22 Burgers Down: A Talk With a True Burger Fanatic

In normal times, not that often. I love burgers but Beijing is such a vast, diverse city for food I typically go for things I haven't tried before or cuisines I have less experience in. Because we're in the capital, we have access to every type of Chinese food there is, so getting a burger can feel a little vulgar, the dining equivalent of a shrug.

But this month gave me an excuse to be a stereotypical American abroad, throw caution to the wind and eat a bunch of burgers. We're fortunate enough to have dozens of local places putting their own spin on things, so binging out on burgs is a lot less embarrassing than if it was all McDonald's and Burger King.

Look, I'd love to burnish my contrarian credentials and say the best burger in town is from a place you've never heard of. I'd get to feel very smug for about 30 seconds. But the Slow Boat Fryburger really is exceptional and deserves all the accolades it's gotten. The balance of ingredients, its simplicity and the quality of the beef all come together incredibly well.

I did recently have the burger at Wolfgang's Steakhouse — which actually is something of a secret, not on the regular menu to my knowledge — and it came very close to unseating the big daddy. It may still. It's a classic steakhouse burger and the staff will include pickles, onions and tomato purely out of duty or courtesy. Thank them for it, but then toss the condiments into your nearest incinerator. The burger should be eaten plain so you can fully appreciate the complexity of the beef, which is made from porterhouse trimmings, prime cuts. Wolfgang worked as the headwaiter for decades at Peter Luger in Brooklyn, which despite bad reviews in more recent times is where I had the best burger of my life. Their burger is directly inspired by Luger's, complete with the thick slab of bacon you get on the side.

...and now I want to have it again. Maybe it IS my favorite after all.

This is not an earth-shattering observation, but the essential components of a burger are what? Meat. Bread. So if a place fails to deliver on either it ruins the whole thing. That's the bottom line, whether you're grilling over a pile of charcoal or in the million-dollar kitchen of a Michelin-starred culinary palace. Despite what these answers may suggest, I promise I'm not a snob. Your finest brioche can work just as well as a plain white bun out of the package. Just make sure it tastes good and doesn't fall apart.

These days practically every restaurant has their own burger, which can often mean getting cute and throwing on a bunch of gourmet ingredients for their own sake. I can appreciate taking a big swing if it pays off, but a lot of times you end up with a substandard burger covered in foie gras for no explicable reason. A 135-year-old steakhouse in NYC served me the best burger I've ever had, but I'd struggle to tell you it was better than a good beef patty fresh off the grill in a friend or family member's backyard, no frills, just the meat and the bread.

Well. I tried a lot already and will be going on a beef detox for the next couple weeks. But in the future I'd like to revisit some places and try the burgers they didn't put up as part of the Burger Month promotion, as well as some non-participants I haven't been to yet. I've heard good things about SoldOut, WasPark and Fiesta Burger. I missed out on Katchup and Cannon's while they were around and deeply regret it, so should be making hay while the sun shines burger-wise.

Tough call. It would be nice to see some new blood in the mix, but a lot of the places I thought were standouts have already been booted out of the competition. Of the ones who are still kicking, so to speak, I'd say Wild Kite would be most welcome as a new entry into the canon.

I can't for the life of me figure out how Shake Shack and Beersmith managed to get this far. Shake Shack burgers fall apart if you look at them wrong and Beersmith has patties as dry as the desert! Cardinal sins both.

Fulfilled, emphasis on "filled." I ended up doing a speedrun for the passport which meant several two- and three-burger days, so I had to compensate by deliberately picking locations that were far from each other and biking to each place in turn. It also meant no beer or fries, and if a place wasn't delivering on the quality of its bun I would be pulling an Anton Ego after a couple bites and ditching the bread entirely. There were a couple, which I won't name here, whose entries worked a lot better as non-burgers.

Burge's was my number one, in part because Slow Boat opted for what I think is a weaker offering in their Okie Double Smash. The mushroom burger from Burge's was rich, buttery and juicy but — and this is the trick — managed to avoid soaking everything through and turning into a gloppy mess.

The burgers at both Commune branches were impressive, particularly the Commune X entry with the crispy onions and miso-maple bacon. A light touch with the gourmet frou-frou is the way to go, folks.

I wanted to like the Old Beijing Osmanthus Burger from Burp for the same reasons, a bit of local flavor without going overboard. It wasn't bad at all, but the balance was a little off and the osmanthus flavor didn't come through as much as I'd liked.

The real surprise was BURGERMOOD. They were eliminated criminally early in the competition, almost certainly because it's so far away from expat population centers. But they're a great little spot putting together simple burgers done well. Absolutely worth the trip, and if you have the same brain parasite I have then the two hours of bike riding you'll do there and back will go a long way in burning off any excess calories you get from going for seconds.

A Talk With a Burger Fanatic: American Expat Jarrod Rogers