Brooklyn Burger Bar

Hamburg, DE
www.brooklynburgerbar.de



The Order:  The Def Jam, medium rare. Beef with Fourme d'Ambert, Arugula, Beefsteak Tomato, and Bacon Marmalade.
Side Order:   Sweet Potato Fries, with Red Ranch Dip. Fried in Canola oil and tossed with sea salt and cayenne.
€10 + €4,50 = €14,50
Drink Order:  Pilsner Urquell
Burger Menu Rating:  9/15




I know what you were thinking. A new burger place in Brooklyn! Well you thought wrong. Sorry to disappoint. But for all you Germans reading this. YOU can be excited about a new burger joint in Hamburg! The new Brooklyn Burger Bar (the 2nd "NY Style" burger restaurant in Hamburg), from owner Steffen Schröder of Streit's Lounge, is doing some interesting things with their burgers, and with a dedication to sourcing locally, and making everything in-house, you can be sure that they care about their product. The buns are made by a local bakery that uses only organic ingredients for the buns, delivered fresh every day. The same goes for all the sauces they use. The beef is supplied from a distributor in the north of Germany. It's grass-fed and the cows are raised (somewhere) in the north of Germany as well.

As far as taste goes, this burger is doing something right, and something a little different, but it's really difficult to put my finger on it. The Fourme d'Ambert, one of the oldest French cheeses - a blue cheese - adds a nice musky flavor, but overall this burger is really salty, and it's salty to a point of distraction! Perhaps it was the bacon marmalade, which was delicious and added a nice texture that was slightly buttery but with big firm chunks in it. My experience with bacon in Germany has been that it's generally very salty, so perhaps the bacon and the amount of salt they used on the patty combined to overwhelm the rest of the flavors of the burger. That all being said, there were some other spices in play here that I couldn't exactly figure out. It was almost a combination of Middle Eastern spices, or some kind of curry powder on there as well. There was a distinct tang to the flavor of the meat that I was able to discern that had me very excited.


The Def Jam laid open.  Unfortunately overcooked to medium, instead of medium rare.

The other thing about this burger was that unfortunately as I ate my way from the center to the outside, it got less and less exciting. The patty was overcooked (-1) to begin with, but then it was also very unevenly cooked. Towards the edges, the patty became completely gray, dry and a bit tough (-1). This burger could have easily scored an 11/15 just by cooking this correctly.  Perhaps they didn't compress the center of the patty, and maybe the grill wasn't hot enough. Either way, the cooking of the patty could use some help here. Overall there's room for improvement on the burger. Being cooked correctly would be the first major order of business, and then balancing out the flavors would follow. If they can pull that off, they'll have one heck of a burger here.

The sweet potato fries and spicy ranch dip are pretty stellar. If you're reading this Steffen, PLEASE DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT THEM! They were addicting and perfect. A tiny bit of smokiness, the right amount of salt and cayenne, and the ranch dip made these things impossible to put down. By the end of the meal, we were all full, but still chowing down on our healthy portions of fries. €4,50 is a bit steep for this side, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't pay for it every time I went there.


The Brooklyn Classic, with Romaine, Beefsteak Tomato, Red Onion, Pickles and Ketchup.

Aside from burgers, which dominate their food menu, Brooklyn Burger Bar also serves two salads, two other meat dishes (the chili sounds the most intriguing), and a boatload of delicious cocktails. We sampled a few that were all spectacular. Given Schröder's bar experience in Hamburg already, this is nothing less than should be expected from his new venture.

If you're planning on going here, plan on being disappointed. Not by their food. When we left were full, and satisfied. No, plan on being disappointed by the inability to get a table at this place. Two of us had to email and call multiple times to try to get a reservation. Here's an insider's tip: make sure you try to make the reservation at least two days in advance.  However, this isn't a guarantee that they'll actually write you back. Don't bother calling, and don't bother sending them an email like their answering machine tells you to. Send them a message through their Facebook account. It took them a full day and a half to write back to me to tell me they didn't have a reservation for me, by which point my friend had a reservation already (who wrote a day after I did).


If this doesn't say 'classy', I don't know what does.

On top of all of that, everybody in town is talking about 'the new burger restaurant on Alter Fischmarkt by the Scientology place' so don't expect to be able to walk in and get a table, or even a seat at the bar, unless MAYBE you get there right at 6pm when they open, and they're in a charitable mood.  They're swamped every single night, with every table booked.  If the masses are any indication, they're doing something right.  Granted the burger scene in Hamburg isn't much to speak about on the whole, but as they get settled get everything figured out, and if they can make some major, but easy, improvements, Brooklyn Burger Bar is sure to be a fixture in Hamburg for years to come.





