Burgeramt

Hamburg, DE
burgeramt.com



The Order:
Phil - Chilliiie Cheese Burger, medium rare. With nachos, jalapeños, Gouda, Chillisauce, fresh onions, roasted onions, pickles, tomato and lettuce.
Kristin - Bacon Guacamole Burger, medium rare. With bacon, guacamole (Avocado Creme), fresh grilled peppers, roasted onions, braised onions and lettuce.
Side Order:
We both added fries and salad for €2.20
Phil - €4.90 + €2.20 = €7.10
Kristin - €4.90 + €2.20 = €7.10
Drink Order:
Phil - Berliner Pilsener
Kristin - Astra Alsterwasser
Burger Menu Rating: 8/15
Kristin's Burger Menu Rating: 9/15




Welcome to the new year!  I know I've been absent for a long time and you've all been wondering where I've been.  Don't lie.  I know you've missed me and all the delicious, and not so delicious, burgers that I write about.  I've been spending time working on another blog that I've started, which if you haven't seen yet, you should check it out.  If you don't follow it this year, you'll miss it!  Anyways, for my first post of the new year, the first post of February, I've got something a little different.


Kristin, the budding burger connoisseur.  Taking things very seriously.

I spent over a month in Germany at the end of last year and ate quite a few burgers during my stay.  My lovely girlfriend Kristin has been a great sport when it comes to my obsession with burgers, and they're starting to grow on her to the point that she's becoming very critical of the burgers that we eat together.  It brings tears of joy to my eyes, let me tell you.  So today what you get is a tandem review in the form of a conversation between Kristin and I!



PK: When the burgers first came out they were huge!  Right?  They looked really big!

KT: Yeah, and I can not finish it.

PK: Yeah.  It's a good amount of food, but for a burger that's so big, the patty itself is surprisingly small.  Surprisingly thin.  What did you think with your first bit of the burger?

KT: I missed the flavor! I wanted something really delicious to bite into.  And it has a little bit of a burned flavor.  Maybe it's because of the bacon that it tastes a little bit burned?  But it also has a weird aftertaste.  Do you say this?

PK: Yeah.

KT: Maybe also a little bit too much onion for my taste. So maybe that's the reason that I didn't like it so much.  I was hoping that it would have a little bit more guacamole, since it's called Bacon guacamole.  So they should use less onions, and more..

PK:  More of what the actual name is.

KT: And also maybe serve it with guacamole so that you can dip the burger.


Weird stacking order, and an over cooked burger.

PK:  Sure!  It was the same on mine.  It's called the Chilliiie Cheese Burger but there was almost no chili on it. And usually on a Chili Cheese Burger the cheese is melted, or on any burger the cheese is melted, but here it's separated by a layer of tortilla chips and jalapeños so the cheese is ice cold.  But definitely, the big problem here is that my burger is overcooked.  Is yours?

KT: Yeah.

PK: Yeah. And if the standard here is medium rare—

KT: That's not medium rare.

PK: That's not medium rare. They're doing something a little wrong.

KT: But yours is more..

PK: Pinker than yours. Sure.  But mine is only medium.  But yours is—

KT: Look at mine. It's like a Frikadelle.

PK: Yours is gray.  What'd you say?

KT: A Frikadelle.

PK: Oh, sure! Ha.  But honestly, the best thing about my burger is the jalapeños.  The jalapeños are really good.  They're not so hot.  They're spicy and smokey.  They're really good.  And the tortilla chips are a nice touch, but the stacking order on this burger is a little off.  What about the fries?


The fries. A little boring.  Or as Kristin put it: boring, boring, boring.

KT: If I say boring, boring, boring, then I mean boring, boring, boring.

PK: Yeah. I agree. They're undersalted, maybe, there's not enough—

KT: Yeah.

PK: They're certainly cooked correctly. Right? They're—

KT: They're missing the salt.

PK: It's just the flavor.

KT: Yeah.

PK: Overall though. Kind of disappointing. You certainly do get a lot of food. I'm three quarters of the way through my burgers and I can not finish.  I might.. still, but—

KT:  Ha.

PK: But I would be pushing it. Would you come here again?


The entire place is lined with music and movie posters. And they play movies like Lawrence of Arabia.

KT: The atmosphere is cool. With some people to go out and have a great time, yes. But not if I wanted to eat a burger. Like, if I said "I want to eat a burger tonight," I would not come here.

PK: I agree.

KT: I would go to one of the other places we've been in the last few—

PK: I mean it's more.. Definitely for the atmosphere, and if I want to eat a cheap meal.  A cheap meal that's.. okay.

KT: Yeah, this you have to account for also.

PK: I mean, €4.90 for a burger, that's, what, $6.60 for a burger.  That's a good deal for this size, for this amount of food.  Because the patty is thin, but it's big, it has a big circumference.

