Hard Rock Cafe puts burgers on summer tour

Nadine Kam photos
Jodi Mikel Miller presents a trayful of slider-sized samples of the Honolulu Legendary Burger during a media event introducing Hard Rock Cafe’s World Burger Tour.

BY NADINE KAM

What started in Hard Rock Tokyo as a fun way to explore flavors around the globe has become an international phenomenon, as Hard Rock Cafe started its summer by launching its inaugural World Burger Tour.

Local chefs have always had the freedom to create a unique Local Legendary Burger capturing the flavors of their city, but those creations were only regional hits, until now.

More than 150 local burgers were evaluated by Hard Rock’s culinary team, with 16 favorites selected to star on the World Burger Tour menu, four of which are available at Hard Rock Waikiki through the end of the month.

Alas, Honolulu’s Portuguese sausage-topped burger didn’t make the World Tour cut, but luckily for us, it’s available here and happened to be my favorite during a media tasting that took place June 4.

With each burger marked by a Hard Rock flag and the flag of its home nation, our tabletop looked like a mini United Nations, covered with slider-sized samples. Culinary adventurers don’t have to pack their bags to order up the half-pound burgers:

The Andean Burger: A Bolivian Legendary featuring a Certified Angus beef patty topped with avocado slices, a fried egg, melted Cheddar cheese and garlic mayonnaise. Plainer than its international relatives, this is the burger that is most frequently ordered.

 

The Bosphorus Burger: Turkish Legendary features a Certified Angus beef patty topped with homemade eggplant salad, haydari sauce and pickle.

 

 

The Schnitzel Burger: A German Legendary that features two stacks of pork schnitzel (think tonkatsu) topped with sauerkraut, spicy brown mustard and bacon.

 

The Chamorro Burger: This Guam Legendary features a Certified Angus beef patty topped with housemade Chamorro glaze, chili paste and spicy pepper Jack cheese. It’s popular with Japanese clientele who know who Chamorros are.

The Bosphorus and Honolulu, pictured, burgers were my favorites, the hometown burger paired with furikake fries served with a creamy Sriracha dipping sauce, below.

Each of the World Tour burgers are paired with a signature french fry-dipping sauce combo. These chili-seasoned fries with chipotle garlic ketchup goes with the Chamorro burger. Parmesan Romano fries with garlic aioli aligns with the Andean, and herb-garlic fries with chimichurri mayo pairs with the Bosphorus burger.

It’s too bad not all the burgers could be offered here. I would have loved to try Mumbai’s tandoori-spiced chicken burger, Vietnam’s banh mi burger, Miami’s Cuban burger and Dubai’s date burger.

Cocktails showcased during the tour include:

Mai Tai One On: A Pacific-inspired blend of Mount Gay Eclipse Rum, Cointreau Orange Liqueur, Monin Orgeat, a splash of lime and orange juice.

Pomegranate Mule: Of ABSOLUT Vodka, Monin Pomegranate and ginger beer.

Mezcarita: A smoky margarita from Mexico, combining Del Maguey Mezcal, Cointreau Orange Liqueur, Malibu Coconut and fresh strawberries.

Pineapple Ginger Caipirinha: A Brazilian blend of Água Luca Cachaça and pineapple with a splash of Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur.
———
Hard Rock Cafe Honolulu is at 280 Beach Walk Ave. Call (808) 955-7383.

———
Nadine Kam is Style Editor and staff restaurant critic at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser; her coverage is in print on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Contact her via email at nkam@staradvertiser.com and follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Rebel Mouse.

Hard Rock asks you to pick next Legendary Burger

Nadine Kam photos
Mark Marble, AccesSurf President and CEO and Heidi Putnam, Hard Rock Cafe sales manager, are encouraging people to vote on Facebook for the burger they want added to the cafe's Legendary Burger menu. Tuesday is the deadline to "Like" one of the four entries.

Yesterday marked the launch of Hard Rock Cafe Honolulu's charity burger promotion that gives burger fans a say as to which new burger—all starting with a 10-ounce Certified Angus Beef patty—will be added to the local cafe’s Legendary Burger menu.

Burger lovers can visit Hard Rock's Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/hardrockcafehonolulu to "Like" their favorite. The burger with the most “likes” will be added to the Hard Rock Cafe Honolulu menu on June 23, 2012, at the yearly AccesSurf fundraiser and will be featured on the menu for one year.

A dollar of every winning burger sold will benefit AccesSurf, an Oahu-based, non-profit organization dedicated to empowering the physically challenged and wounded veterans to enjoy the ocean through adaptive surf instruction and water recreational programs.

AccesSurf was started by Mark Marble, a therapeutic recreation specialist who saw the need for such a family-oriented program while working at Shriners Hospital for Children.

He said he'd worked with Hard Rock on smaller projects before, and the restaurant's move to its new location at 280 Beachwalk Ave., provided a good reason to team up again on a fundraiser to benefit families.

Malia Andrews delivers the Hawaiian Pizza Burgers, one of four vying to be the next Hard Rock Cafe Legendary Burger.

AccesSurf Fundraiser
Featuring a performance by Jake Shimabukuro
Where: Hard Rock Cafe, 280 Beachwalk Ave.
When: 4:30 to 7 p.m. June 23, 2012
Tickets: $60 general; $500 for VIP package for four; $3,000 for title sponsorship and seats for 10. RSVP by June 15.
Call: 744-0352 or email event@accessurf.org

During a media preview yesterday, we had a chance to meet the candidates. I don't want to influence the vote or anything, but the two favorites among the media group and AccesSurf members, family and friends, were the Spicy Mango Burger and the Loco Moco Burger.

There's nothing NOT to like about a juicy loco moco burger with the added flourish of Portuguese sausage. I liked the originality and novelty of the Spicy Mango Burger topped with banana pepper slices, mango cream cheese and jerk mayo, but it's one the average eater may not appreciate. I also thought it could have been more mango-ey, but considered it may be difficult to get good mangos throughout the year, so in the end I cast my vote for the more obvious, democratic Loco Moco Burger.

Meet the candidates:

Loco Moco Burger: The 10-ounce Certified Angus Beef patty is topped with Portuguese sausage, a fried egg over easy and brown gravy. This was the crowd pleaser. You won't be able to keep your hands clean with this one. Note that all these photos reflect half size tasting portions, not what the full burgers will be.

Spicy Mango Burger: I loved the concept of this burger topped with rings of banana peppers, mango cream cheese sauce and jerk mayo, for its creative combination of spice and sweetness. I think it could be more of a contender if the cream cheese were replaced by a mango chutney. The only problem is that while 50 percent of diners will be able to take the heat of the peppers, restaurateurs need to consider the other 50 percent who are wimps.

Hawaiian Pizza Burger: This burger is supposed to be topped with sliced ham, mozzarella, pineapple, tomato and marinara sauce. When I tasted it, it wasn't even in the running. But now that I'm reading the list of ingredients, I realize whoever was in the kitchen forgot to put in the ham and cheese. That might have made all the difference. The marinara needed more herbs to taste more like pizza sauce. It was rather bland.

Hawaiian BBQ Burger: Ah yes, bacon makes everything better, and it sure worked here with a caramelized onion BBQ sauce and blue cheese crumbles. It's right up there with the Loco Moco Burger, but you could get a bacon burger anywhere.