When we found out the InterContinental was serving a $1,288 burger on their promotional Burgers from Around the World menu, we called them to make sure we didn’t have the price wrong. We didn’t. $1,288 for a burger, are you serious? That’s more than I pay for a weekend in Thailand. What could possibly warrant that price tag? We got curious, and looked into what other expensive burgers Hong Kong had to offer. Here are the top 5.

A good number of nice hotels in the SAR sell hamburgers ranging in price from about $130-$160, but the burger offerings at the Conrad Garden Café (2521 3838) are on the more expensive end of that spectrum. Here you can opt for the grilled beef burger or no-carb chicken or beef burger for $168. Made of New Zealand beef, the grilled beef burger comes with toppings that range from cheese to bacon to a fried egg. The no-carb options are not only bunless, but no flour or any other
carb-containing ingredients flavour
the meat.

San Francisco Steak House (2735 7576) is serving up a ribeye steak burger for $138; essentially it is an 8oz ribeye steak in a burger bun. If you want to eat this hamburger in all its glory, you might consider adding in the $10 for extra cheese, $28 for sautéed mushrooms, and $28 for guacamole – and then you’ve got yourself a $204 burger bonanza. San Francisco Steak House in TST also offers two other half-pound burgers, the ’Frisco burger with cheese ($115) and the Golden Gate burger with bacon and cheese ($119), both of which are made on the premises with Angus beef.

Next time you’re waiting around in Chek Lap Kok, be aware that within those terminal walls A Hereford Beefstouw (2136 0695) is cooking up some fancy meat meals. They don’t call it a hamburger, but the chopped sirloin Australian beefsteak for which they charge $185 is a beef patty that can be served with a bun on request. Toppings cost extra here too, meaning if you’d like to add an additional $50 for sautéed mushrooms and $22 for cheddar cheese, you could be biting into
a pre-flight burger costing something in the realm of $257, putting your complimentary airplane meal to shame.

The Steak House Winebar and Grill (2313 2323), also of the InterContinental, is home to the US Angus beef burger prepared on the only charcoal grill in Hong Kong. Weighing in at 12oz/340g and complete with Gruyere cheese and French fries for $360, this is your more traditional American-style hamburger. If you want to add foie gras to transform this “gourmet burger” into the “deluxe” version, add an additional $98. And so at $458, you can buy a hamburger here for more than it costs to buy the 14oz/400g Argentinean beef striploin ($430) or Dutch veal petit filet mignon ($360).

Maybe it’s the burger to beat all burgers, maybe the high price just comes with the territory of eating in a place like the InterContinental Lobby Lounge (2721 1211). Maybe it’s a little of both. I’m not so sure myself that any meat patty is really worth over $1,000, but the InterContinental argues that a burger made of 70% Kagoshima beef – grade 4, and 30% O-Toro tuna (yes, that’s right, a combination of beef and fish) is worth the price tag. In all fairness, Kagoshima beef, which comes from Japanese Black Cattle, is famous among meat connoisseurs for being tender, well-balanced, and of superior quality; O-Toro, when it comes down to it, is nothing more than fatty tuna belly – but its fatty tuna belly sushi lovers prize. The menu of burgers from around the world is available starting August 1. Even if $1,288 is a little out of your price range, don’t worry as the menu offers other pricey beef entrees for your cultured palate – like the French beef burger with pan-fried foie gras and black truffles for $230. If you’re looking for a burger made of something other than beef, consider options like Thai shrimp burger ($160) or Japanese chicken katsu burger ($170), all spiced to reflect the flavours of the countries they represent.

Why are they called hamburgers if they usually contain no ham?
They come from Hamburg, Germany. Finding more specific origins than that gets tricky; maybe it was the Tartars who came up with the compressed beef patty, maybe it was German immigrants to America who invented the food item, maybe it was Americans who put beef on a bun at the 1921 World’s Fair. Today many people want to avoid the ham connotation, and stick to the name ‘burger’.

What does it mean to grade beef?
The United States Department of Agriculture grades beef depending on the degree of marbling in the beef rib eye and the animal’s age before slaughter. Most other beef grading systems mirror the US model, though with slight alterations in exactly what qualities are looked at. Japanese beef, of the kind used in the InterContinental Burger, is graded on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best quality, according to four categories: marbling, colour and brightness, firmness and texture, and colour lustre and quality of fat. An overall rating is eventually determined by combining the scores of the specialized categories.