I didn’t have to travel 5,000 miles to be called “dumb” and an “idiot.” I get plenty of that here in Houston.
Recently I went on vacation visiting London and Liverpool in England and Hamburg in Germany — the Beatles tour of Europe. Between the historic music sites, I made the rounds of fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, bratwurst, knockwurst, and schnitzel.
Let me tell you about the absolute best and wurst – and most insulting – things I ate.
First, the best. And this isn’t just the best thing I ate in Hamburg last week. It’s a Top 10 of all-time for me, and possibly the single most incredibly delicious item I’ve ever eaten. Yeah, that wonderful.
It was the Dumb Texan burger at The Bird, a few blocks off the notorious Reeperbahn in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg. This is where a wild night of partying turns into hard day drinking. A few minutes’ walk away is the seediest sex-for-sale district in Europe. Hamburg’s walled-off prostitution zone makes Amsterdam’s red light district look like a Junior Miss Pageant.
What was I doing in this adult “entertainment” area? This is where the Beatles played during their formative years in Hamburg, at clubs like the Kaiserkeller and Indra, both of which are still open. For a Beatles fan, this is where it really began, the group playing six hours a night, seven nights a week before they hit it big, real big, the biggest act in music history.
This is where a steak and burger restaurant called The Bird opened in 2011. Their steaks are American Black Angus, their burgers are made from premium German beef. A hamburger in Hamburg, I just had to.
The burgers have peculiar, silly names, like the Fat Stingy Gonzales (guacamole and salsa verde) and the Filthy Harry (bacon and Cheddar cheese).
And there’s the Dumb Texan. Hey, I’m right here and you’re saying that? The Dumb Texan is 155+ grams of beef – that’s about nine ounces with a fried sunny-side-up egg on top. This was my second visit to The Bird. I had the Dumb Texan back in 2015. It was the first time I ever had an egg on a burger, and that’s how I’ve ordered them ever since – at places that offer fried eggs on burgers.
Behold the Dumb Texan.Photo by Ken Hoffman.
Burgers become art at The Bird. These aren’t the flat, smashed slabs of overdone meat in vogue these days. The Bird’s burgers are thick, plump hunks cooked exactly as you wish and served on an English muffin with lettuce, tomato, and onions on the side. The menu describes my favorite medium rare as “juicy, a pinkish red center that has begun to cook – highly recommended.” Beware if you ask for well done – “you have destroyed a piece of nature and the chef hates you.”
I’ve eaten a serious lot of burgers. The Dumb Texan is alone at the top of the heap. It has a ton of flavor, it’s cooked perfectly, the English muffin absorbs the overflow juice, and it’s a terrific value at 15.5 Euros ($16.60). I wanna go back.
Now for the single most awful thing I ate: the Idiot Sandwich at Gordon Ramsay’s Bread Street restaurant on Paradise Street in Liverpool. Paradise Street is a pedestrian zone a few blocks from Mathew Street, home of the Cavern Club where the Beatles played 292 times in the early 1960s.
Don't believe the hype.Photo by Ken Hoffman
The Idiot Sandwich has braised short rib, confit mushrooms, and spiced tomato chutney on grilled sourdough bread. To be honest, I ordered this sandwich because of its name. Turned out, I really was an idiot for buying into obnoxious celebrity chef’s gimmick. It cost 24 English pounds ($30) for a skimpy sliced roast beef sandwich that, despite its frou-frou ingredients, tasted like truck stop food. There’s nothing wrong with truck stop food, I’ve been there, but $30 for the Idiot Sandwich made me feel like one Dumb Texan.
That doesn't look like the advertisement.Photo by Ken Hoffman
The revamped Faust Hotel blends the property's historic bones with new furnishings. Photo by Jason Risner 
Maisie is a miniature Highland cow that lives on the farm.Photo by Ashley Estave
