Since 2017, Tulio Zuloaga, more generally recognized as Tulio Recomienda created an event where the best burgers in the country competed to be declared the best burger in town. This event is known as The Burger Master where all hamburgers are priced equally and are distributed with the same chips and drinks in order to provide the best comparison points. The burger cannot be altered when ordered and restaurants may not cook fries during this period, because making a batch of fries takes the same amount of time that cooking a burger, this is carried out for time sake. This past week from April 30th to the 6th of May, this event took place again, and it was bigger than ever, acknowledging that Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, and Bogotá were competing alongside Medellín.

Over 300,000 people in Colombia were the judges this year at the Burger Master. The burger that stood out for me the most this year was from The Grill Station Burger, The Grill Station Burger is a restaurant that has three locations in Medellín Colombia, and is ranked 65 out of 1,240 restaurants in Medellín by TripAdvisor, this year and last year, The Grill Station Burger took part alongside other 42 burgers in Medellín’s Burger Master. The burger they presented out this year was the “Original Master Edition” that had double Brangus meat, double cheddar cheese, Chala bread, Monterrey cheese, smoked bacon slices, crunchy onions, tomato, lettuce mix, and the original Jack Daniel’s sauce that brought the burger all together.

The lines to get into The Grill Station Burger were just as long as the lines to get to the other restaurants that competed in this event. When placed at the table the service was as quick as it could be but not as rapid as the first burger that I tried in the Burger Master that was Voler. The Grill Station Burger took approximately 20 minutes to serve the burger once we were placed in the table, and in the other restaurants that I’ve been in it had been taking approximately 10 minutes or fewer not including line time. The waiting time in each restaurant varies depending on the demand for each of the restaurants and in which place it came in last year in the competition or if it is fresh in the competition. The Grill Station Burger was one of the top burgers last year, Thus the lines were longer since it had higher expectations. The wait on The Grill Station Burger is not unpleasurable because there’s a game that helps kill time in every table and the overall ambiance of the restaurant is remarkable.

Personally I had a poor experience with the service because there were lots of people and the order was not too off but it was not quite right, some orders that were in a combo were brought in as a single burger but when there are many people in a single table (7 for my situation) and you’re picking up more orders per day than the number of orders you are used to receiving, it is completely understandable, comparing this service to Barrio burger, one of the many fellow competitors, the service in barrio burger was better, in my experience in barrio burger, they ran out of ingredients while we were in line but a worker from the restaurant came, greeted us and gave us candy approximately every 15 minutes until the ingredients were back and they were ready to start serving again. Also, the waiter was very cautious with our order, and we had a very nice and friendly service, one of the best services in a restaurant, especially having in mind the hectic these couple of days have probably been for them.

When comparing the tastes, The Grill Station Burger’s flavors mixed together wonderfully, having in mind there were many more ingredients than the other two, voler’s burger was way simpler and barrio burger’s burger was very hard to eat I give this burger a 4 out of 5 because of its flavour, different textures, service, ambiance in the restaurant and overall experience.