Burgers of Budapest

If I closed my eyes before I left for Budapest, and tried imagining all the food I'd be eating here, a burger would not be among them. Goulash. Cheese. Pickled cabbage. Blood sausage. But burgers? Nem.

In these last few months, Budapest has been schooling me in the way of the burger. What I did not realize before I arrived was that Hungarians are a nation of meat lovers. Burgers happen to be a tasty byproduct of that meat love.

An example. My friend Marcin was visiting, after way too much beer, palinka, whiskey and wine, we found a burger place that had opened that day. What luck. We ordered the establishment's signature burger with fries. Even in our inebriated state, we knew we were eating something special.

Earlier in the summer, Teak shared photos he took at the Burger Fest with his SLR. The food shots were more like food porn. Dripping sauce, and gooey cheese atop cow-sized patties of meat, ready to be noshed upon. The Earl of Sandwich could not imagine the possibilities.

I find this ironic in my own monolingual way because the Hungarian word for cheese is sajt, which is pronounced almost like a four-letter word. So, when I order a cheeseburger in my broken Hungarian, it sounds like I’m asking for Shite Burger.

Despite the lingual pitfalls, I've made my burger rounds, there are places that locals and foreigners at the office alike all know and love.

Most of us are gorging our way through the burger stations of the cross, and there is not end in sight, which gives us little to complain about. In fact the sin is not to partake in the burgers of Budapest.

As an old grill cook, I know it's easy to make good burger, and it's easy to mess up and make a bad burger  but it's difficult to make a great burger – there are plenty of great burgers in Budapest.

When Kata and I sampled the burgers at W35, we were both impressed. This small, side-street eatery took a good burger, and made it better, they added their own little Mex-Tex touch, which is also unusual back home.

So the burger tour continues, and I sleep soundly at night knowing there are more delicious Shite Burgers out there, waiting to be eaten.