The Bird in Hamburg

Hamburg, Germany
www.thebirdinhamburg.com



The Order:  The Breakfast Burger, medium rare.  Bacon, egg, lettuce, tomato, onion, on an English Muffin.
Side Order:  Comes with fries.
11.50€ (About $15.58)
Drink Order:  Anchor Steam Beer
Burger Menu Rating:  12.5/15




In the fall I spent two months working in Hamburg, Germany.  When I'm not reviewing burgers, I travel for work as a lighting designer and assistant designer for theatrical productions.  I was in Hamburg working on Rocky Das Musical (yes... a musical based on the movie Rocky... actually pretty good), and of course, the first thing I think about, when I find out where I'm going to be working, is hamburgers.  Yes, I was thinking about all of the extremely delicious burgers that I would find all over Hamburg.  They would be spilling out of every door, everywhere I looked there would be amazing meat patties, perfectly formed, oozing deliciousness, and beckoning to me from every which direction.  Sadly this was not to be the case (I also quickly found out that 'Hamburger' in Germany can mean something quite different - a descriptive term, rather than actually a hamburger).

I can't tell you just how frustrating it was to even find a single burger joint!  Sure there was Burger King, and McDonalds (more on this at a later date), and Hesburger (a Finnish burger chain - also more on this later), but I was looking for a great burger.  I was in the City of Burgers was I not?!  Hamburg isn't actually called the City of Burgers as I had led myself to believe.  Now I'm not going to go into the history of hamburgers.  It's a sordid and confusing history with many claims to their creation (for a laugh, check out A Hamburger Today's attempt at tackling the question and read all the comments).  The term was most likely coined here in the US, but the meal's origins point to various places in Asia and Europe.  Let's leave it at that.  So maybe it makes sense that Hamburger doesn't have all that many burger places.  Maybe I was looking for the wrong word?  Whatever the case may be, it took me a while to find a SERIOUS burger, and I found it at The Bird in Hamburg.


Chris perusing the menu.

Hilariously, the owner is from New York.  So it's not even really a hamburger from Hamburg.  Billed as a New York Style restaurant with New York size proportions, at least the burger meat is made fresh daily from German beef.  Walking in and looking at the menu, I could already tell that I would love this place.  When you open the menu, it pleads with the eater to "At least TRY to eat the damn burger with your hands" in response to a general sense of decorum in the European style eating; they use a knife and fork for everything (of course, when I dragged my English friend Chris along, I made him use his hands as well).  In a town where all all the ketchup has a curry flavor, there was regular ketchup on the table: a major plus.


Dear Customers... PLEASE!

All of the burgers looked amazing!  How was I to choose?  I figured that I'd be making a return trip soon anyways, so decided to go for the first one that caught my eye: the Breakfast Burger.  With the order into the kitchen, and our drinks arrived (Anchor Steam!  In Germany! And for 4.50€), I decided to get myself into the kitchen for some pictures.  The owner, Tim, was kind enough to show me around the kitchen as our burgers were being prepared.


The kitchen staff weren't expecting a visitor.


Pre-plating, two with secret crack sauce.


 
Onions, bacon and delicious goodness.


The burgers are done!  Note the English Muffins!


The Breakfast Burger as it arrived.

When the Burger arrived it was glorious-looking.  Served on an English Muffin (I love that), this thing was a hefty burger.  The burger was slightly under-cooked, but apparently there's a different standard for meat temperatures in Germany.  The patty was well balanced, and huge.  It had great fat distribution, a fantastically coarse grind and was well salted, bringing out the meaty flavors to mix with the other ingredients.  The egg was warm with a somewhat runny yolk that was a little burned around the edges, and could have stood to be a little runnier.  The bacon on top was salty, and firm, but not hard.  The other toppings were fresh, though I didn't put the lettuce, tomato or red onion on top.  The English muffin was a bit small for how big this burger was.  If the idea was to create a messy burger, they did a great job.



