Our Budapest Burgerwar™ has taken in America and Scotland, now it's Hungary's turn. The Wikinger Gyorsétterem on Móricz Zsigmond körtér usually comes highly recommended by Hungarians for two reasons. First, the burgers are large and well-packed and second, the joint is open around-the-clock, or as near as makes no difference. Which means that most of its patrons - students on their way back to their dorms after a late night - are too drunk, hungry or both to really care what they are lining their stomachs with. Those that are not can choose between a variety of classic büfé fare behind the counter opposite, a gyros from the adjacent counter, or a more sanitized burger at the McDonald's next door. Suffice it to say, I have stopped for a burger drunk once and sober twice, and can certainly recommend the latter.

We tried the two burgers that come closest to a signature offering. The first was the extravagantly monikered "Gasztronómiai Orgazmus" (above, Ft 750), containing a sizeable beef patty, a fried egg, something called "Amerikai káposzta" (lightly pickled cabbage), the usual salad and tomatoes, canned mushrooms and a few squirts of industrial-grade mustard and ketchup. The Gastronomic Orgasm proved to be a lot of huffing and puffing with little actual enjoyment, a lot of the contents were lost along the way. Worse still, the canned mushrooms left an unexpectedly unpleasant aftertaste - much like finding out after the event you were being watched over by the in-laws. (The "Marhajó" consumed on a previous occasion achieved a similar anticlimax.)

Meanwhile, it came as a something of a surprise when our second choice, the "Full-Burger" (below, Ft 890) featured a slab of chicken breast and some squares of liver to go with all the normal trimmings (but minus the godawful 'shrooms). Although "Full-Burger" is a complete misnomer, our second choice fared much better in the test, despite the conspicuous lack of beef. Unlike the mushroom in the GO, the liver complemented the burger and the lack of beef grease proved to be a big bonus.

It's not that Wikinger's burgers are that bad and at those prices, they certainly have a willing target audience. The buns are OK (above average for BP street meat), the vegetables are fresh, the meat is, well, meat, and the portions are huge. Where they really falls down is that somehow the whole does not equal the sum of the parts - there is no real synergy about these overcomplicated burgers. As RedMontage says in the Caboodle "Best Burger" thread, "simple is best," which is why in future I'll just stick to the "sajtburger" instead of risking a shite burger. Unless I'm too drunk to give a shit, of course.

How They Stack Up:

Meat: (5/10)
Bun: (5/10)
Trimmings: (3/10, fries/chips were optional and so bad we had to ask for replacements)
Service/Setting: (5/10)
Affordability: (9/10)
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Total Score: 5.4/10