Riyadh is fast becoming the burger capital of Saudi Arabia. I swear! There are so many restaurants serving burgers as their main fare in this city that they're sprouting one after the other faster than we can say "Burgerrr!" Or "Fries!" And most of them have been banking on the organic trend. This is not just fast food burger anymore where everything is prepared and done before the stores even open. This is gourmet burger where the once instant sandwich becomes carefully crafted and sophisticated.
Burger and sophistication? That's one pair you don't get to see every day. After all, we've always seen burgers as fast food. So let me introduce you to
Gourmet Burger Kitchen, a restaurant that originated in New Zealand serving innovative and exotic burger combinations made by chef Peter Gordon. The Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Riyadh has been open since October 2012. Why are we just discovering this now?!
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| Welcome to GBK! |
Anyway, we finally got to try Gourmet Burger Kitchen two weeks ago. We've always thought that this store located at the end of Tahlia Street (near the meeting point with Dabab Street) is still under construction. Apparently, it's already open. We came at an inconvenient time, just 45 minutes before
salah. Too bad, they usher guests out during prayer time. But then again, being used to our social lives revolving around the prayer times, we indulge the harried but apologetic manager (I was tempted to tell him,
"Relax ka lang kuyaaa...") and ordered fast even if we were having a hard time choosing from the menu of burger varieties that were new to us.
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| Sleek, minimalist interiors |
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| Love the glass walls and the sunshine that pours forth. |
A friend ordered the fries with chili con carne and cheese which turned out to be the best chili fries we've ever had in Riyadh. I mean, I haven't had many chili fries in this city but this one has a taste that we couldn't get enough of. It has the authentic taste of the spicy stew down pat (I mean as authentic as my tempered Pinoy palate can identify with).
