2013 Burger Cup: The Local vs The Bookworm

The Beijinger Burger Cup is back for another year and this is your chance to vote for your favorite burgers before we arrange a face-to-face cook-off in August to determine the winner.

This year, we begin with Burger Battles: a series of face-offs pitting Beijing beef patties against each other. These will not necessarily reflect the ultimate match-ups in our Burger Cup bracket, but give burger fans and burger chefs an idea as to how the product may fare in the final competition.

Visit our website often for Burger Battles, updates on the Cup, and more on how you can participate in voting and other burger activities.

Round 6 pits The Local against The Bookworm.

Burger Battle Six: The Local vs The Bookworm

The Local: Brussels Bar and Restaurant was apparently just too Belgian for the popular spot, so rather than be international, they chose to become local, The Local. This is important because in the 2012 Burger Cup, Brussels placed second. With a spruced up menu and a new name, the former Belgian enclave may make a run at the title. Somewhere, King Leopold is rolling in his tomb.

The Burger: I ordered the Dry Rub Avocado Burger. In retrospect, maybe I should have ordered the Original Cheese Burger for the purposes of this battle. Regardless, I don't regret my choice. The burger comes with half a "ripe" avocado and lots of The Local's house salsa on it. It's spicy. It also comes with onion, tomato, pickles, and a slice of cheese, on a sesame seed bun, and served with onion rings and a little bit of salad.

This burger is tasty. It had one big problem, though: I had to send it back for being undercooked. My medium-well burger came out so pink that it needed to be rectified before I could continue. That created a problem: I enjoyed the first bite so much that I had to wait for more. The wait was not long, and when I got it back, it was still juicy, still spicy, and fortified with that half-avocado, although I thought it wasn't quite ripe. The onion rings were crispy without being greasy. I didn't touch the salad -- that's just empty calories. Not having had a Brussels burger in the past, I could see why they came so close to drinking the sweet nectar of victory from the 2012 Burger Cup. I would order this again, and am interested to try all of their other burgers on future visits. Washed down with a Vedett Blonde on draft -- nice. Belgian or local, I'll take more of that.

Price: RMB 75.

The Bookworm: The Bookworm is a pillar of Beijing's community in general and its literary community specifically. From its humble origins first sharing space with Le Petit Gourmand on a site somewhere underneath Cold Stone Creamery at Tai Gu Li, The Bookworm has brought enormous names of English and Chinese literature to Sanlitun. Although in actuality it is probably a restaurant with books, rather than a bookstore that serves food, it is best known for the books and keeps the lights on with food and beverage. It's also quite near to The Local, and their burger did reasonably well in last year's Burger Cup voting.

The Burger: I wasn't really expecting much from this burger. Unlike The Bookworm's customers, the Classic Burger isn't at all pretentious. It's a straight-ahead beef patty with tomato, onion, lettuce, pickles and just enough mayonnaise for a bit of flavor and moisture without influencing the overall product. It comes on a sesame seed bun with some lackluster fries, but a healthy portion of fresh salad, making this a good value.

The Classic Burger is small, probably the smallest burger I've tried so far, but enjoyable. The patty was juicy, and all of the ingredients complemented each other. It's easy to eat because of its size. I ate everything on my plate, although the fries were not amazing and the salad was quite good. I was surprised how good this burger was, going in with very limited expectations. If I were to order it again, I'd probably pay extra to have cheese on it. My biggest mistake had nothing to do with the burger. I ordered a RMB 40 "chocolate milkshake," which tasted like RMB 40 chocolate milk. The drink was fine, but it wasn't what was promised, and for the price, it cost almost as much as the burger. The Classic Burger is a good value; I can see these moving an hour before a book talk or other popular Bookworm event.

Price: RMB 48.

The Decision
The Dry Rub Avocado Burger

Both of these burgers surprised me. I expected The Local's burger to be good, but this was better. I didn't expect much from The Bookworm's burger, but it was a good value and I'd order it again sans drink. But the Dry Rub Avocado Burger is a contender. Local owner Kenn Bermel's statement that part of his venue's name change was to focus on better menu items and better quality rings true, and this burger could have legs. Well done to both of this round's burger warriors.

Photos: Amy Jiang, Steven Schwankert