But next to the burger, I was also anxious to see the location. I've heard so much about it, but just haven't had the opportunity to visit. Bar Zuid used to be a Dutch bar with many middle aged customers. Whenever I passed by, it never appealed to me as much. But now it made a total transformation. Its simple chic and outdoor appeal give it a relaxed feel to the environment. Maybe it was the music, maybe the ambiance or simply the great company, it gave me a pretty good first impression!
Ok, back to the burger battle!! It started at 4, so according to my calculation, I wanted to be there at 5. Not too early and not too late. But I quess sometimes, not everything goes according to plan, so I got there at around 6, which by the way seems to be the perfect time! There were 5 participants:
The first one I tried was from PUUR. They used a very thick patty, with fried onions, bacon, cheese, lettuce and cucumber. Not all too creative, but loved the size of the patty on the grilled bun. The taste is a bit too salty for me. And it was expected with the many salty ingredients: cheese and bacon.
The second one I tried was the idea of Alan Tijseling and Christiaan Smith under the name 'Rockin' Republic.
They went into the competition with the Charcoal Grilled Swiss Perfection. This is a burger made with chocolate!! Who doesn't love chocolate? And the grilled toast was also new to me. This burger was more sweet than salty. Instead of the standard greens, he used beansprouts and tajerblad ( my apologies, I really don't know what it's called in English). The beansprouts were a good idea, but not the tajerblad especially not if it's raw. I could still taste the green, uncooked taste of veggie. It taste like when you cook veggies, but didn't give it enough time to cook. But one of my friends loved the sweet of the chocolate in the burger.
And I had to make a final choice. Normally I only eat ONE burger and I'm already stuffed. However I only had to eat half of every burger, but one more half was the limit! So my choice went to Food Therapy. I heard so much great things about food therapy, so my expectations were pretty high.
Their approach to this competition is to substitute the standard ingredients with something else. Patty is standard, the tomato is standard, but they used spinach instead of lettuce, a different kind of bun: the mini ciabatta instead of the sesame bun. My very first bite was not pleasant. The crust was hard instead of crispy and my first bite didn't have any ingredients. And maybe because I was already full, but it did not impress me much. The patty had the right amount of salt and flavor, but the other ingredients were a bit plain.
And unfortunately, I could not taste the other burgers anymore, but here are the pictures made possible by Victuals ( respectively Bar Zuid and Pane & Pasta):
- And the winner of this competition: Umar Nazier of Bar Zuid.
I did not taste it, but heard many great things about it already. The reason I did not choose this one was because I know I can always go back any Friday or Sunday to taste it. Also interested in the winning burger, check it out here:
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