The fries were good, a perfect size.  They were well salted, and tasty to dip in the ketchup, or the crack sauce (amazingly tasty!), but they got to be a little too greasy as the meal progressed.  The homemade hot sauce was nicely spicy, but a little low on flavor.  It's there, but it doesn't add much more than spice to anything.

All in all a good meal, and a great find in the St. Pauli/Reeperbahn area.  I ended up back there three or four more times.  If you go, I recommend trying the Da Birdhouse, the Big Crack and the Fat Stingy Gonzalez (mmm guacamole and salsa verde done right).  The Dr. Zian is good, but the Stilton Blue Cheese is really strong and doesn't achieve a balanced flavor.




Cooked Correctly (German standard): 5/5
Design: 3/4
Plating: 1.5/3
Value: 3

Black Duck Cafe

Westport, CT
yelp.com

The Order:  Marty's Wisconsin (Stuffed) Cheddar Burger, medium rare.  Sharp cheddar cheese with sauteed onions, lettuce and tomato (all toppings are free)
Side Order:  Comes with fries or onion rings, and slaw.  I got onion rings.
$10
Drink Order:  Beaver Brewnette
Burger Menu Rating:  6.5/15




Tucked away along the water in Westport, Black Duck Cafe is an establishment that's been around for quite some time.  In a boat.  Down by the river.  I know, I'm sure everyone has said that before.  The boat was built some time in the 1840s and was used as an Ice Barge up and down the east coast.  The boat and its crew would travel up to Maine or New Hampshire and load up with ice, then make its way down the coast selling it all off.  Later on, it was stored in various places, and finally, after a stint in New Jersey, in 1961, a Westport/Saugatuck family bought the ship, used their tow trucks (the family business) to haul the barge on shore and convert it into a restaurant.  Black Duck Cafe has been open since April of 1978 and is coming up on their 35th anniversary (between 1961 and 1978 the barge was used for a handful of other bar/restaurants), but Black Duck, while being a restaurant, is more of a pub.  It features a 40-foot long bar over which you can look out onto the river.

Being a pub, they have the usual pub fare.  Chicken wings, fries, burgers, etc. all abound on this menu.  But what stands out are the "The Duck's now famous Stuffed Burgers" of which there are four.  What does this mean?  It means the cheese on each of these burgers is stuffed into the meat when they make form the patties.  Setting off any alarms?  Usually this overworks the meat right?  Well, Black Duck manages to avoid this somehow.


The stuffed burger's cheese oozing out!

The burger comes with a decent medium grind, and nice thick oozy bits of cheese.  It, unfortunately, was cooked a bit over medium rare, but it had a good char and a good meat taste.  While this could be an excellent burger, the overall theme for this meal was blandness.  The tomatoes were Beefsteak which weren't all that sweet, or tomatoey, or anything really.  The same goes for the bun, which was a bit dry, absorbent, but lacking in flavor.  I was able to try the fries and they were a great thick cut, but again, bland.  The onion rings were pretty tasty actually.  They were soft, and easy to bite through, but on the whole they were way too oily.  They were so oily it felt immediately as if I was sweating out oil.  So, you know, very oily.


Oily onions lurking in the background.

Perhaps it was the specific burger I ordered, or just that day, but it just didn't do it for me, especially for $10, which is the "Big" size.  It also comes in "Bigger" for $12, which I don't think would really be worth it.  There is a decent amount of food on your plate, and the ability to customize your burger for free is definitely a plus, but I don't think I'd order this burger again.  I've got a soft spot when it comes to stuffed burgers because my aunt has been making excellent stuffed burgers for years, so I might be inclined to try this place again.  Perhaps the Jodi's Pepperjack Burger, or the Doctor Proctor's Bleu Cheese Burger.




