blat:
En busca de la mejor hamburguesa de Madrid.
Mi top 3:
- Alfredo’s Barbacoa
- Mad Café (la de la foto)
- New York burger
Please. Alfredo’s Barbacoa is great, but there’s a bunch of places better than New York Burger; Knight and Squire for example.
(We’ve already visited Mad Café but writing the review depends on Kristina getting off her ass and getting on it. However, I can anticipate that it’ll be somewhere in the top 3.)
So there I am in the middle of packing, sorting things out, and even throwing things out. You know that point where you just don’t want to see any more boxes and you just wish all your stuff would magically disappear and appear in the next place you will call home for some time? Well, I discovered that the best thing you can do when you are on the verge of burning all those boxes is to grab your friends and go for a nice juicy burger.
So moi, le Hermes and our guest Lindsy decided to go check out this place we’d been spying on for some time. It’s called Ernie’s station and it’s on Calle Arenal closer to Opera than Sol. The style is typical american diner, similar to Tommy Mel’s, just maybe a bit more interesting on the the inside. Plastic chairs, state license plates and other interesting paraphernalia decorate the place. The place was practically empty when we arrived and it didn’t really change during our stay.
Since me and Hermes arrived early, we ordered some hot wings as appetizers and our drinks while we waited. As far as starters go, these are pretty good and they come with the customary delicious cheese dip. Once Lindsy arrived we got on the task of ordering our main dish. The menu is a bit tricky though. You get a choice of five different burger meat types for €6.20 and then a bunch of different extras (cheeses, sauces, side dishes) to add to the the burger. As awesome as this sounds with great power comes great responsibility —Uncle Ben dixit— and not every combination of tastes is a winner (Philadelphia cheese and guacamole? Mmmm!). To make matters more complicated the names of the ingredients aren’t always perfectly representative of what you’re going to get. For example Cabrales is a typical strong blue cheese from Asturias. It’s a mixture of cow, sheep and goat cheeses, and in this case it was translated as goat cheese. So under this wrong impression I ordered one beef burger with fake goat cheese, honey mustard sauce, and a some hash browns; Hermes ordered beef burger with bacon, queso manchego, honey mustard sauce, and french fries; and Lindsy decided to give a go for beef and pork burger with guacamole and queso manchego.
As a quick aside let me tell you one thing about hamburgers. If it’s made of pork, it is not a real hamburger. If it’s made of turkey it’s even less of a hamburger. If it’s made of tuna it’s definitely not a hamburger. And if it’s made of shrimps it’s not even a hamburger in a parallel universe where sea based creatures rule the world. However, for some strange reason, the chef at Earnie’s considers them hamburgers or at least it says so on the menu. My advice is: forget the fancy names and order beef. (We’ll let the 50/50 beef+pork hamburger slide because Lindsy ordered it and if she orders it that’s ok with us, but had she ordered the *gasp* shrimp hamburger lawyers would have been called in and papers would have been signed stating the cease of all kinds of contact and/or relationship between both parties, namely the shrimpburger ordering one and the non-shrimpburger ordering one).
Apart from the fact that the waitress didn’t ask how well we want our meat done, which is a big minus, the fake goat cheese killed my taste buds. The thing about blue cheese is it’s so freaking strong that whatever you combine it with is just going to be burried under the sensory overload. Hard to judge on the quality of meat then. I was told it was ok-ish. These two things were the big negatives, because the bun was soft from the inside and crunchy from the outside, hash browns and french fries perfectly fried, ketchup and other utilities on the table, quick and smiley waiters, and good music which didn’t really match up with the TV screen. So while we were watching curvy Lady Gaga and even curvier Beyonce shake they’re respective derrieres, we were listening to good old jazz.
Price in total per person with a drink and appetizer is €15. In times of crisis I would say, go and find cheaper place with the same quality. But then again, I am unemployed and have a different point of view right now.
The story begins when modern man and modern woman decide it would be a spiffy idea to spice up their blog and do burger dinner instead of a burger lunch. Modern man then, since he is busy and shy (Ed.:mostly busy), proposes modern woman call and make a reservation. Modern woman, since she isn’t as busy, due to taking care of house, herb garden and kids, makes said reservation. Until here all goes well with the fairytale.
