Burger article in Helsingin Sanomat/NYT

Couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a journalist from Helsingin Sanomat, which is the largest subcription based newspaper in the Nordic region. Helsingin Sanomat offers readers a weekly supplement NYT which is delivered as insert to the newspaper. The NYT supplement is a weekly guide to entertainment and the leading proponent of leisure-time activities in the Helsinki metropolitan area.

They had seen my blog and they had an idea to make a story about burgers. I was asked to join a journalist and dine in different restaurant and taste their burgers. The basic idea was to test four different burgers from gourmet restaurant to street corner booth.

You can find my burger reviews and comments from following links:

- Gourmet hamburger: Kämp Hamburger at Kämp Café
- Diner hamburger: Cheeseburger at Morrison's Grill & Green
- Burger chain hamburger: Club Burger at Carrols
- Grill kiosk hamburger: Giant Hamburger at Harrin Nakki

Backlog updates!

Hello, my burger loving friends! I know my blog has been quiet for a long time but I have enjoyed some incredible and not so incredible burgers during this break. I'm updating all my backlog during next couple of days in random order. All the burger reviews are back-dated to original dates..

I'll update the links of updated posts to this list:

# Cheeseburger at Willowbrook Alehouse Bar & Grill, Petaluma CA
# Cheeseburger at Angry Dog, Dallas TX
# Cheeseburger at Keller's Drive-In, Dallas TX
# Double Burger at Hesburger, Vantaa, Finland
# Mama Rolls at Rolls, Klaukkala, Finland
# Giant Bacon Egg Double Burger at Rolls, Hartola, Finland
# Triple Cheeseburger at Hesburger, Helsinki, Finland
# No. 5 Special at Keller's Drive-In, Dallas TX
# Corporate America Burger #3, Irving TX
# Another Cheeseburger at Adair's Saloon, Dallas TX
# DeLuxe Burger at Memphis, Helsinki, Finland
# Chico's Burger at Chico's, Helsinki, Finland
# Double Cheeseburger at Tuen Grilli, Lappeenranta, Finland
# Cheeseburger vs. Cheeseburger with grilled onion at In-N-Out, Lakewood CA
# Steakburger at The Apple Pan, Los Angeles CA
# Cheeseburger at Angelo's Burgers, Garden Grove CA
# Double Cheeseburger at Irv's Burgers, West Hollywood CA
# Elvis Burger at Rock 'n Roll Diner, Oceano CA
# Super Juicy Cheeseburger at Juicy Burger, Gilroy CA
# Joe's Fresh Ground Beef Steak with Swiss cheese at Joe's Cable Car, San Francisco CA
# Double Texas Burger at Southern Fried Chicken, Helsinki, Finland
# Big Police Burger at Hampuris, Helsinki, Finland
# Heavy-Mega Burger at Hölmölä Burger Grill, Espoo, Finland

I hope you will enjoy these updates. This post will be deleted after all the backlog is updated.

Club Burger at Carrols, Helsinki, Finland

This was my fourth and last burger with a journalist from Helsingin Sanomat. He's making a story about hamburgers and I was interviewed for the article while tasting several burgers.

In the 90's there were three big burger chains in Finland - McDonalds, Carrols and Hesburger. Two of these were original US based burger chains. You know the McDonals but also Carrols originally came to Finland as a franchise from the United States. Carrols Corporation was found in Syracusa NY, and during the 60's Carrols restaurant were found in North East and Southern states of United States. In 1975 all Carrols restaurant locations were converted to Burger King franchises. The original menu of Carrols, and the Carrols brand, then went overseas - to Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and Russia.

First Finnish Carrols restaurant was opened in Helsinki in 1975, and already in 1976 Finnish Carrols restaurants were the last restaurants in the world to carry the Carrols brand and menu. Eventually the Carrols brand was completely bought by the Finnish company Tuko while the original Carrols location in the United States converted to Burger King restaurants. In 1996 Tuko was acquired by the Finnish company, Kesko, until Hesburger acquired their rival Carrols chain in 2002. After that almost all Carrols locations were terminated or transfered to Hesburger restaurants. Only few locations were left alive in Greater Helsinki region. In August 2006 new life was breathed into the Carrols brand when a pilot concept was launched with Pikoil, an operator of Neste branded service stations across Finland. Currently there's only six Carrols location in Greater Helsinki region and one satellite location in Imatra, which is located in South East Finland, near the Russian border.

