Brando’s Classic Brando Burger is a decent hamburger. It is a burger promising loads of hamburger potential, but delivering a portion of the burger pledge. In a city where the local burger scene has diminished from its 2014 – 16 pinnacle it is great to see new local burger joints popping up, and this burger has hyped itself onto a good start. It isn’t bad, but with what they already have, it could be so much better. It could be the burger experience to satiate the need for more and better hamburger joints in Hong Kong.
This burger began on a lull with its unrequested ‘cut-in-half’ presentation and tepid serving temperature. For some a minor nuisance, but a grave inconvenience for other burger aficionados. A lukewarm burger served as two halves doesn’t offer the same burger taste or feel as holding a complete hamburger. It offers a mediocre start, with all hype gone in a single bite.
One could add that perhaps this was due to a mix up in orders… perhaps one could give it the benefit of the doubt… but it was a certain stumble.
The hamburger potential is pretty clear from the well off set of flavorful ingredients. But when the potency of some is more pronounced than others, we are left with an unbalanced burger taste balance. The patty is a pleasant savory endeavor on its own – aptly seasoned to a clean beef taste that crumbles with each bite, it accentuates proper preparation. Likewise, the bun – which I can only imagine feels better as wholes, is soft, subtle, and absorptive. But richest of all, with its uncompromising tangy charred-ness that overpowered all the other burger components, was the relish. All else… the cheese, caramelized onions, veggies, and the beef all became subjects to what felt like an un-relishing condiment.
Then there’s the marginally cumbersome burger construction. In a continued theme of untapped burger potential and made visible by its ‘half-way-cut’, the patty’s circumference, thickness and girth feels slightly short to the ratio of the bun. Resulting in a few of the dreaded ‘mostly bun, no patty’ last bites. While not terrible, it is not the complete burger taste balance taste one would like to have as a last bite.
For HKD 230.00 (plus 10%) the Classic Brando is just a decent burger. Should one try it? Hard to say… maybe once, out of simple burgeriosity. The rosemary fries were a bit too salty and the portobello mushroom felt and tasted microwaved. The thing is that the Classic Brando is not a bad burger; but it needs to strive to be better, to deliver a prodigious hamburger experience. The potential to be one of the greats is there! So maybe try it when it becomes that.
Brando’s Burger Joint
DM them on Instagram for the next location @brandosburger
Honbo’s cheese burger is an exquisite hamburger. Its simplicity is what makes this burger special… no frills, no phooey, no nothing but a simply good hamburger with a patty and bun to please. The honbo (which, by the way means burger in Cantonese) showed up late to the hamburger scene and set up shop in Wan Chai, amongst the reigning big boys of Hong Kong’s burger spot. It wasn’t until a second try of the hamburger, several months after its initial opening, that Honbo decided to make a stand for itself – thoroughly delivering on the hamburger promise every burger joint pledges.
Burgers Hong Kong 