Best Burgers In Bangkok

[OriginalPoster]

I like the burgers at the Dubliner too but find them pricey.

You've got to be kidding. First time I had a burger at the Dubliner it was worse than terrible. The meat tasted like soggy cardboard. I figured it can't really be that bad can it? Maybe I just hit a bad day or the cook was new or something so I tried another one a few weeks later. Just as bad as the first time. Never again.

Same expierence here. At first I thought that they brought me a Sloppy Joe instead of a burger by mistake. Their burgers do look good though, if your intention is to photograph them instead of eat them then you'll probably be happy.

[sabaijai]

---The guacamole was ok---

They had guacamole? At what price? If you calculate with Sunrise taco prices guacamole is more valuable than gold (69 baht for a plate so small that you need a CERN standard microscope to see it).

Sunrise doesn't serve guacamole as a separate dish. It can be added to a taco for 25 baht, to a burrito for 69 baht. The amount for each seemed about the same, so better deal with the taco. Seemed like a fair serving to me, considering the price of avocados in LOS. By comparison, a side of guacamole in a restaurant in Mexico will cost 35-50 baht (watered-down versions free at taco stands).

On the topic of burgers, tried Mos Burger last night at Central World Plaza, after registering for the film fest. Ordered the Spicy Mos Cheeseburger (69 baht), one of the most impressive burgers I've had anywhere. Fries/chips made from freshcut potatoes, also way above average.

Next time will try the famed Triple O.

[jfchandler]

In looking at Sunrise's current menu, they show the order of tortilla chips and guacamole being priced at 99 baht... not 69..... Wish it was 69....

[sabaijai]

In looking at Sunrise's current menu, they show the order of tortilla chips and guacamole being priced at 99 baht... not 69..... Wish it was 69....

You're right, I had it wrong, was remembering the add-in price for burritos, just edited my post.

[Soi224]

I had the occasion to deal with a client staying at the Courtyard by Marriott off Rajadamri on Soi Mahadlekluang 1. They have a cafe called MoMo. I was waiting with my little lad, so we went in to get him some fries. I decided to have the burger for grins and it was a GREAT decision.

Damned fine burger, damned fine.

Soi224

[dotcom]

Who was the genius that moved this?

[Ulysses G.]

Where did Sabai Jai's excellent post go? It was here last night.

[sabaijai]

Where did Sabai Jai's excellent post go? It was here last night.

There are two Bangkok burger threads, and that post ('excellent' might be an exaggeration ) is here :

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...t&p=2236210

I'll merge the two threads so that you can keep track, UG

[dotcom]

Why not move the thread back to "Western Food in Thailand" where people will be looking for the topic?

[onethailand]

LOL... now I'm really confused...

Actually, I always order a Spicy MOS Burger when I go there as well. But people should be aware that it is nothing like a hamburger in the US.

[dotcom]

Should the name be "JapBurger"?

[jfchandler]

Good french fries there....but their burger, IMHO, strains to be called a burger... What exactly it is... I'm not too sure... As previously reviewed...

[bravingbangkok]

Love the burgers at Mos

[Ulysses G.]

Where did Sabai Jai's excellent post go? It was here last night.

There are two Bangkok burger threads, and that post ('excellent' might be an exaggeration ) is here :

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...t&p=2236210

I'll merge the two threads so that you can keep track, UG

Excellent. as in something new to try in the burger wars.

[jaiyenyen]

I called in at the Mango Bar with Mrs jyy last night and sampled the Chutney Burger.

Tasty beef pattie, sliced cheese, 2xrashers bacon topped off with a tasty chutney. Nice fresh salad on the side with a generous portion of french fries, very tasty and very filling. All washed down with a pint, yes, pint of draught Tiger (89 baht).

For anyone who's interested, Mr jyy had a Ceasar Salad which looked pretty good.

[sabaijai]

Good french fries there....but their burger, IMHO, strains to be called a burger... What exactly it is... I'm not too sure... As previously reviewed...

I think I know what you're trying to say, but to me the burger is quite a flexible dish in the same way pizza is; look at all the varieties of pizza, thick crust, thin crust, fresh tomatoes tomato sauce, pesto sauce, ad infinitum.

Obviously whether you'll like the Mos Burger comes down to personal taste. I liked the one I had I particularly liked the thick sauce and fresh, toasted buns. Quality ground chuck, seasoned with just the right proportion of minced onions (if you insist your burgers be 100% beef with no seasoning or minced onions, you won't like the Mos Burger -- but you owe it one try at least, you might be surprised; I found the texture perfect). I also like the easy-to-handle-yet-ample size, well-assembled.

Mos Burger has lots of other interesting variations on the burger, including more standard burgers without the MOS sauce, and the chili dogs look good as well.

