I know
what you’re thinking – why would you visit Hong Kong and eat burgers? It’s a
city filled with delicious Chinese food and you’re eating burgers?! While I’m
generally a tourist who “eats locally”; after a week, even with all the tasty
Chinese options, I start to crave something different. That’s when I turned to
Openrice (the Yelp and Zomato of Hong Kong) to see what international
restaurants the locals are visiting. One of their top choice seems to be
Burgeroom, which specializes in gourmet burgers.
The
restaurant lies on a small street called Food Avenue, running parallel to
Paterson, which is filled with restaurants – a safe bet if you’re unable to get
a table at the no reservations Burgeroom. As a fast-casual type eatery, you
review the menu tableside then head to the cashier to order and pay, where
they’ll give you a number to place at the table.
If you
love cheese, there’s the mega cheese burger ($105), which tops a beef patty
with 80g of fondue-style melted cheddar. Eat it quickly, as the cheese hardens
fast. Additionally, it can get messy – you’d expect this from the molten
cheese, but also because of poor layering skills: the kitchen places the lettuce
and tomato on the bottom (traditionally placed on top of the patty), causing
everything to slide around. The burger could also benefit from onions (to add a
bit of crunchy texture) and the tomato should have the hard stem cut out.
Toppings aside, at least the beef patty was juicy and the bun fluffy and soft.
The
batter used to deep fry the soft-shell crab burger ($108) sorely needed more
seasoning and was applied too thick, rendering the crab tasteless. Sure, there
was tartar sauce on the bun, but this was way too sweet and tasted more like
Miracle Whip than real tartar sauce. While the lettuce goes well with the
crustacean, I’m not sure if the tomato was the best choice – again something
like onion or pickles would have given the burger more texture. Thankfully, the
soft-shell crab was not overdone, was relatively fresh, and a sizeable portion.
Perhaps
the best part of the meal was the twister fries ($28) – hot from the fryer so
it was immensely crispy. Moreover, the basket was generous and definitely large
enough for sharing. If only the cheddar on the mega burger was still molten it’d
be a great dip for the fries - believe me, I tried.
For a
place that has won a lot of accolades, the awards are likely for the menu’s opulence
and wide range of toppings. After all, where else do you find burgers topped
with a king prawn omelette, Hiroshima oyster, or scallop? There’s even the
option to add foie gras or double foie gras to any burger. The novelty
ingredients are great, but Burgeroom needs to focus on the basics as well –
making sure there’s ingredients that complement the protein and everything’s
layered correctly. Perhaps that’s a lesson: don’t go to Hong Kong to eat
burgers.
How To Find Them
Location: Causeway Bay, Hong Kong,
Address: 50 Paterson Street
Address: 50 Paterson Street
Website: http://www.burgeroom.com/
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Gastro World's Grading System
- Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
- 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
- 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
- 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
- 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
- 10 - absolute perfection!
