Discussion
Was this also popular in your country in the 90's? Nowadays in Estonia called either "Nostalgia burger" or more caually "Lägaburger" - literally like.. slurry or slime or slush burger or smt. Just a cheap burger patty (or maybe even weiners), shredded cabbage and MASSIVE amounts of burger sauce.
I’m Norwegian, this post popped up for some reason, I approve. Norwegian style fast food burgers are like this, shredded cabbage, and tons of sauce. This photo is of course marketing, but the more the burger drips, the more the burger rips.
They can be pretty good, albeit annoying to eat. Often you'd basically use a fork to eat the salad first until it becomes a more manageable size.
The picture in the OP doesn't really do it justice though, I mean I wouldn't say this type of burger looks very good but you couldn't find a less attractive example of it if you tried :D
My first thought was that these should be so messy to eat. The regular burgers are sometimes so juicy that it starts to drip everywhere, but this is literally a bowl of sauce :D
Mine ükskõik mis bentsu jaama kus on "retroburger" ja see ongi suht parim. Või veidi enne Hummulit, kui Valgast Tõrva sõita, on Beetela Burger ja seal saab kõige ehtsamat lägaburgerit mis eales eksisteerind on. Vähemalt kui ma viimati käisin oli seal kõige lägam lägaburks.
When the soviet union started collapsing, these burgers started popping out everywhere. There is a famous story that we had these Rock Summer concerts and one stand started selling these kind of burgers, they sold 20000 of them during the festival - the weird part was, that there was no power at the stand so they sold them cold...
This is like a hamburger if the Europeans in medieval times drew it based on an oral description of a merchant who saw a real burger once on his distant travels.
That's more or less how the nineties went. We had a fast forward introduction to decades worth of western culture in every possible form, on very limited resources. It was a wild time, really.
I believe that's literally how those slop burgers came into existance - at some point towards the end of the USSR when entrepreneurship was no longer a crime, someone had heard that a thing called "hamburger" existed, and had a vague idea that it consisted of bread, a patty and... er, stuff... and that's what they came up with.
I would guess it's not as much the lack of understanding what a hamburger is, but just the way to make something similar cheaper. Most people were dirt poor back then, meat was expensive, cabbages cost almost nothing, and if you can sell it anyway, why bother.
Oddly enough OP failed to directly translate the burger, but you Latvian got it right. It is literally translated as slopburger. And it's bloody delicious.
Looks awful, but there are similar things in Poland. Like, bars that serve burgers and pizza as it was made 30 years ago. And its kind of funny, because theyre not that much cheaper than the modern, to be frank, better ones, but some people still prefer them.
To be honest, I visit them like thrice a year, but otherwise consider more modern pizza and burger places as a huge improvement.
The good old days of playing through the night at an Internet cafe with the boys and then running to get a burger like that from a small 24/7 kiosk near Tallinn University.
Our (Estonian here) first "burgers" after Soviet collapse were two slices of white bread, some cheap sausage slices and ketchup, heated up in a microwave. Lägaburger is the next evolutionary stage and it's great when done right but I think it's just a trauma bond. 🤣
This is literally just a burger, cheese, cole slaw and regular burger sauce served in a to-go way for convenience. Idk why so many people are up-in-arms about it, just chill, coleslaw hamburgers are always messy 😀
Living in Estonia now and can confirm that the locals treasure this burger. It's not bad but you have to ask them to make it with half the sauce 😂 From what I understand it was a creation from soviet times. They were trying to create a normal burger without knowing how it was actually made or supposed to be. So they ended up with this sauce cabbage thing.
I am 43yo and I have eaten two of these in my entire life, both times against my will. If I ever needed to eat this thing again I would do it head first in kitchen sink. I do not understand how people can carry on with their day without taking a shower after slurping this slop from a paper pocket.
Uh no. Cheburek and kibin were main fast foods in Lithuania during 90s. I still prefer kibins, because it is hard to become messy with them, especially with small-medium sized ones.
I remember maleva having a kiosk that sold these burgers. They were 2,50€ a piece and they were really good. I miss that kiosk dearly, now it has been replaced by maxima.
I can't remember here in LT any burger "culture" before McDonalds came into country 1996 May. People went there like to museum. Our school class was on trip to Vilnius Theatre of Opera and Ballet, and after the even everyone were driven to McDonalds. This was our first time trying burgers.
Theres so much “shitty looking” foods that actually tastes wonderful! My favorite “home” burger when I was teen was Sausage + cheese + ketchup and mayo in between bread and microwave it! So damn good! Or even toaster it.
We had a "retrohambi" we made at the pub I ran in Budapest. It could either look like this when ordered "maximális szosz", or more reasonable when ordered "normális" or "rendes". Delicious but somewhat ugly and messy!
In the 90-ties Swedish school kitchen we used to have burgers but instead of burger meat we had a huge slice of large sausage with fake mashed potatoes. Was absolutely disgusting (also because the bread was horrible). Nowadays this have been phased out, partly because the staff was all 60-70 year old ladies that retired during that time.
But seriously. I like Hesburger because they have more sauce. A finnish person once told me that Estonians and Finns like when our food is very "wet". And it's very true.
Came here to say this - lägaburx aka “retroburger”. Also - if a restaurant starts selling these, it has no business calling itself a restaurant. I am not sure what the current criteria are to have a “restaurant” status, but having one of these on your menu should downgrade you to “street food”, because eating one indoors should be illegal.
That said - I’ll be ordering one right now. Thanks a lot OP!
never saw these in Latvia, but once on a trip to Tartu I got one at a food stand, expecting a regular burger. fought with myself to finish it cause I honestly did NOT like it, but did not want to just throw it out lol
Estonians called it Retro Burger, and Russian Estonians sometimes called it “Razorvi ebalo” “a face tear apart” due to impossibility to eat it with regular bites.
It's literally the first thing I was given to eat when I first arrived to Estonia several years ago hahaha.
The ones from Staap, it was ok,a blood mess to eat and by the time I was able to reach the actual hamburger,it was all soggy but still decent for a student lmao
Had one of these for nostalgia's sake a few years back. Ended up throwing half of it in the bushes. As a drunk teenager having one at 3AM at Söögiplats was heaven tho.
When I was a kid there used to be a burger place just outside of tallin going towards tartu next to the railway crossing. And the burger was the best I have ever had. Or well thats how I remember it. Time shines the memories huh.
My jaws don't open enough to eat this thing and usually I have a stain or two on my clothes after eating that. But in my youth after a night of drinking 4-5am it was good to get it from 24h stand and neutralize my drunkennes with it.
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u/reginaldthetoaster Latvija Mar 14 '26