The straightforward portability achieved by applying a beef patty to a bun is central to a burger’s appeal. It wasn’t until 1921 that Walter Anderson, developed the first bun designed exclusively for a burger. Since then potato rolls, brioche buns and sesame seed buns have been exclusively used for burger making. The round and dome-like bread has dominated burgers for aeons.
Today we’re planning to go big, but we don’t want to do it the conventional vertical way. Oh no! Today, we’re going horizontal! French Baguette, Italian Panino, American Submarine, they are all sandwiches made from a long bread or roll, split crosswise and filled with a variety of meats, cheeses, vegetables, and condiments. That’s burger enough for us! In 2017, France alone consumed 1.46 billion hamburgers compared with 1.22 billion baguettes. So why don’t we see more burgers inside the longer bread varieties?
We head towards the University area in Msida, at Hangout, who opened in late 2016 and was a sudden hit with the locals. The secret? Student-friendly prices and genuine food sourced locally. The place has a simple yet stylish decor and originally offered the option of selecting from a variety of bread, condiments and sauces and build your own custom burger. This has been somewhat downsized as most were spending too much time contemplating what to order! You can still customise your burger from the menu, which features such hits as the Black Beast & the Chicken Schnitzel! When we heard that Jeff, one of the owners, was concocting a baguette burger, we made sure to pay a visit before they close down for summertime for refurbishment.
Dubbed by us as the Triple Submarine Burger (TSB), this is the beefy child of a sophisticated French Baguette and a 3-tier muscled Burger. The bread is 30cm long and houses lettuce, sliced tomatoes and Leicester cheese at the base. The bread is light, with a great crunchy exterior. The Leicester is very similar to Cheddar cheese, although it’s crumblier and has a mild flavour. The cheese is left in its natural form and not melted. The three 90gr patties are made from a mix of knuckle & chuck beef, together with Maltese sausage. The meat is sourced locally on a daily basis, so it’s fresh as it can be. These are not the standard beef patties that Hangout use in most of their other burgers, but are more of a special edition! The Maltese sausage casts a strong sense of flavour to the meat mix and is surprisingly not too salty, like your butcher’s Maltese sausage mix. The meat is topped with 4 pieces of thick bacon. They have a very good crisp to them and bring along that paradise smokey flavour to your taste buds. As every bacon worth its name, it’s covered with bbq sauce. If you like your burger well-sauced, you’re in for a real treat here, though the TSB is not a messy affair! All is sprinkled with crunchy onions, which add even more texture and crispness to the burger build.
We’ve all seen huge vertical burgers made with 3 or more patties. This is the perfect horizontal representation of that. If you want to call your burger Long, this is the real deal, so please Burger King take note of how things should be done! It seems like the long bread was designed to house the patties and condiments, as everything fits beautifully like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s one of those burgers that must be experienced first hand to truly understand the level of awesomeness. Some burger eaters like to take off the top bun because sometimes the bread to meat ratio is too unbalanced. That’s not the case here and having 3 patties spread across, lets you enjoy the bread all the way. Hangout say that this was made to share, and sized as a serving for 2, but we know not a few people who won’t think twice and eat it all on their own! Without a doubt, Hangout have managed to leave behind all competition with little ease, and right now they have the longest and meatiest submarine burger in Malta.
