Back in March, we decided that the then-recently-opened "Beef Club"/Beer Cellar was probably not worth "joining" due to our experience with a waiter who was so out of it we still wonder how he managed to find his way to work that night. But since we're still locked in the ongoing Budapest Burgerwar™ and the basement annex of the venerable Vörös Postakocsi is still up and running (or down and running) and prominently featuring hamburgers on its menu, we didn't have any choice.

The first thing we noticed about the 225-gram Sörös Hamburger Marhából was its name, which from what we can figure doesn't mean "Pub Burger" so much as, well, "Beerger." No great shock here, because there are heaps of food-related puns on the word sör - "beer" - and they are routinely this obscure. (It's also no great shock because the restaurant itself has a pretty obscure identity.) Either way, we don't think the burger's name is meant to imply there is actually beer in the beef. At least it didn't taste that way.

On the other hand, there was something a little funny-tasting about the patty, though not at all in an unpleasant way. One of the things we've been struck by after tasting all these burgers is that they often seem to taste like they are made out of totally different sorts of animal. For the record, this one was clearly marked as marhából ("from beef"), and we have no reason to suspect it came from any other kind of critter. It also showed nice signs of having actually been on a very hot grill.

The trimmings were unfortunately less good. Our waiter, who was a significant improvement on the clod from last time, apologized for the fact that our bun had a few burned bits on it. But that wasn't a problem compared to the fact that it was also soggy and otherwise going to pieces halfway through our first bite. Meanwhile, the two strips of bacon that came on top (above) were criminally under-crisped, and the one big leaf of lettuce near-dead. And our onion rings weren't in much better shape, having arrived at our table at barely above room temperature.

But given the uneven competition this burger is up against, and its relatively modest price (Ft 1,190/€4.70, à la carte), we're not going to write it off completely, even if we don't know what to call it.

How They Stack Up:

Meat: (8/10)
Bun: (4/10)
Trimmings: (5/10)
Service/Setting: (5/10)
Affordability: (7/10)
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Total Score: 5.8/10