SmartShanghai | [Legacy]: Two Kilos of Burger

[Legacy]: Two Kilos of Burger

By Christopher St Cavish, Dec 22nd, 2009 | In Dining

Inspirational muzak is softly sterilizing the atmosphere of Yasmine’s steakhouse. Four kilos of hamburger are being assembled in the open kitchen, two kilos each. The cook steadies a farmer’s market worth of lettuce, cucumber, tomato, and onion on top of 800 gram patties, and glues the buns on with mayonnaise. Gigio and Jacopo, the pair of Italians I’ve put up to the challenge, waver between excited and silently reverential. “Did you ever know that you’re my hero? And everything I would like to be-eeeeee…..” wafts down from the speakers.

Jinqiao is boring and inoffensive and spacious enough to remind man of his cosmic insignificance. And so, for fun and for legacy, the men of the suburbs eat two-kilo hamburgers. There is no time limit, but the burgers are big enough for a family of four to share. Indeed, some do. Finish, and your name is forever engraved into a plaque on the wall, and the 138rmb meal is free.

Gigio and Jacopo are contenders. They train at teppanyaki joints. When they arrive at all-you-can-eats, half of the menu mysteriously becomes unavailable. Gigio – 30s, Coke-bottle glasses, Einstein’s hair – is telling a story of being humiliated by an eating challenge as a kid. “Maybe I’m trying to fight my demons,” he offers, and on cue, the demonic burgers arrive.

Jacopo digs in with a knife and fork. In stark contrast to my failed and whining attempt at Super Diner, he is elegant and confident, excising Whopper-sized portions and silently disappearing them. Conversation at our table continues as normal dinner, like a dinner where someone just happens to have ordered the two-kilo hamburger in place of the grilled rib-eye steak. Twenty-seven minutes later, the meat and the bun are memories. A small pile of onions and cucumbers has been relegated to a far-off corner of his plate, whose dominating presence is now a small hillock of lettuce.

Gigio, meanwhile, takes a more madcap approach. He’s blazed a path of destruction through his plate, which looks remarkably empty. But it is deceiving. Fat, puffy fries are scattered around his feet. He’s eaten too much, too quickly – vegetables and meat and bun together -- and now, he says, “my stomach is sending clear signals to brain: go home. But, we’re Italians. If it’s not a war, we don’t give up.” He unbuckles his belt in a vain attempt to find more space, but it’s not happening. Gigio will nibble for a little while longer, and then finally concede defeat.

The lettuce is a sly trick. One would think that the problem with eating a two-kilo burger is the burger, and then the bun. It is not. It is the lettuce, and Jacopo is struggling to get through it. I asked him if he’d trade 200 grams of lettuce for 200 grams of more meat. “Absolutely.” He pauses: “My doctor says I don’t have the physique for vegetables. Nor gyms.”

Fifty-some minutes into it, and Jacopo is nearly finished. The refereee/manager has come over twice, and refuses to give him a pass on the remaining lettuce, onions and the cucumbers. After downing 1,500 grams of meat, bun, and condiments, Jacopo protests, “Onions are heavy on the stomach.” The manager finally compromises. The lettuce and the cucumbers are enough; the onions can stay. Gigio grumbles that they should replace the lettuce with something better suited to the fatty meat, to hi-society, something like…. baby spinach.

Jacopo powers through. There’s just cucumbers left now. He stacks them into a tower, not unlike a beef patty, and eats them carefully, with a knife and fork. He finishes the last bite in under an hour, lets out a modest smile. He is the tenth person to do so, out of nearly two hundred challengers, the first Italian on Yasmine’s board, and a hero among men.

Gigio is talking about drinking a glass of Mr. Muscle and walking back to Fuxing Xi Lu. Jacopo sits back, content and not visibly worse for the wear. “Eh… It was good. I’m sorry for the lettuce. It took away from the pleasure of the meat.” I ask him if he has any advice, for future consumers. “Ask to change the lettuce for cheese. And maybe bacon.”

Yasmine’s, 178 Biyun Lu, near Heisong Lu. More info and a map here.