Vegan Burgers in the West

I was recently asked for my thoughts on one of the vegan burger joints in Amsterdam West. It would of course be irresponsible to give any such opinion without a recent visit. So here’s to a greedy week with no home cooking. And the burgers listed in my totally subjective order of which I liked best.

My favourite was the Magic Mushroom Weedburger for 13 EUR at The Dutch Weedburger Joint .Don’t let their marketing fool you. The weed in question is seaweed with the burger made from soy shreds and Royal Kombu (a weed cultivated in Zeeland). The Dutch Weedburger first appeared a few years ago at festivals where the burger was soggy and fairly flavourless. But the burgers served at restaurants are much better, and the Oyster mushroom topping for this burger made it nicely filing. It was also easy to eat with just the right amount of burger to stay in the bun. The Dutch Weedburger can be found in many places across the city but their own ‘Joint’ opened in 2017 on
Nicolaas Beetstraat behind the Kinkerstraat and a short walk from De Hallen. h

The Magic Mushroom Weedburger

Vurger opened on Jan van Galenstraat in 2018. I was recently disappointed by their Mexican black bean burger which had spicy toppings though the actual burger itself was fairly tasteless. For this review I picked the Bella Pita – a chickpea burger served with falafel spices for EUR 10.50. This was much better. The food is tall but firm enough that you can easily cut it in half without losing too much. Although the surprisingly tasty pitta-flavour roll does crumble encouraging the burger and toppings to fall out. Everything is served on proper plates with metal cutlery though so easy to eat up. Vurger has a lot of allergy advice on their walls including gluten-free options on the menu and were the only place to proactively offer me free drinking water.

Is the Bella Pita a Burger or a Vurger?

There’s a lot of hype about the Vegan Junk Food Bar (VJFB) who have 4 locations currently in Amsterdam and will shortly be opening in Rotterdam. I visited the first and smallest outlet on Staringplein behind the Overtoom. The burgers here are tall with a lot of sauce and other filings. I picked the Original VJFB 3.0 for 10.50 EUR, a burger made of plant- based beef served with vegan cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onions and sauce. My main thoughts about the VJFB is that all their burgers are messy. There’s a lot of sauce and the burger plus toppings fall out of the bun. The actual burger also has less taste than in some other vegan burger establishments. The other thing I’m not keen on at the VJFB is the single- use serving plates and additional bits of plastic.

Messy eating but good marketing and a catchy logo at the Vegan Junk Food Bar

This is a completely subjective review of how I liked 3 different burgers I tried. If I had not been concentrating on burgers I woud also have visited Kebabi on the Overtoom. Kebabi has the same owner as the VJFB where their food is also available. I like their vegan shoarma much better than the VJFB burgers. Other places selling vegan fast food options in the neighbourhood include The Salsa Shop and Yummy Hummus. Mastino V offers vegan and gluten free pizzas on Bilderdijkstraat and there are several vegan items in De Hallen.

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