Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Hamborgara Búllan

June 22, 2012

Michael took every opportunity in Iceland to check out the local bird life (not a euphemism) and add new species to his life list. As a concession to me he also booked in a more mainstream whale watching expedition. We didn't glimpse more than two second's worth of whale tail offshore but it was just about worth the ticket price for the hundreds of puffins we stopped by on the way out. I reckon the children's book logo undersells them.

Back on dry land we were approached by an activist in a whale suit, and we had no problems signing their pledge to forgo whale meat while in Iceland. We were planning on burgers for lunch anyway.


Hamborgara Búllan, also known as The Burger Joint, is just by the dock lined with tour boats. While it's in clear sight for tourists (and includes adequate English signage), it also appears to be popular with the locals. Icelanders clearly have a taste for American style burgers, hot dogs and pizza and unlike the town's favourite hot dog stand, The Burger Joint has a veg option.

The Offer Of The Century (a burger, fries and soda for 1390kr ~AU$10.55) is perhaps overstated but still a good deal. The bun's sweet and insubstantial, the vege patty comes slathered in ketchup, mustard and mayo, and there's plenty more sauce for the fries. There's no juice, only soda. This would just barely cut it at Lord Of The Fries but we're guests in this country and guests at a grill; we don't take a vege burger for granted.
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Only a few words about Hamborgara Búllan appear on blogs and none that I could find were negative, see: listabrautin (in Icelandic), Seasons, Les tartines de Sidonie (in French), Flowing Strong, and aleholi (in French).
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Hamborgara Búllan
Mýrargata Geirsgötu 1, Reykjavik
+354 511 1888
veg burger combos 1390kr ~AU$10.55
http://www.bullan.is/

Accessibility: There's a small single step on entry and an interior quite crowded with high tables. Ordering, payment and pick-up occurs at a high counter.
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Puffins!

See? PUFFINS, FOR REALZ.

A bunch of gannets hooning around

Bird on the streets

10 comments:

  1. I love puffins - and I loved being in the puffin book club as a kid - definitely one for the life list!

    And I regret to say I had a half cooked veg burger in the melb central food hall yesterday so even in Melbourne we shouldn't take an decent veg burger for granted

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    1. Johanna - that's unfortunate! Lacklustre veg food lurks everywhere.

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  2. So how many birds appeared on the list? :)

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    1. Pathetically, I haven't tallied them up yet Lyf - I reckon added about 40 birds to my life list across the whole trip, with most of them coming in Iceland. I'm probably up to 600 or so now in total, the vast majority of which are Australian.

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  3. Yay, birds! I figured you would have had to have got up to some serious birdwatching in Iceland. I'm almost tempted to book a flight right now just for the promise of puffins (SO CUTE!).

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    1. DO IT FOR THE PUFFINS, HAYLEY. Though I suppose there's other parts of Europe and North America where they're visible too.

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  4. So jealous that you are in Iceland - I loved my trip there. But I do seem to remember it was not very vegetarian friendly!

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    1. Hi Cara! Indeed, there aren't a lot of vegos in that part of the world - we did OK though. :-)

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