Heavy-Mega Burger at Hölmölä Burger Grill, Espoo, Finland

Couple of days ago my friend pointed me a little grill kiosk which was supposed to serve excellent burgers. We needed to pick up a piece of countertop from Ikea and this little burger grill was located only one minute drive from Ikea. So after we got our countertop we stopped for burger at Hölmölä Burger Grill. The place looked like a typical Finnish grill kiosk. It also seemed to be a trucker paradise since it's located near a highway crossing and four trucks were parked by the road. In a way that should be good sign.

I parked my car and walked around the corner and joined to a small line of people formed in front of the counter. I soon realized that everything comes out from the freezer so I already knew what I'll be getting. On the menu they have single and double burgers with three patty sizes - 75 grams (2.6oz), 120 grams (4.2oz) and 188 grams (6.6oz) - and in different variations they add cheese (only cheddar), bacon, egg, pineapple slice, bbq sauce. They also serve other Finnish grill kiosk foods like fries with sausages/meatballs/kebab meat/chicken nuggets, hot dogs, Finnish meatpies filled with sausages/eggs/cheese.

I ordered a Heavy-Mega Burger which stands for a Double Cheeseburger with two 120 gram (4.2oz) pattys and two slices of cheese. You can order your burger with lettuce, pickles, onion, ketchup, mustard and your choice of sauce from American sauce (tomato based mayo with pickles and seasoning) or garlic sauce (basic garlic mayo). I took mine with everything on it, except mustard and ketchup, and it became to be a messy mistake. Since all the indoor dining seats were occupied I asked them to wrap my burger to go. So,I got my burger wrapped in tinfoil and took a handfull of napkins and headed to my car. I took my picture and was a bit worried about all the sauces. I took a careful bite and was really lucky to keep all the sauces off from my car seat. After that I decide to step out and finish my burger outside.

If the burger was messy it didn't do a good job as a burger. The freezer pattys had lost their tasty juices during the grilling. The burger was filled with both sauces but no sauce can fix the problem with pattys. I like to have taste from burger and sauces should work as a seasoning, not as main event. The bun was standard grill kiosk buns with seasame seeds and they grilled the buns heavily from the outside which is a mistake. They also piled burger in a weird way. If look the picture you can see that all the cold stuff is between the two pattys which are topped with cheddar slices and bun. This way the bun doesn't get any of the sauces and when it's grilled this heavily it is really dry. Also when you have all the condiments between two pattys it gets messy since nothing gets soaked in and you end up having the stuff on your lap.

In a way I'm starting to lose my hope with Finnish burgers. This was supposed to be a good joint not just another kiosk selling freezer pattys. The burger was big, nothing wrong with that but the taste is only based on their sauces which are just standard grill kiosk sauces. Not the worst burger I've tasted but far away from my top list. Recommended if you grave a huge burgers and do not care about the juicyness. Unfortunately I can't recommend this place for real burger heads.

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Hölmölä Burger Grill
Bemböle, Espoo
+358-9-863-1678
Website


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