Despite having the privilege a few times now, I am always genuinely thankful to those who sign me on to the Yongsan US Army Base. It’s always nice to have a bit of home. So when a frequent commenter offered to take me on to base to review the Battleship Burger at the Navy Club I jumped at the chance.
I have been to the Navy Club once previously, so I knew a bit of what to expect. Its one of the nicer dining options on base, and cross between a good local bar and a well ran TGIFridays. That said you can imagine the décor (a cheesy mix of old signs and license plates, slightly less annoying than what you expect) and the menu (a baseline of American favorites combined with the dishes of the moment, note the low carb menu). Do not get me wrong it was all nicely done, just a little generic.
I ordered the Battleship with onion rings and paid US$6.25. It came with a nice, but expected, presentation. A big burger as the name implies, roughly a quarter to a third pounder of meat. Bacon and “white” American cheese on top with fixin’s on the side.
My only technical complaints are the beef a little bland and perhaps undercooked (to be fair I ordered it rare in the first place). Also, and perhaps this is just me, despite the size it was not as filling as one would imagine.
As you may be able to tell, the word for this review is ‘nice’. The burger was nice, very nice in some ways, but far from a top prize. The bun was nice, the bacon was nice, the fixin’s were nice, the price was nice, and in some ways event he patty was nice (thick but not too thick, thin but not too thin). But nothing was extremely good.
However the company was excellent. Thanks to both the guys who joined me. Identify yourself if you wish.
Bottom line, good burger and best so far, but I would like to think something is better than Korea. Also, with base access needed its tougher to get.
Navy Club: ***1/2
Yongsan Main Post
English Menus and English Spoken
Revisions
As I mentioned before, I think my expectations were a little low. When I came here it was tough to find anything decent burger wise. My first two reviews reflected this. Based on popular opinion I am going to set my sights higher (not on par with what I expect in the US, but higher), also after a few burgers under my belt, literally, I can rank things better. So the new rankings are:
Navy Club: ***1/2
Home(made) Burger: ***
Kraze Burger: * (would get two, but the price is serious handicap)
24 Comments
I want a Battleship burger too with those delicious looking onion rings!
Is a U.S. passport and an American Legion’s card enough to get on base, or do you need military ID? Does anyone know where the American Legion is located in Seoul?
–Remort
Yeah sure, everyone with a passport and an American Legion card can get on base.
my understanding is that to get on base, you must have someone with proper ID (and no, an American passport or other standard proofs are not good enough). you also need someone to sign you out. you’re not allowed to just leave.
it seems a bit extraneous to include this review in the round-up, as few foreigners have such offers to come around for a burger. when this is taken into account, i would think that the Navy Club burger would be docked an additional star (resulting in a **1/2 score) purely for being largely inaccessible to most people.
still, i always appreciate full-color burger porn …
Continuing on Remort’s question, can any previous service member get a “inactive reserve card” and walk into the base?
I am thinking about getting such an id card here in the States and use it next time I visit Korea. I like to walk around the Yongsan base and have the battleship burger myself.
If you’re really interested in finding out whether or not you can gain access to a USFK installation, you might look at USFK Reg 190-7, which sets out a number of ID requirements and classes of persons allowed on-base. As far as I can see, an American Legion card and passport doesn’t count as valid ID for unescorted access.
Only a USFK photo ID card will get you on base without an escort. Neither VFW nor Legion cards get you access to anything on base anymore.
I am not aware that there is an American Legion post in Korea unless it’s located at the Embassy. The only overseas posts I know of are in Mexico and Philippines.
VFW has a post about 500km north of Gate 3 on the east side of the base walking into Haebangchong.
It is possible to be sponsored for a guest pass if you have an American passport and can make up some special reason why you need regular access to post even if its just to utilize the library for some “official” research project. It will be a class A ID which means you cannot in turn escort anyone else onto post and it won’t get you into the PX or Commissary.
If you are actually in the IRR (read Individual Ready Reserve not Inactive Reserve) you can get a red military ID that gets you onto post. But that is usually only people completing the final period of their initial 8 year military obligation. I’ve never heard of someone actually extending in the IRR.
well, mines green
What Mr. Chips said seems to sum it up, but I should mention BIDS. You need to be in BIDS, and often this can be a catch 22. In order to get registered in BIDS you need base access, but to get base access you need to be registered in BIDS. Now, you could get in without it, or you could get your card confiscated…
Furthermore, the people running BIDS at the ACS tend to be a little flakey in allowing IRRists to sign up. I was lucky and went on a good day, and got a two year registration.
