TEMPLE TERRACE \u2014 With the Burger Wars on the horizon \u2014 we see you, Cook Out and Culver\u2019s \u2014 we decided it was time to get a jump on checking out the combatants.<\/p>\n
So, I had a burger at Haddaburger, which bills itself as the first halal smash burger place in Tampa.<\/p>\n
The latest burger joint to open in Temple Terrace is the brainchild of co-owner Hassan Diab and his business partners, who took over the spot formerly occupied by Abbott\u2019s Frozen Custard on 56th Street.<\/p>\n
Diab built a rep selling his Dubai cheese halal burgers and homemade sauces out of the SandWishy food truck in Land O\u2019 Lakes, though his dream was to own a brick-and-mortar restaurant.<\/p>\n
Whereas many burger joints may do too much, Diab is content doing just enough, and doing it well. And it\u2019s paying off, he says. The day HaddaBurger opened, folks stacked up for a try, and it\u2019s been busy ever since.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing good,\u201d Diab says.<\/p>\n
The Burger<\/p>\n
Smash burgers are the star of this one-man play. Diab\u2019s plan was to make it better, bolder and halal.<\/p>\n
The restaurant uses carefully selected beef with an 80\/20 meat-to-fat ratio. Because it\u2019s halal, it\u2019s a \u201cclean\u201d fat, with great marbling, Diab explains. So the burger doesn\u2019t need oil added to the grill; the fat in the meat does the work and carries the flavor.<\/p>\n
The patties, in fact, are minimally seasoned. Instead of the usual salt-pepper-garlic trio, he uses a blend of spices that are already on the market, but are used mostly for soups.<\/p>\n
Thin-sliced onions and jalapenos are smashed into the patty. Cheese is the primary topping.<\/p>\n
If you want lettuce and tomato on your burger, you\u2019re out of luck. In fact, there\u2019s not a trace of either in the whole restaurant.<\/p>\n
The meat is king, with add-ons like beef bacon and mushrooms and comes in single, double and triple patties.<\/p>\n
Taste Test<\/p>\n
We ordered a single burger and three doubles, with a side of fries and some Cajun corn ribs.<\/p>\n
All four burgers disappeared quickly. We topped one of them with mushrooms, and on the others poured on a few of the four made-daily sauces \u2014 the Hadda Special, Hadda Umami, Hadda Heat and Hadda Ranch.<\/p>\n
Diab says he has been working on the sauces for a few years. The Special was great, and the Heat was well done and not obnoxious. Diab says the Umami goes perfectly with mushrooms. We did not try the Ranch, which Diab says leans heavily on the dill flavor. He warns some people may not recognize the Ranch sauce if they are used to the bottled stuff, which he says is bland.<\/p>\n
No one had any trouble finishing their burger (they were a decent size, not crazily large or anything, however). The fries had a strong tinge of cayenne, but were nice. The corn ribs had so much potential, but weren\u2019t heated properly. Does that mean we didn\u2019t finish them all? No, no it does not.<\/p>\n
We also tried, and nearly fought over, the Desert Gold, a shake made with Biscoff Ice Cream and Biscoff spread and the Arabian Classic, made with Pistachio ice cream and dates.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll go back for the Gulf Sunset (mango ice cream and rosewater) and Golden Spread (saffron ice cream and caramel) another time.<\/p>\n
Diab said the ice creams are made at a nearby factory and carefully tested to achieve the perfect flavors.<\/p>\n
Pro Tip<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve ever seen my messy-fingers-averse wife happier than when she noticed HaddaBurger has plastic gloves to wear when you eat your burger. I found the burger to be juicy but not enough that I needed gloves, and besides, who doesn\u2019t like a messy burger? She, however, was delighted to have clean fingers after devouring her double patty. Either way, it\u2019s a fantastic and useful gimmick.<\/p>\n
Pricing<\/p>\n
Four burgers, one order of fries, one Cajun corn, three sauces, one shake: a little over $70 bucks. It felt expensive, but when is going out to eat not these days?<\/p>\n
Final Verdict<\/p>\n
Was this the best smash burger we\u2019ve ever had? Well, we\u2019ve decided it\u2019s definitely in the conversation and we need to go back to settle the debate, and maybe try a triple patty and an order of the Dubai cheese fries just to be sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEMPLE TERRACE \u2014 With the Burger Wars on the horizon \u2014 we see you, Cook Out and Culver\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[17519,3081,3082,52087,17523,3078,3079,90544,90545,52086,276,135,137,136,8609,17522],"class_list":["post-195020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-beacon-bites","tag-cooking","tag-cuisine","tag-culver","tag-food-and-drink-preparation","tag-food-watchlist-articles","tag-foods","tag-haddaburger","tag-halal-cuisine","tag-hamburger","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-temple-terrace","tag-western-cuisine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}