 Cooked Correctly:  3.5/5
Design:  Build Your Own+Beefstake Tomatoes 1/4
Plating:  1/3
Value:  1/3

Bully Ranch

Vail, CO
www.bullyranchrestaurant.com



The Order:  The Definitive, medium rare.  Angus beef topped with candied bacon, blue cheese butter, and crispy onions, on a challah bread bun.
Side Order:  Comes with fries.
$17.50
Drink Order:  Water
Burger Menu Rating:  8.5/15




This past weekend, some friends and I took a trip to Vail to go to the Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival and to go snowboarding/skiing (of course).  The festival was at the Vail Cascade Resort Hotel on two floors with a bunch of delicious beer to try, and they weren't lying about being big beers; most of the beers I tried were above 8% ABV.  Having tried something like twenty-five beers, and feeling a little buzzed, I decided (for both myself and my friends) that it was time for a burger dinner (this also should explain why I had water with dinner).

Vail resort is full of restaurants, from pubs, to upscale dining and everywhere in between.  I, of course, was looking for the best burger, and spent some time looking for the top rated burgers in the area.  There were a few honorable mentions, but the one place that stood out was Steve Topple's Bully Ranch because another reviewer said it had "easily the best line-up of burgers" including burgers with buffalo and elk.  Steve Topple is the Executive Head Chef at all four of the restaurants at the Sonnenalp Resort at Vail (as well as the casual lounge King's Club).

The first thing you notice when you look at Bully Ranch's menu is the huge list of sides available for $3, and that at the top of the list are the Truffle Tots.  Truffle Tots?  Sign me up!  Or wait, no, everybody else at the table noticed that as well, so I'll have the fries.  But seriously, all of these sides are probably pretty delicious (ignoring the Caesar Salad, the House Salad, and the non-descript 'Fruit') and the fact that you can swap any of them out for your fries is amazing.  I asked our server what the recommended burger was and where the hell the elk and buffalo burgers were, and, to our unfortunate surprise, they no longer serve burgers made with anything except for ground beef (the buffalo meat is still listed on the website for some reason, but then again, the prices on their website are wrong as well).  For Shame!  According to our server, the Definitive burger (that's quite the statement there isn't it) is the most popular on the menu.  Ok, easy decision.




The Definitive arrived open faced.

When the burger arrived, I was apprehensive.  A pre-formed patty that appears to have been cut from a hamburger log, in my experience, isn't a good sign, and definitely not a sign of the highest quality ingredients.  Notice, also, that the bacon is merely draped over the top of the burger, and not arranged in a way to have delicious bacon in every bite (this will be important later!).


The Definitive burger, looking pretty after some prep.

I placed all the appropriate ingredients onto the burger (there was a piece of lettuce, a tomato, a slice of red onion and a pickle, as well, that did not make it on there) and took a look.  Now this looked more like it.  And what kind of bread is this?  Challah bread?  Delicious, I hope.

A pretty good medium rare.

Cutting the burger in half reveals a pretty good medium rare, and a slightly less than medium-coarse grind.  The bun is light and airy with a fair amount of compression, great for absorbing juices.  But enough with looking at the burger.  Unfortunately, in the first few bites, this burger already does not stand up to the glowing reviews mentioned on various forums and in previous reviews.  The meat was under-salted and lacking in flavor.  The blue cheese butter only made a brief appearance.  It was tasty, buttery sweet with just a slight bit of that blue cheese tang, but I could only taste it in a bite or two.  Perhaps there wasn't enough of it, or it wasn't spread out over the burger, but it needed to play a bigger part.  Or perhaps because they were adjacent to the crispy onions, which also lacked in flavor, the butter was lost amidst the oiliness of the onions.

The first few bites, however, were the prologue.  Suddenly I bit into the candied bacon, and my eyes lit up like a little schoolboy's when he sees a brand new toy.  How could I have forgotten that this burger had this magical ingredient?  Not only candied, but also spiced with a little bit of cayenne (similar to, but not as good as, the bacon on the burger at Hamilton Tavern) the bacon is definitely the star of this burger.  Without the bacon, this burger is nothing.  It shapes both the taste and the mouthfeel around its magnificence.  I could eat a plate of just this bacon for dinner.  So I recommend, when you order it, get extra bacon.  Or make your own burger, as my friends all did, but keep in mind that the candied bacon is not on the build-your-own list and must be asked for specifically.  Maybe think about candied bacon, and a fried egg on your burger for the ultimate in decadence and deliciousness.