Anyway, I would just like to note that everything I’ve tried at the navy club was bland. And the fillipinas dancing around and singing were not cute to me. I prefer the burgers at Oasis(plus they have microbrew!) In particular the western burger which comes in 1/2lb and 1/3lb patties, is smothered in bbq sauce with thick greasy bacon on it! I usually forgo the crap like onions lettuce and tomato, because I like to watch the grease from it slowly dissolve the cheese and rundown.. mmmmmm I can just feel my arteries clogging thinking about it.
Anyway, I’m telling you this after you’ve blown your opportunity for base access on the Navy Club (poor soul), but rejoice! You don’t necessarily require base access to order one, send me e-mail for details… if you don’t already know.
Those of you w/o base access may join AMCHAM, if eligible. Once a member you may join another organization, I believe AUSA and get a base pass which allows you escort (up to 4?) guests. You may also get access for your vehicle, but usually these passes are limited and the wait may be long. You may also volunteer at the USO and perhaps the Red Cross, though there may not be escort and/or vehicle privileges. There is also the Korean-American Friendship Association (KAFA), though the membership fees are quite high. It’s all about the slot machines on base and golf at Sungnam, baby! It must be noted that the KAFA gives gifts to US soldiers every year–the past few years its been framed barbed wire, a treasured keepsake to pass down through the generations. Base passes need to be approved by the Provost Marshall’s Office (PMO).
No commissary, Class VI or PX privileges to those w/o SOFA, though you may note that there are a lot of non-US diplomatic license plates (001) parked at these locations. Nice that the US taxpayer is subsidizing the well being and good eating of foreign diplomats. Could be an interesting story for you reporter types out there.
I should note that if you walk into AMCHAM and tell them you want to join “‘cuz I want base access” you won’t get very far. It ain’t the base-pass pusher. Play it cool. Join, wait a bit, and then ask about AUSA membership.
This is essentially unfair, for the reason stated above. It’s an awesome burger, but outside of American military personnel, it’s available to only a few individuals, who pay low (or no?) tax on that excellent creation.
Is the Navy Club a private enterprise operating on base, or is it owned by the military? Does the military support its costs, or allow the restaurant to purchase foods from the military at lower-than-market rates? Couple those factors with a lower-than-market or no-cost lease agreement, and that burger should start to look like it does. Hardly fair.
Talk to your Korean Assemblyman. Until Koreans decide that they’re taxed enough (for food crissakes!) you’ll have to suffer with Kraze Burger. And like it!
The Navy Club is run by the Navy. It’s funded by the purchase of food, though the real estate is indirectly paid for by the USS Kitty Hawk.
OK. I’m the guy who signed the Dram Man on and if I were doing a review of the pastrami sandwich I’d advise against it. I have a pass good from 0800-2200 seven days a week with which I can sign on two guests. No PX or commissary privileges, just bars and restaurants.
Most people get an AMCHAM membership and then join AUSA for $130 a year to get a base pass. AMCHAM actually expects you to want a pass, so don’t be shy in asking for one.
The Navy Club obviously has an excess of funds due to, ahem, certain one-armed bandits on premises. They have a plethora of plasma-screened TVs and kitsch all over the place. They have Filipina singers most–if not all–evenings. It’s a great place to watch college football on a Sunday morning and they offer great omelettes for a reasonable price (Suji’s had good omelettes last time I checked, but cost 2-3 times as much, plus no football).
I think it’s reasonable to include the Battleship in this series since everyone but the Chinese (and perhaps other less savory nationalities) has the potential to get on base. Nike: Just do it.
Captbbq - What is the process to go about getting your IRR ID card? Will I need an escort to get me on base to actually receive the card and what kind of documentation is needed? I believe the only document I have with me at the time is my DD214…is that enought?
Well you should have received one when you were released form active duty. It should look the same as the old green laminated military ID cards they got rid of around 2002. When I had mine made it was one day after the expiration date on my military ID, so they confiscated it at the gate, but let with in with a voucher, where I then went to the inprocessing building where they make ID cards, showed them my dd214 and that was that. Being that I had just gotten out, it was no problem, maybe it will be no problem for you.
You will need an escort.
Dear Dram Man,
I would like to put my burger to the test. You can contact me at jollyrocsta@hotmail.com I know a few other bloggers on this site and maybe we could gather a few of them for a bbq.
so join AMCHAM for free, then AUSA for $130, then my Navy Club Battleship burger would be $136.25!
not a very good bargin, and certainly not three and a half stars at that price.