[jfchandler]

Understand what you are saying, Sabaijai... And I enjoy your posts... As you can see from mine, of course I did try the burgers there at MOS Paragon, and even posted a review here earlier in the thread including photos of the items I had that day.

But, the pizza analogy doesn't quite work for me. Indeed, there are many different kinds and styles of pizza, but for me, they all tend to taste in some way like pizza, no matter what kind of crust and such.

IMHO, there's certainly nothing BAD about the MOS burger.

But, as an American, it just doesn't taste like any kind of real beef hamburger that I've ever eaten in my life -- not Burger King, not McDonald's (I only mention those because they are known by non-Americans here), or not any of the many places of all kinds and stripes where one might find hamburgers cooked in the States. So by that standard, and you certainly are free to challenge that standard, MOS's just doesn't cut the mustard.

So, it may be a Japanese style hamburger, or a Japanese-Thai style hamburger, but it's certainly not an American-style hamburger. How's that????

[Ulysses G.]

So, it may be a Japanese style hamburger, or a Japanese-Thai style hamburger, but it's certainly not an American-style hamburger. How's that????

I feel you.

I never recommend a burger on Thai Visa that has any ingredients other than ground beef, bacon, cheese and the normal condiments (At home, bacon would not be on the list either, but beef is so terrible here that bacon is the only thing that can give it a good meat flavor).

I think that it is OK to recommend unusual burgers on these threads, but only if you point out that they are Aussie burgers or whatever. Most of us just want a decent burger like you would make at home on the barby - nothing too fancy until someone gets that right.

Edited September 27, 2008 by Ulysses G.

[jfchandler]

A man after my own heart, UG... Bravo!!!!

Hehehehehe..... I always believe in full disclosure.... So if the burger's got beetroot or any other (IMHO) God-Awful things in it, I want to know....and avoid it!!!

Actually, lately, I've taken to buying frozen Thai-French ground beef patties at the local Villa Markets and cooking them at home with just salt, pepper and a bit of sprinkled seasoning.... And my verdict is, that approach ends up being better than about 90% of the various different kinds of burgers offered at different restaurants around town. I'm not feeling so "burger cranky" now that at least I have a home remedy I can take when in need. I think the TF burger patties are coming in 3-patty-packs for about 60 baht per pack.

There are, of course, a few commercial exceptions, as mentioned in the thread above...

[yosithezet]

So, it may be a Japanese style hamburger, or a Japanese-Thai style hamburger, but it's certainly not an American-style hamburger. How's that????

Whatever you want to call them, this American is in love with the MOSburger Teriyaki Burger. Never had any of the others. I discovered them in Japan and was head over heals to find they had arrived in Thailand. I understand they plan on opening about 70 in the next few years after the success of the 3 Bangkok branches.

[sabaijai]

Well, I think this definition of an American burger is perhaps informed by too many visits to McD's or BK. Plenty of Americans mix beef patties with other ingredients to make their preferred version of home-made burgers.

Not all pizzas come with tomato sauce and not all burgers are 100 percent beef. Woody's in Chiang Mai also makes a seasoned patty. Not up to Mos standards but one of the better burgers Chiang Mai offers.

Top 10 Hamburger recipes

Number one on the list:

This is a basic but great hamburger with the bacon and onion right inside the patty. You can also add cheese to the filling or top it off with a nice slice.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

* 1 1/2 pounds ground round

* 1/2 cup cooked and minced bacon

* 1/2 cup bar-b-que sauce (your favorite flavor)

* 1 small minced onion or 2 tablespoons of dried minced onion

* Any of your favorite toppings for hamburger

Preparation:

Mix ingredients together. Shape into patties and grill over prepared grill until done. Top with steak sauce such as A1 or Heinz or just plain ketchup and mustard will do. Served well with baked beans and steak fries.

To each his own. I say 'Liberate the burger from jingoism!' No reason to get nationalistic or invent racialist designations

It's deliciously ironic to see someone who cleaves to a particular 'authentic' definition of how a burger should be, and can then turn around and put sour cream on Mexican food or tomatoes in their guacamole. In fact even when people put tomatoes in their guac, which I hate, I have to admit it's still a guacamole. And a burger patty with or without other ingredients is still a burger

At any rate, I think once you've tasted a Mos Burger, UG, you'll agree it doesn't stray far enough from burgerland to not be called a hamburger. All the right flavours are there. jf, you should try the basic burger there, the one that doesn't come with the MOS sauce, which is basically tonkatsu sauce, I understand. That's what gives it the somewhat Japanese flavour. But it doesn't really taste all that Japanese to me and when you look at the ingredients to the sauce - worcestershire is a major one - it really seems more Anglo-American than Japanese. Tonkatsu is of course a Japanese rendering of the Anglo-American pork cutlet.