The fries were delicious, and plentiful.  Spiced with Rosemary and Thyme, with a great small-medium cut, they were delicious on their own, or with ketchup.  They weren't overly salty, or else they would have been more of a balance to the burger, but still a solid side.  The Truffle Tots were also delicious (having stolen some from nearby plates).  This was one of the few instances where you could really taste the truffle oil, and there was a hint of spiciness as well.  Overall, they were good, but I think a bit overwhelming in taste.  They might be good to split (nobody finished their sides of Truffle Tots).

Other items on the menu looked good, but the general consensus at the table was that the food was affordable, average fare.  I would try something other than the burger here, or make my own next time.  Unfortunately, the Definitive is not the answer to the question of burgers.




Cooked Correctly:  4.5/5
Plating: 1/3
Design: 1.5/4
Value:  1.5/3

Guapo's Shore Shack

Brewster, MA
www.elguapostaqueria.com



The Order:  Guapo Burger, medium rare.  With jack cheese, guacamole, pico (chopped tomato 'salad'), shredded lettuce, and a drizzle of hot sauce.
Side Order:  At time of order - comes with chips.  Current - Add fries ($1.75)
$7.99 (at time of order) - now $8.95
Drink Order:  Coke
Burger Menu Rating:  8.5/15




El Guapo's Taqueria is a little Mexican restaurant over on Underpass Road in Brewster, Massachusetts.  I happen to be up in that area of Cape Cod once or twice a year for work, and I'm, of course, always looking for a burger to try.  I'd been woefully disappointed on previous occasions, but was recently introduced to El Guapo's, a definite game-changer.

Tucked out of the way, and definitely pushing the Mexican theme, El Guapo's is probably one of the last places you'd expect to find a burger that was worth trying.  They've got a small list of burgers to try, three basic run-of-the-mill burgers, but one stands out because it's the only one they have that goes along with their Mexican theme; the Guapo Burger.


The to-go container from Guapo's

The Guapo Burger comes with guacamole, hot sauce and pico.  So they basically took the toppings from one of their tacos and put it onto a burger.  I'm down.  I'm imagining a chef one day was just a little clumsy when transporting the taco ingredients on his spatula across the kitchen and over the grill ("Why do we keep these toppings all the way over there?!") and whoops, the toppings are all on top of a burger ("I'm a genius!"), and thus the Guapo Burger was born.  In truth, it probably wasn't like that at all, but let me believe what I want to believe.


The Burger is revealed, with a nice lightly toasted bun.

Because I was busy at work, I had to order my burger to go.  I got back to work to scarf down this burger.  The burger came in a nice little biodegradable box, which was a perfect size for their burger.  Not crushed, the guacamole was just beginning to creep out of the confines of the burger.  When I cut the burger in half, I was presently surprised.  The thin patty was cooked surprisingly close to medium rare.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it is very difficult to cook thin patties correctly, and those few establishments that can do it, or even get close, deserve a tip of the hat (go ahead, put on your hat and tip it).  The burger is only slightly spicy, the hot sauce adding a nice little kick to each bite, but not so much that you have to breathe any harder, or drink any more of your drink to cool off.  The bun has a nice texture, and adds a grainy flavor.  On this particular burger, some of the cheese was a bit charred, which was awesome.  The pico was fresh and crisp, adding the usual tomato flavor.  Unfortunately where the burger fell short was the guacamole.  It was a bit plain and bland, a great textural element, but didn't really add a distinctive flavor to the burger that I expected, especially since the burger shares its name with the establishment itself!  This kind of burger isn't anything new, but if they really wanted to impress, they should up the ante with their guacamole and make it amazing.  And wait!  My order was supposed to come with chips!  There.  Were.  No.  Chips.


The burger, cooked almost medium rare.

Guapo's Shore Shack has recently gone through some rebranding with the opening of their new location in Orleans, MA.  Their new website is up, although it's still under construction, and their menu has changed, with slightly higher prices (which affected this rating a bit after the fact).  The next time that I am up in the area, I'll check out the new establishment and see how things are going.