The reservation is set for 21:30. We know modern women, they might be super emancipated and whatnot, but when it comes to dinners, they always take a wee bit more than planned.So modern woman was (as usually) running late. And perhaps, in all the stress generated by having to chose the right dress and the shoes and the make up might have forgotten a small unimportant detail: the address of the restaurant. The thing is, she was counting on the modern man — and we are talking about the nerdy modern man, who’s second best friend right after modern woman is the computer (Ed.: may be the other way round) — to look it up. So on top of coming late, she also didn’t know where to go.
Thanks to modern technologies, modern man and modern woman arrived to their restaurant only 15 minutes late but since it’s august and monday, no restaurant is really full.
Thus the beginning of the modern story.
We already visited Fabula some months ago, but since we were both pretty swamped and it was right before the vacation season, we decided to revisit this one and do a fancy dress dinner. Fabula in barrio Salamanca was closed, so I reserved the one in the very posh Club Deportivo Canal Isabel II. It has a fantastic view on the golf venue, candle light, it smells of freshly cut grass and on that particular night it had the two of us out of our usual casual clothes and in our fancy outfits.
We started by ordering red wine and appetizers. Hermann took the gazpacho and I went for the fried brie and goat cheese with salad. Both tasted delicious and mine was so filling I had trouble to finish my burger afterwards. The choice was simple, yet with touch of creativity: four size categories (S, M, L, XL) depending on the weight of meat and then a choice of 5 different Bueyguers — a slightly cheesyportmanteau of the word buey, spanish for ox, and burger — from the classic cheese and bacon to the more avant-garde recipes appropriate of a place like this.
We both went for an L, in my case the Made in Japan with bamboo sprouts, tofu and wasabi and Hermzz picked the éxtasis Dorado (golden extasis) with tomato, caramelized onion, green pepper mustard, bacon, lettuce, fried egg, black truffle oil, and “melted with a blow torch on the spot” goat cheese.
Maybe after eating so many hamburgers and being pretentious about it by starting a blog we became really picky in what we eat, but let me tell you the difference between medium and well done. Well done hamburger is the one that falls apart when you try cutting it, it lacks cohesion because it’s dry. Mine, according to this simple rule, was well done even though I ordered medium. Hermzz ordered rare and his was definitely closer to medium well.
Apart from this there was very little to fuss about the food. The combination of tastes was fantastic (note to myself, wasabi is not to be consumed in the same amounts as mustard!), the size huge and all the ambiance very inviting. The waiters did a professional job to be there when needed and refill our wine glasses when empty.
All this for two people, including two glasses of wine and appetizers was €30 per person. Modern man and modern woman then took off with full bellies to their respective homes. Modern woman winning an unimportant yet significant bet. Again. (Ed.: who writes meeting times half in spelt outnumbers and half in written numbers, ie: let’s meet at nine 25? Modern man is a busy man and has no time to carefully read all emails he gets)
Dear hamburger addicts, gourmets or just simply people who adore us so much, they will read mostly anything we write…
As you might have noticed, we have been pretty quiet lately. Reason being our (mine and Hermann’s) long lasting divorce process and following process for the custody of our only child, as angel as he is, Calvin.
This of course isn’t true. It might be in some close or far future, but no. No worries.
Hermann is torturing his bony body at the Worlds Club Championship in Prague and then he will be off for the “Attila is combating Europe” tour. He might get eaten by wolves on the way.
Me on the other hand have been laid off (thank you person who decided about this in this beautiful time of year, hence leaving me with at least two months of vacation) and am hitching a plane to London, then to Florence and then to Slovakia and only Vishnu knows when I will be back.
So until then get on some vegetarian diet and cross your fingers non of us gets lost in the wilderness.
Cheers
Apart from wannabe poshy appearance, this restaurant has a rather down-the line look. Easily overlooked glass front with grey and brown awning. The interior of the restaurant looks much better than the rest of typically Spanish eateries. A long bar decorates the entrance, there are some small coffee tables for waiting customers but the real restaurant is divided into two floors (smoking/non-smoking) at the end, overlooking calle de la Reina. Hermzz is not a big fan of wooden benches without proper back support, I on the other hand think that this rural look is practical and besides people don’t tend to occupy the place unnecessarily long. They do what they came for (Ed. Disagree, this place is full of people who get their back support from the brooms stuck up their asses).
First impression: “Ohmigod this is going to be a bit over our normal Wednesday lunch budget! “
Second impression: “Hold on, we ain’t a bunch of hobos, greet us properly, with a big smile, if you want to get your tip you semi-evolved simian!”