But maybe you're right only if you choose the narrowest definition of 'American burger', which, I think, dishonours the dish a bit. Surely the hamburger is more all-encompassing and adaptable?

Waiting for UG to try one of the many burger varieties at Mos Burger. Not all the patties are the same there, too, so it might do to try more than one. Even if none of the burgers do it for you, you gotta love their fries, the best I've had in Thailand.

[onethailand]

A burger without anything mixed in is definitely the American burger. Every major burger joint I've ever visited - including McDonalds, Burger King, Fuddruckers, Hamburger Hamlet, Fatburger, In 'n' Out, Wendy's, Carl's Jr, Islands, White Castle, Tommy's, etc... all feature 100% pure beef, and some actually advertise this fact. Even the cafeterias at my university would give you an all-beef patty and let you grill it yourself - needless to say many of my meals were that simple.

Having said that, though, a lot of people I know will add in onion soup mix. And of course plenty of variations abound, as well as varying grades of beef and different types of preparation - but we still commonly refer to 100% pure beef as being the definitive American burger.

Do notice in the #1 recipe above that it actually calls the burger basic... with the onion and bacon right inside the patty (because that's not the norm).

Now - MOS burger - is still a burger no matter what - but it is not an American burger... LOL... I happen to like them, as well as their hot dogs (which are unique and closer to a German sausage than any American-made hot dog I have ever seen using any type of meat - beef, chicken, pork, turkey). Their fries are very good if you like that style (personally I prefer shoestring fries). And nearly every time I pass MOS burger I go in to have a bite - something I certainly can't say about McDonalds or Burger King.

Ah - and one more reason why you don't often find 100% pure beef burgers in Thailand - the beef is of a vastly different quality - and as UG said - the bacon helps cover up the taste

Edited September 27, 2008 by onethailand

[DP25]

I love MOS burger. Yeah, maybe it isn't a traditional American burger, but it's still great. I much prefer their burgers to any other fast chain, and even more so than most Western pubs. And the fries are better than anything I've had in Bangkok. I hope they open a hundred stores in Thailand.

[jfchandler]

Sounds like we're developing a consensus here: as I reported in my review earlier in this thread, I thought MOS had great fries.... fresh and tasty, not too salty... OneT, I thought the ones I had were just normal cut, not thick cut, but not shoestring either....

Sab, when I was there at MOS, I had two of their burgers, and the regular one I had didn't come with tonkatsu sauce at all, which would be the brownish, worstershire-type sauce, but rather was a not particularly tasty tomatoey slather of stuff. Put that together with a patty that tasted more like meat loaf to me, and it just didn't float my boat.

But I will confess, speaking personally, I love many varieties of "fusion" food as a native of Los Angeles, where all the different ethnic influences tend to blend together and create some vary interesting eating variations. So if someone wants to take the basic American hamburger and make it GOOD or BETTER thru adaptation, I'm all for that as an option.

Somebody around these parts, as I recall, is doing a blue cheese burger with the blue cheese as a stuffing inside the beef patty. Now that's an adaptation I'd be interested to try. Same with a good guacamole burger, bring it on. But tomato sauce???? Naaaaaahhhhhhhh......

[jaiyenyen]

I've not tried a MOS Burger before, but I don't think it will be too long before that is remedied.

I was walking around Future Park at Rangsit last night, and noticed that MOS Burgers are opening there soon. Can't wait.

[Ulysses G.]

Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy the Terriyaki Burger at Sizzler - I always go for that over the regular burger - and I love the Aussie Burgers at Woody's. It is just for the purposes of our "contest" that I feel including blue cheese and pineapple burgers would get too confusing.

I am guessing that I will like the Teriyaki Burger at MOS and am looking forward to one.

About sour cream on Mexican food and tomatoes in guacamole, when I first visited San Francisco, the only Mexican food I'd had was on the East Coast and the West coast stuff just knocked my socks off.

I worked in an excellent little Mexican restauraunt behind the YMCA on the Embarcadero, near Mission Street, (across from the Embarcadero Post Office) and the owner (who was called "Reno") and staff were mostly Mexican or Mexican American and would bring in unusual ingredients - like Mexican chocolate for Mole sauce - every day. They loved sour cream and guacamole and put them on everything, so to me they are authentic for California Mexican food which is the style I like most. As for tomatoes in guacamole, I don't care one way or the other, bioth taste good to me.

Edited September 28, 2008 by Ulysses G.

[sabaijai]

Sounds like we're developing a consensus here: as I reported in my review earlier in this thread, I thought MOS had great fries.... fresh and tasty, not too salty... OneT, I thought the ones I had were just normal cut, not thick cut, but not shoestring either....

