good hamburger

It's been hard to find a good hamburger here. Lots of places serve "100% beef burger"s which makes me suspicious now of places which don't have "100%" in the name. Well, some sell chicken burgers too. I wonder if it's partially a halal thing, or simple the extra boost by saying "pure". And Ivory's 99 44/100ths was all marketing.

The taste of the beef is a bit different than a US burger and the meat is thinner and .. wetter. Not quite the same as "jucier" and I don't know why. Perhaps it has a bit of a marinade. "Mrs Ball's Original Recipe Chutney" is very popular her and is put on meat about as often as ketchup in the US. Ketchup here is called tomato sauce. I haven't figured out what's put on pizza - it's a tomato sauce but not the same as in ketchup.

I've wondered what the longest chain of alternate words is between English (Commonwealth) and English (American). Ketchup -> tomato sauce -> pizza sauce, for example. Or cookie -> biscuit -> scone. Or hood -> bonnet -> hat. Starting from Commonwealth; yob -> punk -> rock music, perhaps?

I've been trying the nearby restaurants, working my way along the street (Main Rd). There's a region with few restaurants and today was the first time I went beyond the no food gap. I saw a burger joint - Saul's Saloon and Grill - with faded American flags on the sign and boasting "largest burgers in town." It's a 1.2kg one, free if eaten in < 15 minutes but give them 45 minutes to prepare it. I decided to give it a go. The joint that is, not the mega burger.

And it was good. The best burger I've had here. It helped a lot that it had a thicker, denser bun. Most South African breads are light and fluffy while I prefer something medium weight. Not German dense bread, but in that direction. Saul's served normal buns and not fluffy mushable bread. Great fries (-> chips -> potato chips -> crisps) too.

Now if I can only convince people to put more than a token tomato slice and lettuce leaf on the meat. Though as Johann says "there's nothing wrong with eating vegetables; some of my favorite foods are vegetarian." To me there's something intrinsically good about adding the crisp of lettuce and juicyness of tomato to a burger.

There was an early indicator that I might be in a more American-style burger place. In addition to the American flags and (perhaps) the word "saloon" (indicating the American West the way 'dacha' indicates a Russian summer house?). The waiter asked how I wanted it cooked. Normally everything is "well done" and no one asks. I prefer medium rare. What I got wasn't medium rare - more like medium - but I'm not complaining.

This is a big meat culture. The national past-time is the braai the way a BBQ is to some parts of the US. I've been to a few braais. Usually there's beef and chicken and boerewors. Always well done. There are also fish braais and no doubt veggie ones too. I went to Heikki's for a fish braai a few weeks ago. He used some high quality Namibian charcoal. And yes, I'm still a bit giddy with the knowledge that "we're using Namibian charcoal - we can do that because after all we're close to Namibia. I could drive there if I wanted to. In a (long) day."

Afterwards I walked along the sea front. It's a popular place around sunset, walking dogs and children, chatting, jogging, watching the sun set across the Atlantic. The sea's been quiet the last couple of days, though at 12.5C / 55F it's frigid.
In the last stretch back to the apartment (->flat->tire->become exhausted) a guy I know from tango stopped his car and said hello. He and his wife, whom I enjoy dancing tango with, live about 2 blocks from here. He invited me in, I met their young son and bulldog, and us old people talked for a bit.

I left, got back to the flat, changed, and headed off to salsa classes at Que Pasa. I missed the intermediate lesson but didn't mind as I rather enjoyed the conversation I had. Sadly though only 2 women showed up to the advanced class so John canceled it.