So first negative point is for waiters who aren’t very friendly unless it looks like you are going to pass golden nuggets every time you smile. The menu itself has only one type of hamburger and once we ordered the waiter (impressive similarity to Mike Tyson before his face got squished) didn’t even bother to ask how we want the meat done. Not off to a good start. The food did get to our table pretty quickly, plus points for that.
Let’s proceed to the plate:
We finished our dish in approximately 15 minute time, the remaining 45 minutes we spent waiting for the bill and after receiving for the bill, waiting for the cashier to do the rest. In his defense, we were too slow in the decision to not to wait longer for someone to be interested in our money and going down to the cashier, so there were a bunch of greasy Spanish people, who as lovely as they seemed (Ed. not really), were also a bit dumb. First they came with no bill and wanted to pay, when they finally got the cashier to print it out for them (after they figured what table they were, by telling him what dishes they ate – that’s the way how intelligent people do it, right?) they started their quest for who ate what. It took them 20 minutes and after finally paying the last cent, they still had the balls and energy to accuse the poor confused boy that he wanted to steal their money. We, smart and efficient central europeans, paid within 20 seconds.
All in all the food was good and it fed us sufficiently, but with the number of places you can choose, that are even cheaper, have bigger selection of burgers, waiters actually care about you and don’t pretend to be el Botin of the underworld, I wouldn’t suggest it. Not even to my biggest enemy. Well that is a big fat lie; I would surely suggest it to my biggest enemy.
Mercado de la Reina - second visit
We were clever and called in for a reservation this time. It makes quite an impression if you enter a restaurant and just say: “Reservation for two, name is Kristina.” We got the impressed looks and we got the good table at the window. No benches, real chairs, just the two of us. The restaurant was incomparably emptier this time, maybe due to good weather or some other inexplicable cause. Mike Tyson didn’t have his shift, so we got stuck with Mr. Smiley. I gave him this nickname because whenever he got close to our table he spread a giant smile on his childish face. In case someone didn’t get it, that was meant in a very positive way. What still didn’t change is the hamburger selection. Still rounded to one. At least you have no doubts.
The service was fast as before and also the hamburger didn’t show any signnificant flavor changes. It was still in the middle delicious, but I would still recommend a change of buns. On the other hand, we were being treated like kings this time and ordered desert as a reward. Comparison? Definitely better service than last time and shorter waiting time for everything. Plus the street view table was a nice gesture for a returning customer. I would give it thumbs up for people with thicker wallet and taste for the finer things in life (ie: posh shit).
Out of all the places we’ve visited Don Oso is the least restaurant-ish of all, but it’s also the place truest to the idea of hamburgers for lunch. Hamburgers are the quintessential fast-food; Quick to prepare and quick to consume, there is no need to dither with pointless formalities. Don Oso is one single room approximately 6m wide by 4m long with a bar, a few standing bars on the walls, and nowhere to sit. In a little hole in the wall the size of my bathroom (and I have a very small bathroom) stands the cook preparing the hamburgers in view of everyone. What makes this place so peachy is the price of the meal and the distinct ambiance, Don Oso is mostly filled with students from the nearby university campuses, a few working class folk and the occasional suit.
The prices are as small as the possible selection, big hamburger is €3.45, fries are €1.10, small hamburger is €2.10 and the hot dog is €1.10. The extras you can ask for are limited to bacon, cheese and mushroom. All hamburgers come with the usual tomato, lettuce and onion; if you want fried onion you have to ask for it, which I didn’t, hence I had to bear the consequences of an after-lunch heart burn. Service is lighting fast, you can literally watch your burger being placed on the grill together with the buns and the decoration process takes less than 5 minutes.
As usually, I won the who-orders-first competition got to pick the mushroom hamburger which left Hermzz with bacon burger. The burgers aren’t spectacular but it really is a rather filling meal. And I have to tell you, those guys certainly know how to grill a burger. It was crunchy on the outside and juicy meat on the inside. Apart from the meat, everything else was medium rated. Maybe less mustard, that stuff is a killer if you overdo it! Subtlety isn’t one of their stronger points, if you ask for ketchup you get it served straight out of a 5 litre bottle.
So my recommendation is, if you are in the neighbourhood and want a quick cheap bite, Don Oso is definitely the place to go.
Impatient Kika couldn’t help herself.