Cooked Correctly:  3/5
Design/Ingredients:  2.5/4
Plating:  2/3
Value:  1.5/3

Harry's Bar & Burger

Providence, RI
harrysbarburger.com



The Order: Frita Cubano (2 sliders). Classic Cheese, Cuban ketchup and crispy potato sticks.
Side Order: Sweet potato fries with Kryptonite Aioli ($2.59)
$4.79 + $2.59 = $7.38
Drink Order: Stone Cat ESB
Burger Menu Rating: 6.5/10




I might love Providence. Its just a really cool little city with a ton of stuff to do. The two nights I was there, there were tons of people from RISD doing performance art in the parks, there was a giant concert going on, and the bar scene was lively. And my friend Ali was determined to show me that Providence's burger scene has merits.


This is definitely a neat little place. Two floors, interesting layout, and each room has its own decor. The burgers are well priced, and delicious, if a bit greasy, and the staff here are very friendly, and knowledgeable about the menu. They have a great beer list, which is all moderately priced, though some of it is a bit expensive. Also, a fantastic selection of music. Discovery, then Peter Bjorn & John, then Phoenix, then The Whitest Boy Alive. All great stuff.

All of the burgers here are not burgers, but sliders. There are no full sized burgers on their menu (apart from their black bean burger... which might be a full size burger, I didn't ask, and which doesn't count). And they all have interesting combinations of toppings and flavors. All of the sliders are relatively simple, but each one is very different from the next. The Frita Cubano though, stood out because of the Cuban Ketchup. The burger seemed both simple and exciting at the same time, so why not? Right?

The texture added by the potato sticks was interesting to say the least, but they were less crunchy than I expected and more a vehicle for the meat juice than anything else. The Cuban ketchup was on the sour side, and sweeter than regular ketchup, and really stood out as the 'big thing' for these sliders. The sweet-and-sour-ness of the ketchup combined with the meat juice being trapped in the potato sticks actually worked to the advantage of the sliders as each bite really packed a huge burst of flavor. The only problem I had was that you couldn't specify how to cook the meat, but with the size of the patties I can see why they just come out medium. I mean, they're all sliders, so it would be much more difficult to cook to order. Altogether the burger was tasty, but like most sliders, was really greasy, and really salty too, which isn't a detriment, but something to keep in mind if you're watching your cholesterol. That being said, I'd totally go here again, especially during 3p-5p every day for half priced burgers. I'd definitely go to try the others for sure (I had a bite of the Crunch Burgers and they were pretty great).

The sweet potato fries were great here, but their 'Kryptonite Aioli', which was supposed to be spicy (according to a conversation overheard at the next table) was not spicy at all. Perhaps it's just named for the green color of the sauce? It was like a pesto, which was only just fine on the fries. Not a great combination. Much better with plain old ketchup.

Go here for the 3p-5p half priced sliders every day (dine-in only).



Presentation/Plating = 2pts
Design/Ingredients = 2pts
Value = 2.5pts

The Pony Bar

Manhattan, NY
www.theponybar.com



The Order: Sirloin Burger, medium rare. Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, and an onion roll.
Side Order: Comes with Adirondack Bill's pickles and hand-cut chips
$9
Drink Order: Sixpoint Belgian IPA, Sixpoint Cask-condition Bengali Tiger IPA



First off, the beer selection is awesome at this place. The night I went it just so happened to be a brewery night. So! Instead of having 20 or so American microbrews on tap, all of the taps had a different beer from Sixpoint Brewery. And all the beers are always only $5. Amazing. But I digress, this is about the burger.

At first, the burger was a little disappointing, having been talked up a bit, but don't let that stop you from coming here. I found that if I ate around the edges first, saving the middle for last, this burger ended up being well worth it. The juicy center I discovered was fantastic, the amount of flavor you get there is well worth the price of the burger. The onion roll, the taste of the meat and the seasoning all came together in this, the juciest part of the burger.

The pickles are amazingly spiced with horseradish. The next time I went to this bar, I wasn't that hungry and just ordered a basket of pickles to snack on. They are best when they get to the bottom of the barrel, and you can tell because of how much spicier they are, than usual. The chips are plain and simple: lightly salted and don't overwhelm you, making the focus of your meal the burger. As it should be.

It wasn't too long of a wait for my food and apparently the place clears out at around 9:30 or so on the week days but is generally still open until about 4am. The owner is here almost every night and the barstaff are really friendly. And a really diverse crowd hangs out here (I met a brewer from Sixpoint the 2nd night I went here).

Don't forget to ask for a card to begin logging and rating what beers you've had. When you get to 100, you get a shirt. When you get to 420, you get a sweatshirt.