Uhh… AMCHAM’s not free. Your burger would be in the neighborhood of $700 if you were to amortize your expenses at once.
hahahaha! then it’s a $836.25 burger! (and that’s sick because no one should ever have to pay more than ten bucks for an awesome burger).
so …
… this needs a revision: Just do it if you have eight hundred and change.
fooey.
Wow, a several-hundred-dollar burger. Sounds like the price the US goverment would pay to private contractors to make a burger.
So, how about making your own burger? The meat is good here, the seasonings are available, along with all the toppings. The only thing that comes up blank in my mind is the bun. Guess you’d have to go to a hotel and buy some overpriced french bread, since the local bakeries usually, um, suck.
Don’t run down AMCHAM. For your W850,000 (or more) membership fee, you don’t just get the right to buy a base pass. You also get the privilege of attending rubber-chicken “networking lunches” for W60,000 each, your name signed — without anyone asking your opinion — to some AMCHAM policy selling out the interests of America and American businesses in favor of “good feelings” for the Koreans (for example, the visa waiver endorsement), plus a “free” — yet still a bad value, when you consider your time spent reading it — monthly magazine advising you of the latest places Tami Overby has smoked a cigar and the up-to-the-minute report on how former AMCHAM Presidente-for-Life JEFFREY D. JONES has personally usurped the credit for your donations to the Partners for the Future Foundation. There is, of course, the AMCHAM Ball where you get to put on a tuxedo and laugh it up with other executives once a year; at the Ball you’ll get to cheer and applaud JEFFREY D. JONES’ latest self-congratulatory award. They do put on some golf tournaments, also titled JEFFREY D. JONES. Oh, and that excellent phone directory (but no other publications at all, unlike other AMCHAMs around Asia — despite a staff of 20). Of course, try to understand that you probably won’t get to vote in AMCHAM elections, and that the accounts of the organization are TOP SECRET (CODEWORD), even from its own Board of Governors. Compare to what the EU Chamber of Commerce produces with your membership fee (just a bunch of informative publications), and try to see the value. Can those Euroweenies get you access to the excellent onion rings at the Navy Club? (Them rings look goooood.) I think not!
That, my friend, is an awesome summary of AMCHAM’s current state. Lapdogs the powers-that-be are. I belonged years ago, socialized w/ Tami’s younger sister (smokin’ hot BTW–genes must have been huffin’ glue the day Tami was assembled), and saw AMCHAM morph from an organization that stood up for US interests to one that advances Korea’s. From ‘88 to ‘97 AMCHAM actually had some backbone–can’t speak of pre ‘88.
Jeffrey Jones scholarships, Jeffrey Jones golf tournaments, Global Korea award recipient Jeffrey Jones, yada yada. Don’t want to get any Mormon’s magical panties in a knot, but by having a Mormon (or any other cult member) leading what should be a secular organization you have someone with his own (and his cult’s) agenda.
Of interest is that he takes credit of “narrowing the emotional gap” between Korea and the US since 1998; if you believe that you believe in magical panties.
Wedge convinced me about the value of a base pass. AMCHAM’s dues for individuals run W530,000 annually, and AUSA’s are $130 a year. What is that - twelve thousand and change a week? It’s steep if you just go by yourself for a burger, but if you’re going a couple of times a week for dinner and drinks, or with friends or family (to the Navy Club, or any other restaurant), the savings are there.
A good burger is essentially very easy to make. Given you got some “Grade A” beef.
The important thing to do is to flatten it out and make it bigger than the bun, so as it cooks (and shrinks) it fits the bun. There is nothing more unpleasant than eating a “golf ball” burger.
Also, you need: Crisp lettuce, crisp onion (I like to dice mine–with garlic–and knead it into the meat before cooking) fresh tomatoes, and a good–make that FRESH–bun. Not that full of preservative shit that comes wrapped in plastic at the local conveniencse store.
Finally, if you want a cheeseburger, you’re probably out of luck. Koreans wouldn’t know decent cheese if it hit them upside the head. At all costs avoid those “Velveeta squares” wrapped in plastic.
The cheese question is interesting. First, nothing sucks more than unmelted cheese on a burger, particuraly if its the chedder Americans go for in these cases (real chedder is a very poor choice). Colby has a simular problem. Monterrey Jack is too bland to stand up to beef. And anything else just seems like overkill at best, pearls to swine at worst (I cringe at Bleu Cheese burgers).
Er go, I am kind of amviliant, if not inclined, to American/Velveta.