The flagship sandwhich in the original Carrols menu was the Club Burger. Like the Big Mac at McDonald's, its piled on a sesame seeded triple-decker bun and it has 2 all-beef patties, a special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions. The original Club Burger also had a tomato slice which was left out from the Finnish version. The special sauce in Club Burger is known as Royale sauce. Back in the day I remember Roayl sauce to be a big secret of Carrols but basically it's a simple blend of 45% mayonnaise + 45% ketchup + 10% relish.

While Hesburger almost terminated the whole chain they also changed the menu to fit the Hesburger production chain. This caused the Club Burger taste to change.

So what's the Club Burger like in a Hesburger world? It's still a standard burger chain product, pretty dry and tasteless while the only real taste comes from the sauce. And for this very reason Club Burger doesn't taste the same as it used to. The sauce doesn't taste as strong and delicious after the production was transfered to Hesburger production plant. Suprisingly Hesburger has also cut down the amount of Royal Sauce on Club Burger while they overdo it on their own burgers. Also little things like standard Hesburger ketchup and pickle has changed the original taste.

Recommended for the history and good times but it just doesn't taste same as it used to.

--
Carrols
Aleksanterinkatu 17
00100 Helsinki, Finland
+358-24-808-9369
www.carrols.fi



Larger Map

Cheeseburger at Morrison's Grill & Green, Helsinki, Finland

This was my third burger with a journalist from Helsingin Sanomat. He's making a story about hamburgers and I was interviewed for the article while tasting several burgers.

Morrison's Grill & Green is a small restaurant in downtown Helsinki. Back in the day this place was called Dick Tracy's Diner and they were know to be a quick and cheap lunch restaurant. Only the interior and name has changed, everything else seemed to be as it was. The menu is almost the same as it used to be and they still serve ridiculously large portions of simple food from Wiener schnitzels to chicken fried chicken and hamburgers.

Actually Morrison's claims to serve the most bodacious burgers in Helsinki. With their King Kong Burger this might even be the truth. King Kong Burger has not one but two 190 gram (6.8oz) pattys, bacon, two onion rings, double cheese with lettuce, onions, tomato and red bell pepper mayo. Since I knew I needed to visit another burger joint after this one, I was forced to skip the King Kong this time. Instead I ordered the standard Cheeseburger which, for some weird reason, was listed as Double Cheeseburger since it has two slices of cheese. The burger had 190 gram (6.8oz) patty with shredded lettuce, red onion, tomato and red bell pepper mayo.

It didn't too long for out burger to arrive. The portion was huge, on the side it had big pile of fries and a salad with lettuce, tomato and cucumber. The burger itself was big but pretty thinly stacked. The bun was grilled and it was crispy from the inside and soft from the outside, but the bun was standard supermarket bun. The patty was nicely seasoned and grilled for a freezer patty and it actually had some of the juices left. Unfortunately processed and frozen beef pattys still are dry and tasteless and the structure is pretty compact. It seems that all the frozen pattys come from one source since the size, structure and non-existing taste is the same as in any grill kiosk or restaurant that I have visited so far in Helsinki.

This burger was ok, but they still have the basic problem with frozen beef. They also should get rid of the cheap soft white gummy buns. It's a good effort but not quite good enough. With freshly grounded chuck this could actually come out nicely dispate the lack of proper burger bun and the lack of personality. Recommended with caution if you grave for a big burger in Helsinki.

--
Ravintola Morrison's Grill & Green
Keskuskatu 7
00100 Helsinki, Finland
+358-9-625-466
www.ravintolaopas.net/morrisons


Larger Map

Giant Hamburger at Harrin Nakki, Helsinki, Finland

This was my second burger with a journalist from Helsingin Sanomat. He's making a story about hamburgers and I was interviewed for the article while tasting several burgers.

Harrin nakki (Harri's Hotdog) is a typical Finnish grill kiosk. A little booth standing in the corner of local park in the middle of Helsinki. Back in the days the architecture varied from trailers to wooden booths but the city of Helsinki standardized the outlook of these kiosks a few years back.

This particular kiosk has gained fame with 'The best grill kiosk in 2005' award by City magazine and also last year as 'The best grill kiosk in Helsinki 2006' by Helsingin Sanomat. It is also famous for being the quick snack stop for The president of Finland, Tarja Halonen. Yes, the Conan O'Brien 'look-a-like' who is running her second and final period as the President of Finland. After her last election win, in 2006, she went to Harrin nakki for a little snack on her way from national TV's official election night to her election party.

