Moove it
Basics
Location
http://www.hamburguesanostra.com/glorietabilbao
Per Person
Half chicken fingers, 1 burger, large beer
€22
In not so many words
Basics
Location
http://www.hamburguesanostra.com/glorietabilbao
Per Person
Half chicken fingers, 1 burger, large beer
€22
In not so many words
Hopes?
Some trusty burgers and a menu that you can understand, without help from teacher.
First Impressions?
It’s a bit…small. So it’s stools, high tables and, inevitably, converted window ledges.
A USP?
Aside from the vaguely witty name, everyone does their own burgers these days, so it’s the array of their own table sauces in a multi-coloured chorus line across the table.
The food in three words?
Salty, filling, underdone-ish.
Can they get the staff?
Rapid service. Reluctant bill-collecting.
Service with a smile?
No chat or banter, but cheerful, yes.
Would you take your friends?
Not if they weren’t omnivorous.
Rating for a dating?
Hmmm. You’re not likely to linger over a chicken finger, I’d have said
Tip?
Only a token one.
If you could change one thing, what would it be?
Even for Spain, it’s a very salty chip off the old block.
Going back?
With so many others around, they need to up their game a bit for that.
In not so few words
Coffee in Brazil has nothing on burgers in Madrid. As thick on the ground as coffee places with three croissants for a euro fifty, they’re everywhere. There’s almost no escape and some might say, sunshine following thunder notwithstanding, one good thing about them is they might get VIPs to pull its finger out. Or give up. Either would do.
Hamburguesa Nostra is not that brilliant. And in a crowded market that’s not good enough, you’d say.
It’s not actually awful. Not back-street, 4am awful. But it’s not matching the range the competition has.
Issue one. If it doesn’t moo when it moves, it’s not getting on the menu. Issue two. Anyone with a diet starting with V – or with someone of said persuasion, forget it. This isn’t Goiko. They’re across the road. And, not so funnily enough, usually fully booked.
Issue three. It’s so crushingly predictable. They do a bunch of starters you could probably name from their initials alone. Chicken fingers were not as good as TGB’s who turn out a nice mustard sauce, not a cold tomato paste. And one of ours was a bit pinker than it should have been. And you hardly need telling a Tijuana burger will turn up with a splodgette of something green that tastes almost exactly nothing like guacamole. One surprise, of sorts. The speciality burger we had lacked any sauce at all. Raw onion, tomato, lettuce and…you’re on your own. Grilling is on the Argentinian side, with 5mm of rare in the middle of our 1cm well done burger.
Sauces aren’t forgotten, mind. In fact, they are a talking point, as half a dozen colour-coded bottles line up proudly across your table. 5 of 6 were perfectly fine, but Lime and Avocado should probably be saved for a brunch ice-cream. That said, the Multi-coloured ketchup line-up proved essential once we discovered the chips.
They’re the salt of the earth, it has to be said. Problem is, it’s the earth around the Dead Sea. The NaCl factor is so high your only option to stave off a blood sugar crisis is to risk going in the other direction with regular squirts of sweetish acidic gloop to soften the impact. It feels suspiciously, to my mind, like a cooking choice as a sales strategy. And, caught in that trap, should we go on with suspicious minds?
There are Alhambra beers. Crayons for kids. And desserts which we were too worn down by the predictability of the first two courses to give the benefit of the doubt to trying.
It’s not bad, then. Not actively unpleasant at all and the service is efficient and pretty reliable. But there’s no reason to try it beyond trying it, and after that no reason to go back.
B.
