, or if you plan to visit sometime.
According to an Austalian news service, the British restaurant Zuma is serving a $134 hamburger. I have yet to confirm if this is U.S. or Australian dollars, but it's still a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a ground beef sandwich.
A restaurant spokeswoman said: "Our wagyu beef comes from New Zealand, where the cows are reared on beer and massaged until they weigh three-quarters of a tonne, more than double the weight of an average cow."
Big whoop, I say. One person who won't be happy to hear this is restaurateur Daniel Boulud. In early 2003, we experienced the great burger wars with Boulud's burger finally winning out at $50. Trumping his own $29 burger and the Old Homestead's $41 Kobe beef burger, Boulud's sirloin burger includes regular truffles, braised short ribs, foie gras and fresh black truffles. Today, the burger goes for $59 or $99 for the double truffle version.
Boulud is not one to be bested, so we're bound to see some new concoction relatively soon. Don't be surprised if you can soon order a burger stuffed with caviar and wagyu beef from cattle massaged by Boulud's own hands.
Oh, and if anyone wants to sponsor a trip to London to try the most expensive burger, I would be willing to make the sacrifice and go.
So, apparently some kids in the UK have "burger vans" at their schools in lieu of working kitchens—lucky brats! According to a daily across the pond, not everyone is so happy about this, including one mother who credits celeb chef Jamie Oliver with opening her eyes to the "horrors" of free school meals. "I don't want [my kid] eating burgers and fried food every day at school," says concerned mother Dana Buchanan.
We know Mr. Oliver has been on his "Feed Me Better" crusade for the better part of 2005, however, we sure didn't know that this meant attacking what might just be the finest school cafeteria system we've ever heard of. Just check out the high-quality lunch-tray specimen found on his site (right).
Now it could be said that this reporter has a soft spot for Mr. Oliver, with his lispy botched Brit speak and wacky kitchen antics. So it wouldn’t be in one's favor to suggest anything ill of our chef, yet we couldn’t help but notice the extreme popularity of his Channel 4 show about this topic, Jamie's School Dinners, which is expected to launch stateside eventually. Food Network fodder for sure. We didn't think the Naked Chef could be more exposed.
So no real discredit to Mr. Oliver for tryin' to feed the children. Although, might we suggest healthy teeth and body odor crusades in addition? But seriously, mobile burger vans? Now that's street food at its finest.
Singapore-based food blog Noob Cook 
In Vancouver Magazine's list of 
David Lebovitz may have been let down by 
This burger is a cake.
From yesterday's Wall Street Journal: 
Despite humble origins on the 
Call her the face that launched a thousand shits. In February, 100-pound college girl 
But now the ugly melee is going international, with a Canadian greasy spoon among the latest combatants to 
Big whoop, I say. One person who won't be happy to hear this is restaurateur 
So, apparently 
We know Mr. Oliver has been on his "Feed Me Better" crusade for the better part of 2005, however, we sure didn't know that this meant attacking what might just be the finest school cafeteria system we've ever heard of. Just check out the high-quality lunch-tray specimen found on