Typical grill kiosk food is "hamburgers", hotdogs, fries with sausages/meatballs/kebab meat. I use quotation marks with hamburgers since those usually don't have anything to do with proper hamburgers. Usually the slap of beef is some hyper-frozen-preservative-filled-piece-of-meat-like-substant which you don't care or realize after you have had couple of drinks too much.

In this case the expectation was right. Giant burger turned to be a flat burger. Top and bottom of the bun was grilled to a flat crispy disc between two flat irons. The bun ended up being a cracker which man could use as target disc in trap shooting. The slap of meat in this case was frozen beef patty not the meat-like-substant. It wasn't a giant one but a regular sized 120 gram (4.2oz) patty grilled to perfection which in this case means a very thin, tasteless and dry piece of meat. Oh, and the burger also had one slice of American cheese. At Harrin Nakki you can choose your condiments from lettuce, onions, pickle relish, mustard, ketchup and handful of mayos. I had lettuce, onions, relish and standard mayo. I normally would have taken the mustard but Finnish mustard doesn't fit the burgers like the standard yellow mustard used in the US.

The end result was propably the worst effort under a description of hamburger that I've tasted so far. Between two crackers I was served a dry slap of beef and condiments. On the condiment side I didn't order everything on it. Maybe the ketchup, mustard or garlic might have given some taste and soften the crackers but I'm afraid it wouldn't change my opinion. This was the worst burger ever.

They may have gained their awards and reputation among Helsinki grill kiosks with other food offering, definetly not with burgers. I do NOT recommend this burger to anyone.

--
Harrin Nakki
Agricolankatu 11
00530 Helsinki, Finland


Larger Map

Kämp Hamburger at Kämp Café, Helsinki, Finland

This was my first burger with a journalist from Helsingin Sanomat. He's making a story about hamburgers and I was interviewed for the article while tasting several burgers.

The Kämp was opened in 1887 and it was the first luxury hotel in Helsinki. It has seen the good and the worst days of Finland from two wars to independence. The Kämp restaurants were patronised by renowned politicians, artists, composers and writers. For example, composer Jean Sibelius, writer Eino Leino and painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela were regular customers. Original Kämp hotel was closed in 1965. The building was demolished and rebuilt and it didn't work as a hotel until 1999 when it was re-opened as part of the Luxury Collection of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

We visited the Kämp Café which is located on the street floor of the hotel. The decor was nice, modern minimalism with pinch of kitch. The service was good and friendly as you can expect. And yes, this was my second gourmet burger location where you get to use silverware and cotton napkins while having your burger. The reason why we came here is that Kämp Café is said to serve the most expensive burger in town. Here's the description...

"marbled fillet of beef with rucola and horseradish mayonnaise, cheddar cheese and pommes frites"

Kämp is profiled as a gourmet place and this "burger" did not reach the gourmet level. Let's go to details:

- First of all this is NOT a hamburger - this portion should be called a steak sandwich not a hamburger.

- Secondly, the bun should not be standard-supermarket-good-to-eat-for-two-months type of a bun. And the bun was hardly toasted and it crumbled to your hand. With the price of €21.00 you expect to get something else. For example they served really nice focaccia bread while waiting your order to be served which they could use as a bun.

- Thirdly, the combination of tastes were not right. Rucola, tomato and horseradish ok, but what's with the cheddar? Try Gruyère or Manchego, or even strong Emmental (Swiss cheese) - anything else with more taste than standard cheddar. Something which works well with the Rucola and horseradish.

- Fourthly, what's with the portion size. It's gourmet and it's built high to look nice but with a big bun and small piece of fillet you ended up having a 1/3 sandwhich without any meat on it. Ok, you had a good pile of nice crispy (and really salty) fries on the side but for €21.00 you want to have a perfect burger not just bun with horseradish mayo and rucola.

- And finally the 'juices'. If the only moist thing in the serving was mayo there's something wrong. The fillet was correctly cooked to medium but fillet is fillet not 'juicy' burger meat. If they changed the fillet to freshly grounded prime beef it could still be priced as fillet, and the taste could be from another planet with juicy meat.

(As a side note: Kämp is located about two blocks from the market hall which has one or two butcher stores where man could get daily grounded premium organic beef. That could work as a base for gourmet burger. If executed right it would match the expectations of gourmet level. And a free hint for the Chefs who seek a benchmark for gourmet burger - travel to San Francisco and try Zuni Burger.)

With this price I would not recommend this steak sandwich - burger or whatever they want to call it - to anyone. Sadly, the value for the money just isn't there.

--
Hotel Kämp
Pohjoisesplanadi 29
00130 Helsinki, Finland
+358-9-576-111
www.hotelkamp.fi


Larger Map