Bruce Springsteen fans across the pond in the US, you are very lucky. Not only are you exposed to some of the best burgers in the world, but you also get a chance to celebrate your love of burgers each year. In fact, it seems that you have four opportunities to do this. International Burger Day (28th May), Hamburger Day (28th July and 21st December apparently?!) and National Cheeseburger Day (18th September). You also seem to be inundated with lots of other exciting days, like National Doughnut Day and National Cheese Day, and less appealing celebrations like National Bicarbonate of Soda Day.
Anyway, the clever people at Mr Hyde (an online email newsletter from Shortlist magazine – v. cool check it out) decided that it was about time the UK had a National Burger Day, on 27th August every year. This news was Springsteen music to my ears. As you may know, I’ve been suffering from post tour depression, also known as the ‘Bruce Blues‘. My best coping method has been eating burgers. Lots of them.
This year National Burger Day was celebrated in two ways. You could either get 20% off your bill at a range of (burger) restaurants (I imagine something similar will happen next year) and there was also a ‘party’ in my hometown of London, where several of the city’s top burger chefs came together to make burgers for food lovers with big appetites.
So instead of harping on about the flavour, texture and ingredients of each burger, I thought how can I make this a bit more fun for myself in my burger coma state, which I’m still suffering from a few days later.
The answer my friends is a National Burger Day ‘set list’. The burgers I ate on the night, summarised with Bruce Springsteen song titles.
Here we go!
Similar to many of the very special Springsteen concerts, the night started with a little acoustic pre-show in the shape of a ‘pickleback’ shot. For those not familiar with this, it’s shot of whiskey followed by a chaser of pickle juice. It’s really, really good and takes your enjoyment levels up a notch.
After this excitement we had some time to wander around and socialise with similar minded folk, like I do at a Springsteen concert. Time passed quickly before the main set, which opened with a fast tempo rendition of ‘Two Hearts (Are Better Than One)‘ (aka Two Burgers Are Better Than One, especially from Disco Bistro).
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| Two Hearts (Are Better Than One) |
I made the most of this beauty, stuffed full of bacon and pineapple jam, it put a smile on my face, just like the song.
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| Getting The Job Done |
Two burgers certainly “get the job done”, but this was National Burger Day, there was no way I was stopping there.
Next up was ‘Working On A Dream‘. This burger from Two Nights Only could have been dream like, it was full of flavour but for me it just wasn’t quite there yet, needed some fine tuning and was still a work in progress.
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| Working On A Dream |
Swaying through to the next burger it was time for ‘Fire‘, held below by fellow blogger Plumdiddlyumcious and created by the Springsteen fans at Breddo’s Tacos. Short and lovingly executed, the burger had a real chili kick and my friend’s eyes widened in disbelief at the intensity of what she was experiencing.
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| Fire |
Picking up the pace again I was treated to an old favourite, a fast and lively ‘Born To Run‘ (bacon swiss burger) from the popular burger pros called Mother Flipper. The first mouthful led straight into an energetic ‘Cover Me‘, as it ran all down my Springsteen t-shirt, then jeans before reaching my shoes.
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| Born To Run/Cover Me |
Starting to fill up, I approached the Byron burger van like a ‘Cautious Man‘. I soon realised that this popular UK burger chain has managed to go ‘One Step Up‘ with the latest creation from their much admired chef Fred Smith, and his new ‘Le Smokey’ burger. Moist and messy with BBQ sauce, it also offered a little bit of crunch with a generous sprinkling of crispy onion.
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| Cautious Man/One Step Up |
Having a wonder around I spotted what looked like a pie from Eat My Pies. With a dad from the North East of England, loving pies is in my genetic make up, so I’d been thinking about trying this little parcel all day.
But as this was National Burger Day, it wasn’t just any pie on offer. I soon realised it was just a ‘Brilliant Disguise‘. This pie was in fact a PIE BURGER (or burger pie?) – light flaky pastry with a thick patty inside, complete with chunks of ham, cheese and chutney. Like the song, it was brilliant.
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| Brilliant Disguise |
At this point I have to say I was feeling pretty happy. I’d had a great ‘set’ so far but there was one more song I wanted to hear, one more burger I wanted to try. I headed to Bleeker St Burger, a food truck run by Zan who has serious NYC burger expertise. Despite my fullness, I hollered ‘No Surrender‘ and I whooped my way through a dripping double cheeseburger, with the set list ending on an all time high.
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| No Surrender |
So that was my National Burger Day set list. As a lover of burgers and Bruce Springsteen, how could I have tried to tell you about it in any other way?
Like Bruce Springsteen, National Burger Day will be back, and back, and back. Like Bruce Springsteen’s concerts, I’m already looking forward to the next one.
#NationalBurgerDay