Not sure why the place is called “Donoso” if the sign clearly says “Don Oso”
It’s 15:54 and about half an hour ago I had an orgasm. A midday culinary orgasmic experience if you will. Pure pleasure.
Bestenburger is a little riddle, if grammatically incorrect. If we take Germany, or more specifically Hamburg, as the origin of hamburgers (in German called frikadellen), then the name should be Besterburger or even Bestenburgers. Still, interesting choice of name. This place is unlike our previous restaurant discoveries in every sense. To begin, no one knows about it. It was spotted by accident by one of my colleagues — my boss, who asks for credit — and now thanks to our blog has actually decided it’s worth visiting. It’s located in a small street in the heart of barrio de las letras, close to calle Huertas. This zone is being rebuilt so it is even harder to get there. Of course in all the excitement I not only forgot to call and make a reservation but I also forgot the map. So we ended wandering around a bit until we finally found the place. It was already 2:30 by the time we got there and we figured we’d have to wait a long time to get a table. Picture our surprise when we saw that the place was empty.
A smiley waiter was expecting us inside and as soon as he heard our conversation being lead in English he switched without obvious difficulties; he even offered a menu in English! A curious thing about this place is that the interior is that of a bar. You can even get caipirinhas and other cocktails here. Given the neighbourhood and size of the place where we were we expected something a bit more hippie. But no, it’s like the reverse mirror image of Alfredo’s Barbacoa, which is a cheap styled restaurant in a big-ass poshy neighborhood. Well this looks like a big-ass poshy place in a slightly cheap neighborhood. Apart from the regular daily menu there is the section solely dedicated to hamburger with about 10 different choices. Hermzz reached back to his roots and ordered La Pampeana with provolone cheese and chimichurri sauce and of course, lettuce and tomatoes. I grew a pair this time and went for La Danesa. Yes, Danish selection crowned by wild berry sauce, mustard and… blue cheese. Since the summer is slowly making its way through the streets of Madrid, we decided the time is ripe for a small beer. Calories or no calories, we love our bodies just the way they are. Small detail though, potatoes or any other side are not part of the dish, you have to order them apart. We got such a good vibe from the place that we ordered a half fries, half onion rings dish.
The selection proved to be the jackpot. I will try to describe the indescribable and see if I can transmit this galactic eruption of tastes and feelings.
I can’t really find word for this experience. I’ll only say I didn’t want to brush my teeth afterwards so the taste of the hamburger could linger that much longer in my mouth.
We hit the chosen one ladies and gents, we have found the place.
Hallelujah.
Modern Art makes me hungry for quality food.
La Danesa
Even the onion rings were incredible.
La Pampeana
Now we are finally back from vacation land, followed by vacation blues and back to the cruel reality of life that cuts your veins and takes your breath away (hint: not the good kind). Yes, I am referring to work. Since the weather, which had started to be nice after a month of straight raining, had gone to shit, we needed something grand to boost our spirit. Knight and Squire, aka: La casa de la hamburguesa, is located in the business centre of Madrid, near Plaza de Castilla. Well hidden between other shiny gourmet places, we almost missed it. The interior was slightly shabby, which seems to be an infallible sign of quality. Upper floor was full, so we moved our skinny butts to the basement. Downstars the walls are covered in old movie posters. And by old I don’t mean back to the future era. I mean old, old posters of actors even my parents are too young to remember. Movies like The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Man Who Fell to Earth. Yep, we spent a good 15 minutes just staring around in pure amazement.
The spiffiness off this place lies in the fact that they aren’t afraid to experiment and divert from the classics. Of course they have the typical hamburgers that the majority of people order, but the other part of burger menu was dedicated to the brave ones who would go for egg salad in middle of a salmonella outbreak; people like us.
Hermzz almost gave me a heart attack when he ordered sparkling mineral water, stating that he’d taken my comment about his beer belly seriously (psssst, he listens to me after all!!!!).
So then we showed our adventurous spirit. Hermzz bet on the “hamburguesa india” and I, since I was slower, had to settle for the “alemana”. The prices are epic; €4.60 per burger with a side of potatoes. I should be more specific here, the potatoes are Subway style potato chips and not french fries. So if you would like to get actual french fries you gotta order them apart. The food was delivered within the next ten minutes which was impressive considering the thickening clientèle. The tubby waiter had to improvise some really smooth moves to be able to dance between the tables.
