Review at a glance: ★★★★☆
Old burger joints never die, they just fade into the next one. Hanbaagaasuuteeki — we’ll get to the name in a moment — sits on the site of a former Neat Burger, which you might remember for its flavourless patties and sententious promises of saving the world. Meat might be murder, but veganism will bore you to death.
This characterless strip beside Victoria is busy with burgers. Bleecker and Shake Shack are across the road and Bbar nearby offers patties from “Victoria’s best cocktail bar” (not a crown hard to claim). It’s easy, then, to admire the chutzpah of Hanbaagaasuuteeki’s team, who must have toured the neighbourhood, spotted all the big boys and decided to chuck two fingers up at the lot of them.
And, to that end, at the rest of their competitors — now numbering somewhere in the early trillions. Since the viral fame of Supernova, there has been an oily tide of barely distinguishable smashburger specialists. I do not need to hear someone witter on about the Maillard reaction ever again. We all have Google.
News of Hanbaagaasuuteeki was not, then, met with a smile but a sigh. Again? In the end, all that will be left of London is smashburger joints and NYC pizza parlours, and the punk in the Groucho who wears nappies and hates paying for his round. But Hanbaagaasuuteeki is not entirely the same. In a blue, red and grey tinged room that looks like it was designed on a Game Boy Advance — the walls appear to have been painted in 16-bit — the conceit is that, rather than trying to mimic grills in Indiana or Oklahoma, the burgers come “Asian-inspired”. It’s a vague directive, but in practice means mostly Korean, Thai and Chinese flavours.
This is negotiable; those not in the mood can have the deadpan opener: “Another Double Cheese Burger”. Described as “1950s-style, boldly simple”, best read in a withering drawl. What will turn up are two beef patties as thin as slices of supermarket ham, American cheese and a potato bun that is wimpish under pressure. It’s £9, on the favourable side of the going rate. Fries — unrelentingly crisp — are £3.
Very good, apparently, but rather like hoping for karaoke in an opera house. Once past the plate of Americana there’s a Korean choice, the kimchi burger, and an Isan burger, a Thai number built with bird’s eye chillies.
Both come with or without buns, the latter not for the Ozempic crowd but carnivores, with a third patty instead of bread. It is worth venturing to the £14 burgers. Pricey? Perhaps, but if you’re not taking away, they run table service, without service charge. The Szechuan chicken baga is a monster posing as an innocent: what appears demure soon is revealed to be a huge breast, beautifully cooked and oozing juices. Its skin, where the Szechuan pepper is, is as crisp as sarcasm. No attempt is made to dampen its heat: the pepper smoulders, with only gherkins to cool things down. I must have had burgers this good before. Mustn’t I?
They have stuck up two fingers at the big boys
The Szechuan pepper did its numbing trick, so the gochujang spice in the shrimp kong baga didn’t at first do much for me, though later I realised its heat: I sat on the bus home with such scorching breath it felt like a passable impression of a dragon. But there are other flavours too: those shrimps, three of them, were dressed in a slightly sweetened, slightly spiced riff on a Marie Rose, with a little nori as well.
Best was the patty under it, crushed so utterly that thoughts of unrequited teenage love began to surface. The caramelisation was complete: I could eat beef like this endlessly. Instead, we settled for honey-sweetened and gochu-spiced mozzarella sticks, alternating between these and chips, sweet with calamansi citrus.
The name, then: apparently the Japanese pronunciation of “hamburger steak”. I didn’t attempt it more than once out loud, conscious of feeling like a bad 1970s sitcom. It’s cartoonish; the owners are not from Asia. Handbag for short? Not better, is it? I’ll just call it that burger place in Victoria. Since I’ve had this, I can’t remember any others round there, anyway.
36 Buckingham Palace Rd, London SW1W 0RE. Meal for two about £40; hanbaagaasuuteeki.com