KT: That's also maybe Berlin.  In Berlin a lot of stuff is cheaper.  Like, how much have we paid for a burger in Hamburg? Like ten or twelve bucks.

PK: For a good burger. Yeah.

KT: It's, for me, now I'm eating burgers more often, so I can.. Now I'm eating more more burgers so I can see the difference.




Phil's Burger Scores:
Cooked Correctly: 3/5 (extra point taken off because medium rare is "standard.")
Design/Ingredients: 1/4
Plating: 1.5
Value: 2.5 (Here's the kicker to this rating!  The cost is great for the amount of food you get.)

Kristin's Burger Scores:
Cooked Correctly: 2/5
Design/Ingredients: 2/4
Plating: 2/3 (Liked the dishware!)
Value: 3

Hesburger

Hamburg, Germany
www.hesburger.com/food



The Order:  Hesburger (Double Burger), with shredded iceberg, American cheese, 3 buns, 2 patties, pickle, ketchup, and cucumber & paprika mayo.
Side Order:  Does not come with a side
€3.50
Drink Order:  None
Burger Menu Rating:  5.5/15




Hesburger is a Finnish burger chain, known in Finland as Hese, with locations in Finland, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine.  It's had a long history, starting in the 1960's, but really began to grow starting in the 1990's.  It has a larger presence in Finland than McDonald's, and blah blah blah.  None of that is important.  There are four in Germany, three of which are in Hamburg, and two of which are located on the Reeperbahn, the area where I was working.  What you need to know about this place, is that the burger, at the right time, is dirt cheap, tasty, and worth every cent.


This lone man handles ordering and making all the burgers here.

During rush hours, I would avoid Hesburger if I had the time to go somewhere else.  With only one person running the establishment, at least at the location on the east side of the Reeperbahn, the guy makes a ton of burgers, beforehand, in order to handle the lunch and dinner-time rush.  What this means, is while they're still tasty, and inexpensive, they're not fresh, and that's where you really get the value on your burger.  During the rush hours, your burger will have been sitting under a heat lamp for an hour or two before you consume it.  The time to go to Hesburger, therefore, is late at night, after a drink or two, perhaps.


Andy LOVES Hesburger.

A coworker of mine, Andy, LOVES Hesburger, and had been trying to get me to go with him for a few weeks, when finally we had time to go together (Andy had been going virtually every day in the interim).  We walked up to the stand, ordered our Hesburgers, Andy also got a Cheeseburger and waited at the hi-tops.  The sole cook/cashier/order-taker/honcho made our burgers quickly, all the while taking the order of a few drunken German tourists, who were also expounding upon Hesburger's many fine qualities.  The two patties are thrown onto the grill, while each piece of bun is lathered with mayo and topped with condiments, including the cucumber and paprika mayo (by far one of the standouts on this burger).  By the time he's done with that, he slides the patties onto the buns, stacks it all together, and wraps it to perfection.


A shot of the meat, looks like he forgot the toppings on the top half.

The burger is simple.  No frills, just consistency and normal fast food burger taste.  The American cheese makes this burger sweet, but buns are lightly toasted and the shredded iceberg is fresh.  The mayo with cucumber and paprika provides a cool and crisp flavor to contrast with richness of the beef and cheese.  They DID forget to put the toppings on the top half of the burger, which is unfortunate.  With this burger, you don't get to order at a specific temperature, nor do you have any really fancy toppings, nor, apparently, do you really even get something all that consistent.  What you get is a freshly made burger that will certainly satisfy your post work/beer cravings.




Cooked Correctly:  1/5 - Medium Well, can't ask for specific temperature
Design:  1/3 - Cucumber&Paprika Mayo!
Plating:  .5/3
Value:  3/3

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

Hamburger Fail

I managed to execute one of the bigger tourist faux pas the other day. Not speaking a word of German, but thinking I was pretty safe in what I was doing at the time, I ordered a Hamburger Riesen Knacker.  And I was kind of excited to be eating a hamburger, after all the myriad kinds of sausage I'd already consumed in my first week here in Hamburg.  However, upon trying to order this hamburger, I was instead served 3 massive sausages (bratwursts).  Fail.  I'll not be fooled again Hamburg(er)!

My Absence: Explained

You may have noticed that I have not been publishing in recent weeks, and for this I apologize!  I've been super busy with work, and with gearing up for my upcoming trip.  For those of you that don't know, I'm heading away to Germany for TWO WHOLE MONTHS for work, followed by THREE WEEKS OF TRAVEL THROUGH EUROPE!!  I'm super excited, but that has left me little time for blogging.  But don't you worry.  I've got a bunch of reviews all saved up so I can post while I'm away, and I've been talking to a few people about some guest blog posts from around the country.  I hope you all are doing well, and that you haven't lost your taste for burgers.

Burger out!