Another view, more flattering, but deceiving!





Cooked correctly:  4.5/5
Plating:  1 (Branded Takeout)
Design: 1.5
Value: 1.5

Masak

Manhattan, NY
masaknyc.com



The Order:  Grilled 8oz Rendang Burger, medium rare.  On a brioche bun.  Add bacon for $2 (yes!), add cheese $1 (nope), add fried egg for $2 at night (YES YES!!).
Side Order: Add fries for $2 (yes!)
$14 + $2 + $2 + $2 = $20
Drink Order: Sixpoint Bengali Tiger IPA
Burger Menu Rating:  13/15




Having not posted a review in quite some time, and having made the same New Year's Resolution as last year, I felt the need to start off strong with an exceptional burger that is extremely difficult to describe.  I visited Masak with my friend Erin almost a half a year ago, and somehow never managed to post this review!  The Rendang Burger at Masak is a Singapore fusion burger that does a fantastic job of blending the spicy flavor of the classic Rendang dish with an American burger.

Rendang is described as a sweet beef curry dish that originated in Indonesia, by the peoples of the Minangkabau culture.  It was originally a ceremonial dish, used to honor guests and mark special occasions, but is now served widely across the country, and is popular in other countries in the region (thanks wikipedia).  Cool.  It's a sweet beef curry dish.  Don't forget, it's also spicy.

Now, Erin suggested going to this restaurant, and after a little research, I was as excited as she was to eat this amazing sounding burger.  We arrived and were seated fairly quickly for dinner, even though the place is pretty small.  In the entire time we were there, however, it wasn't every empty.  This place sees a steady stream of customers.  We only had to look at our menus for our drinks and we could order immediately.  The service, once the burger was ordered, was a little slow, but well worth the wait, and the waitresses were knowledgeable, easy going, informative and fun.

The Rendang sauce comes on the side and is amazing.  Don't be shy, you should lather the burger with this amazing sauce.  It works so well with the flavor of the meat that I honestly can't believe more places haven't borrowed from this style yet.  All the food came out crammed onto a small oval plate with the burger splayed open.  The small plate makes it all look bigger, although it's still a fair amount of food.  They arranged the burger and fries on either side of the sauce and sides, implying they both have equal right to the sauce. Fantastic.


Look at that delicious fried egg...

This burger has a slow burn, and it's a spicy and sweet sauce. It was salty, a little sour with a building spicyness that warmed the mouth and just tasted fantastic. The burger was cooked NEARLY perfectly (-.5 pts), but this burger is more about the flavor of the additions, rather than the meat itself.  They can get away with it not being exactly perfect.  You should definitely GO for the bacon and fried egg (the egg is not on the menu). The egg is runny, and awesomely delicious. The brioche bun is soft, slightly grilled and absorbed both the sauce and the egg perfectly.  The bacon wasn't hard, and was on the thick side, which added a fantastic texture, and a bit of saltiness, to the burger that was definitely welcome.  There is so much going on in this burger that it's hard to focus on any one thing while you're eating it.  I'd recommend taking your time to slow down with this one, and let each bite bring up a new and interesting flavor/flavor combination.


The picture unfortunately makes it look like it was cooked worse than it actually
was.  To be fair, it was a bit dim in the restaurant. 

The fries were delicious on their own with a delicate scallion taste! But they were amazing dipped in the Rendang sauce, and impossible to stop eating.  A good thick, course-cut fry, they were slightly meaty on the inside, and crisp on the outside.

The burger comes with a small cup of awesome house pickles in some kind of peanut sauce with cauliflower.  I have to say that this meal is difficult to describe, not really knowing much about Singapore fare, but I'd go back in a heartbeat.  With all the add-ons, this is an expensive burger.  Now, the burger would be great without the bacon, I'm sure, and probably without the egg too, but would you really pass that all up?  No.  I didn't think so.

Very small local beer selection. A little pricey, and all in bottles or cans.




Cooked correctly: 4.5/5
Plating: 2.5/3
Design: 4/4
Value: 2/3