The good thing about experimenting with different fancy shit on hamburgers is the moment of surprise. It can be the good kind or the bad kind. This time for us it was the good kind. The Indian burger had curry powder, raisins, the customary tomato and fresh onion, and a bit of sour orange marmalade. It was an open bun, what just basically means meat and some stuff was on one bun and then rest of it was on the other one. The proper way how to eat it is to either put the bottom on the top or the top on the bottom, but what you don’t do is first eat the bun with meat and then realize that you’re left with a bun and no meat. As you can see, even a normally smart dude like Hermzz can be dazed and confused when his hamburger isn’t served in the usual style. The German burger had some sauerkraut, lettuce, tomato and unforgettable fresh onion that I decently left at the side of the plate. Both combinations were rather hazardous, but boy were they worth it. The meat wasn’t particulary great, but the combination of tastes made it a pretty good meal.
The problem about the potato chips is that they don’t really fill you, so we had to order a desert. Not that we ever needed an excuse to do so. Cake isn’t really a spanish specialty, there are really just few places that can do a proper chocolate cake or even apple pie, so it wasn’t a big surprise for us that the desert wasn’t up to the standard of the hamburgers. Still, both the chocolate cake and the dulce de leche cake served their purpose and we left the restaurant well fed and satisfied.
Although our long and merited Easter vacation in faraway land was nice, the lack of hamburgers - we subsisted exclusively on simple local food - made us hungry for one of our favourite culinary items.
Hermz had been to El Bistro once “sans moi” (I am trying to not to take it personally of course) and suggested it might be a good spot, so we decided to gave it a try.
It’s a typical tiny Spanish bistro, the type you can find in any street of Madrid or any other Spanish city, with the exception that this one has hamburgers. In fact, it has four, which is three more than I was expecting. The atmosphere is also that of a typical relaxed Spanish bar. You come in, take a seat (no standing around until they show you to a table), take the plastic menu and then for the waiter/bartender/bouncer all-in-one guy to grace you with his presence. This one was a forty something year-old dude chewing gum who gave me a wink while I was taking pictures of the bar and took our order within 12 seconds. The speed is what one would expect - the place was almost completely empty - although a few other places could learn from this. I had a feeling that I’d gained some weight, so I gave up on the bubbly ugly (coke) and ordered sparkling mineral water; Hermzz went with his typical coke, even though he is reaching the age where he should watch his belly (Ed: Belly? Surely you meant fantastic six pack). It all came in bottles with glasses filled with ice and a slice of lemon, like it’s meant to be. Everything at this stage hinted at a great meal, all the good checkboxes had been checked.
This time we swerved from our usual ways and ordered an aperitif in the form of pimientos de padrón. Vegetables, even fried, are always a good starter. The pimientos were passable, I’ve had better, but since we’re focusing on hamburgers let’s not get distracted. There is nothing better than having it easy while selecting your hamburger. Since this is a bar and hamburgers are not exactly the specialty, there were just 4 simple types, no fancy shit this time. I went for hamburguesa completa with cheese, bacon, tomatoes and lettuce and Hermz for americana, that had the same ingredients plus an egg.
We were waiting quite a bit for a bar that is not exactly overcrowded, Hermzz’s idea of ordering a starter proved to be a good one. The hamburguers weren’t the eighth wonder of the world. The buns were a bit dry and mine even cold. The meat was slightly too well done for being able to describe it as juicy and the cheese must have melted before I was concieved. The only exceptionally good thing were the fries, if the weird shapes and odd cuts are anything to go by they must have been home made. Dripping with grease, but hey, if you like it light, go to Subway!
It might be I am getting soft because spring is coming and I get woken up by those stupid birds every morning at ridiculous a.m., but I didn’t leave the place in rage. Nor was I in the mood to burn the place down. It was a decent hamburger at a decent price (€6.50 each) and the service was good. If you are shopping in Fuencarral and you feel like a bite bigger that tapas, I’d still go there.
Pretty standard spanish bar decoration.
You can also get this fantastic t-shirt if you become a member of the defenders of all that is good and sacred on the internet: the EFF and donate $65+.
Yes, she did get a haircut shortly after. No need to worry.
Anonymous asked: OMG how did you come up with such a cool idea?? :)
P.
Thanks to our brilliant and gigantic brains while eating at a veggie restaurant. Given our love for greasy food the result seems obvious.