Sab, when I was there at MOS, I had two of their burgers, and the regular one I had didn't come with tonkatsu sauce at all, which would be the brownish, worstershire-type sauce, but rather was a not particularly tasty tomatoey slather of stuff. Put that together with a patty that tasted more like meat loaf to me, and it just didn't float my boat.

But I will confess, speaking personally, I love many varieties of "fusion" food as a native of Los Angeles, where all the different ethnic influences tend to blend together and create some vary interesting eating variations. So if someone wants to take the basic American hamburger and make it GOOD or BETTER thru adaptation, I'm all for that as an option.

Somebody around these parts, as I recall, is doing a blue cheese burger with the blue cheese as a stuffing inside the beef patty. Now that's an adaptation I'd be interested to try. Same with a good guacamole burger, bring it on. But tomato sauce???? Naaaaaahhhhhhhh......

The tonkatsu sauce comes on the Mos burger (see below - reddish brown). On the menu they make a distinction between the 'Mos burgers', which come with the thick sauce, and the regular hamburger and cheeseburger, which don't. I thought the patty in the Mos burger tasted quite beefy, in fact if it hadn't been for the slight crunch of onions I wouldn't have guessed anything was mixed in. It wasn't soft like meat loaf, had the texture of high-fat ground chuck, more or less.

Mos Burger

Cheeseburger (at Mos Burger)

[Groongthep]

[sabaijai]

we still commonly refer to 100% pure beef as being the definitive American burger.

Who's 'we'? Maybe middle America's fast-food addicts, but I don't think all American cooks would necessarily agree. Sure the all-beef patty is most common, as it's obviously the easiest. And in the post-McDonald's era of American hamburger lore, probably the most preferred.

When I was growing up in the States I remember it was quite common to make burgers with mix-ins. Tastes do change though. McDonald's was not the norm when I was a kid. Most places that sold hamburgers back then were independent mom n'pop diners or drive-ins.

One thing that has changed over the decades is that the indies used to come with mayo more often than not. The first time I went to McDonald's, I remember thinking it was strange that they used ketchup and mustard instead. Americans nowadays seem to think that mayo on a burger is somehow odd, but it was once pretty standard. Back then the last thing I imagined was that people would argue about hamburger identity. Now it's ketchup, mustard and an all-beef patty. A trifle dull if you ask me.

Do notice in the #1 recipe above that it actually calls the burger basic... with the onion and bacon right inside the patty (becae that's not the norm).

Or you could interpret that to mean this is a basic - ie, normal - burger recipe. Ultimately it hardly matters what you call the dam_n thing, as long as you enjoy it.

As for limiting the discussion to just what some call 'American burgers', I say hey, yanks, there's no need to fear a little competition from other countries Anyway we're just naming personal faves and trading tips on places to try that some of us might not know about. There will never be a 'winner' in matters of personal taste.

[onethailand]

Who's 'we'? Maybe middle America fast-food customers define it that narrowly, but I don't think most American cooks would necessarily agree. Sure the all-beef patty is most common, as it's obviously the easiest. And in the post-McDonald's era of American hamburger lore, perhaps even the most preferred.

When I was growing up in the States I remember it was quite common to make burgers with mix-ins. Tastes do change though. McDonald's was not the norm when I was a kid. Most places that sold hamburgers back then were independent mom n'pop drive-ins.

One thing that has changed over the decades is that the indies used mayo more often than not. I remember thinking it was strange, the first time I went to McDonald's, that they used ketchup and mustard instead. Americans nowadays seem to think that mayo on a burger is somehow odd, but it was once pretty standard.

We means myself and practically all the Americans I know - call it what you like but it's a fairly representative sample. I'm referring to the beef patty itself - you can have whatever condiments you want on the outside. And as you probably already guessed, it doesn't take a cook/chef or whatever to make a burger.

If you go into a restaurant in the US and ask for a burger, you have a right to expect that the burger is beef, and unless otherwise described in the menu, without anything else mixed in.

Do notice in the #1 recipe above that it actually calls the burger basic... with the onion and bacon right inside the patty (becae that's not the norm).

Or you could interpret that to meean this is a basic - ie, normal - burger recipe. Ultimately I don't care - you can use your terms and I'll use mine

LOL. As far as I can tell, that means "basic burger WITH..." not "this is a basic burger".

In the Netherlands, the basic burger isn't always beef - and usually has paprika mixed in. In Australia, I have no idea, other than beetroot being added as a condiment LOL. But I don't personally know any Americans that consider a basic burger anything other than 100% pure beef (except maybe you now). Everything else is called a variation, or "my version"... or "basic with"...