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
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