Even before we fired the opening salvos of the Budapest Burgerwar™, our “burgerwar council” had an important decision to make. Should we include familiar chain outlets or not? In the end, we decided not, for the simple reason that anyone who cares about burgers has eaten at all of these places, and already knows exactly what, for example, a Big Mac™ taste like. But we also knew there was at least one “corporate” burger we needed to try, just for the sheer perversity of it: The dupla sajtburger (double cheeseburger) from the Norbi Update Gyorsétterem, the fast food outlet of Hungarian fitness king Norbert Schobert.
Note first that the above link goes to Norbi’s site rather than to a page in the regular place. That’s because 1) we don’t usually put fast-food restaurants of this sort into our directories; and 2) the last time we put in a Norbi restaurant, it promptly went out of business, despite all the hype. And indeed, when we arrived for our date at the sole remaining Update restaurant in the food court of the Duna Plaza shopping center, there was only one customer to be seen, compared to the throngs underneath the golden arches on the other side of the food court. So it appears that diet fast food is a hard sell in Budapest, even though everyone seems to love fast food and hate being fat.
Which is a shame, because – in all honesty – our Norbiburger wasn’t bad at all. Really! From what we could tell, the double Norbi with cheese is very similar to an à la carte Big Mac both in price (Ft 659/€2.60) and in calories (roughly one per forint). What was different was that it came on a whole-wheat bun that we found very tasty, and featured two slices of yellowish cheese that were tastier still. It was also much bigger than the pic above suggests, and was more than enough without a side of fries, which the restaurant doesn’t sell, as they are not approved under the Update “system.”
Speaking of the system, if you didn’t know, it breaks down foods into different categories, depending on how much and when you can eat certain items. Oddly, burgers are in the “1″ category, meaning you can apparently eat as many of them as you want, whenever you want, as long as you never eat another fry ever again.
How They Stack Up:
Meat: (6/10)
Bun: (9/10)
Trimmings: (8/10)
Service/Setting: (5/10)
Affordability: (6/10)
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Total Score: 6.8/10
