It may come as a shock to you that I’m trying to get healthier. I’m not getting any younger and, with medical procedures and medicines getting more and more expensive every year, I’m now actively doing a lot more to, at the very least, take better care of myself. I’ve started exercising much more seriously and I do try to watch what I eat nowadays. Problem is, even with all of that, I’m still the chronically skinny geek I’ve been since time immemorial.

What does all of that have to do with this week’s Burger Month entry? Well, since health has become a priority as of late, I decided to mix it up. Burgers have generally gotten a bad rap for being unhealthy so, for this week’s Burger Month selection, I made a dedicated search for a burger place that touts to have “healthy” burgers. And, apparently, there is one here in the Philippines. The place is called H.I.D. Burgers and H.I.D. stands for “Healthy and Irresistibly Delicious.” It has “healthy” right in the name! But what about the “Irresistibly Delicious” part? We’ll see about that!

I do have to mention that I initially thought the H.I.D. acronym meant that they “hid” the place really well because I went to the one in the Makati area and it was rather hard to find! Even if the place has a large sign showing you’ve arrived, it’s not in a very prominent location. You kind of have to go through a long hallway with only a few signs instructing you where to go. Once you do find H.I.D. Burger, you will be greeted with a rather canteen-like atmosphere. The place isn’t fancy at all, which is fine by me!

The selection over there is rather good; H.I.D. has a decent number of burgers and you can upgrade your regular “deluxe” burger to the “premium” size for a double patty or go even bigger for the “beastmode.” If you’re one of those guys who are looking to cut down on carbs, you can also switch to a low-carb version which replaces the bread (it’s not your regular hamburger bun but I’ll talk more about that later) with a lettuce wrap.

Among the items available, I decided to go with the HID BLT Burger for a couple of simple reasons. One, it has bacon in it, which automatically makes me more interested because bacon. Two, it’s the one that I assumed that has the most vegetables in it. Trying to be a little bit more healthy, remember? Even so, I just had to order the HID BLT Burger with a side of potato wedges. Hey, I wanna live longer but I wanna enjoy my life, too!

After a few minutes, I got my HID BLT Burger with side of potato wedges. I forgot to mention that I went for the “premium” size, which meant I got two burger patties and, when I first saw the HID BLT Burger, I thought I made a miscalculation as it was rather huge! The burger was really large and I wasn’t really sure if I could finish it! I will say that H.I.D. Burgers are really generous with their serving sizes and, considering the prices were rather low (at around 170 Philippines pesos, which is less than $4 US currency).

Looks are apparently deceiving… or I was incredibly hungry… because I did finish it with ease. And, sadly, I have issues. For one, the burger patties are very dry! Well, I kind of expected the beef patties to have not that much fat because they’re going for a healthy vibe. But it just wasn’t tasty because there wasn’t any fat. They seem to try to make up for this by adding spices to the meat. At least, that’s what I think because the beef doesn’t taste like “pure” beef. Whatever the case may be, the dry beef patties were a disappointment.

H.I.D. Burgers don’t seem to be using your traditional hamburger bun. They use a large pandesal. It’s very common to see pandesal in the Philippines and it typically the bread of choice over here. You can think of it like a small oval loaf that’s covered in breadcrumbs. Of course, the pandesal they use at H.I.D. are much larger than the regular sized one you’d normally see here as it has to contain a burger. I admire them for going this direction but it’s the way they use it that doesn’t impress me. They didn’t even seem to toast it to give it nice, charred crust. Point for creativity but I have to remove a point for not doing all you can with this creativity.

Not everything about the HID BLT was bad, though. The bacon, while not being crispy and generally having a jerky-like consistency, did taste really good. Then again, it is bacon so that should be a given. The vegetables were also good. The lettuce wasn’t soggy and the tomatoes were really juicy but I do wish they were cut a little bit thinner. Instead of using cheese slices, the HID BLT came with a cheese sauce that really tasted good. Also, since it’s a cheese sauce, it does “flow” through the entire burger and spread evenly throughout and in-between the burger patties. I normally don’t like mayo on my burgers but, even though it was there, it was a non-factor thanks to the generous amount of cheese sauce.

Although the HID BLT was a letdown, the potato wedges fared much better. While the serving size wasn’t as generous as the HID BLT’s size, the potato wedges had a lot of flavor and tasted great but, ultimately, nothing really unique. They were basically potato wedges coated with the thing they use for curly fries. Still, I really like curly fries and they were cooked really well so I can’t really complain. I will grumble about the dipping sauce, which is probably just mayo and catsup mixed together. It tasted rather cheap.

Before I do close this up and give my final thoughts, I do have one question: is H.I.D. Burgers actually selling “healthy” burgers? While they can probably say that they are because there’s not much fat in their burgers, my issue is with the “artificial” feeling I got with the burger I ordered. Cheese sauce instead of real cheese? A lot of mayo? I guess there are better options that do use actual cheese but I just found it weird that, since they had “healthy” in their name, they would go all out and use more natural ingredients.

Ultimately, I don’t really recommend HID Burgers because, simply put, I don’t like the burger patties and how dry they were. I will say that you do get a lot for a rather low price when compared to other burger places. But that’s just not enough for me to come back. “Healthy?” I can debate that. “Irresistibly Delicious?” Nope!

Have you tried eating at HID Burger? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments section below!