Jo Burger

Burger used to be ‘hamburger’, then ‘beefburger’. Some say it should be called a ‘Mongolburger’ as the tradition of eating ground beef made up into patties is said to have started with Genghis Khan’s horde who slipped a wodge under their saddles to sustain them during a peripatetic campaign of loot, burn and pillage. After a long ride it would be veering on well done, one presumes, though whether the unorthodox lardering methods would have pleased today’s food police is doubtful.

When Genghis’s nephew, Kubilai, invaded Moscow in 1238 his followers brought their favourite nosh with them. The Russians were impressed and even improved upon the recipe, forsaking the arse-pummelling for binding the meat with chopped onion and raw eggs, even calling it ‘steak tartare’ in honour of the invaders. Thereafter ground beef enjoyed a career as a sausage filling until someone discovered that pork snags are tastier. In the 1600s trade among Baltic ports brought steak tartare to Hamburg where the locals decided they preferred it cooked.

The ‘hamburger steak’ came to America via the Hamburg-Amerika line immigrant boats, sometime in the 1850s. Salted, sometimes slightly smoked, it could withstand a long sea voyage. It was sometimes stretched with soaked breadcrumbs and chopped onion – the ancestor of today’s burger. At some point, ‘ham’ was quietly dropped so people wouldn’t expect a pigburger and be disappointed. Today it’s plain ‘burger’; although some of the variations you see around are anything but plain.

In the last decade the burger has become somewhat schizophrenic; at one end of the market there’s the fast food approach. The burger is something you can stuff in your mouth and eat without thinking; a Saturday treat for the kids from divorced dad; soakage for Friday night pints. The burger’s other persona is altogether more sophisticated. Bloated, tarted up and made from the very finest materials it appears on the menus of quite posh restaurants and a new generation of burger outlets has sprung up to cater for demand.

None of this went through my head as I was sat with Fretstrangler in Jo’Burger of Rathmines last weekend. Fretstrangler is a singer-songwriter and quite a good one. You won’t have heard of him but his compositions make ‘Falling Slowly’ sound like a nursery rhyme. That is, if it isn’t a nursery rhyme. I had been told that Tom Doorley’s niece ran or at least worked in the joint, so we had a pleasant ten minutes playing (and failing to) ‘spot the Tom lookalike’. During this time German beers arrived and we sang “Schneider Weiss, Schneider Weiss” in two-part harmony to Oscar Hammerstein’s well-known melody. Jo’Burger is that sort of place, you can let your hair down. Next door to us a baby slept, curled up oblivious on the refectory tabletop while its parents sipped wine and ate; giving a whole new meaning to ‘child-friendly restaurant’.

After a significant interval the nice waitress came back to take our order. Not her fault, we’d been dithering over the vast choice. We could have saved ourselves a lot of time by consulting their funky website www.joburger.ie before we’d set out. In the end I opted for the ‘Naledi’, with brie and a pear and ginger relish while Fretstrangler took the Emdeni, flat mushrooms and garlic butter. With fries of course – “One portion should do two” our waitress advised. And corn on the cob. Naturally we took the double patty version. And two more beers. Amazingly, I was allowed to have mine “medium-rare to medium”. In fairness, the menu did point out that I could be indulging in self-harm by doing so.

I won’t do handsprings over the burgers other than say they were brilliant. First class materials, a crisp wig of lettuce topping the substantial, flavoursome patties, topped and tailed by a decent seeded bun. The pear and ginger relish made an interesting upmarket alternative to the usual E-riddled ketchup. Other outlets will have to go some to better Jo’s burgers. Warning – if you are of the persuasion that believes burgers should be picked up and eaten by hand you could be a bit miffed – that is unless your gob is big enough to play three harmonicas at once. The fries were a minor miff – new potatoes chopped into discs are not ‘fries’ in my opinion but they were tasty enough. The wine looked interesting, the beer was.

By now the place had filled up and the punters were even queuing to get in. The music boomed, warming diners up for the imminent arrival of a DJ arrival. On the right hand wall there is what Fretstrangler accurately described as “a shrine to bedsitter land”, appropriate for Rathmines. Two wall hangings, one that looked like the gruesome lino from the floor of the only flat I could afford when I first left home. The other was a moth-eaten rug. Plus a motley assortment of hung coats and a metal bookshelf evidently designed by a welder who’d maybe heard of the Bauhaus. Funkier even than the website.

The coffee was “last”. The corn we’d ordered didn’t show. I didn’t care. By this time I was wholly enraptured by the chaotic vibe of Jo Burger, Ah, nostalgia. In my mind’s eye I was back in Soho, circa 1967, Les Cousins, Bunjies, only with better food. Jo Burger should feck out the musak, go live, get some guys with guitars. Fretstrangler?

The damage: 55 for 2 enormous burgers, 1 fries, 1 coffee, 4 beers.

Ambience: ****

Service: ***

Quality: ****

Value: ****1/2

Overall: ****

Jo Burger, 137 Rathmines Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6 Tel: 491 3731