If you enjoy a really good burger and are not too fussy about ambience and decor, then Dudes Burger is the place for you.
It is very well situated on the south edge of the city square which is the hub of all outdoor and free entertainment in Netanya.
The brains behind Dudes and the hands-on owner is Daniel Raymond, whose authentic North London accent belies the fact that he made aliyah with his parents at the age of eight, went through the Israeli school system and served in the army as a combat soldier.
He opened Dudes not too long ago and has been doing a big takeaway business. The menu is not large – actually it’s just burgers and chips, or hot dogs and chips, but in many different incarnations.
A short menu of fantastic quality
Every burger and hot dog comes with a small standard salad consisting of lettuce, tomato, pickled cucumber and purple onion. The house sauce for each burger is made from 30 different ingredients, and the recipe is more secret than the existence of Israel’s putative atom bomb.
Every burger is 200 gr. standard weight, and the variations are in the additions, of which there are a countless number. The meat is glatt kosher from Beit Yosef in the Golan Heights, and it arrives fresh every day to be ground up into the burgers “in situ.”
There’s the “Classic,” the “Hawaii” (pineapple and jalapeno), “Cool Dude” with coleslaw and fried onion, “Mexica” with guacamole and chipotle, “French” with mayonnaise and garlic, and “English Dudes,” which comes with a fried egg on top.
Prices vary from NIS 65 for just the burger to NIS 85 for a meal with french fries. These are not the ubiquitous frozen variety one usually gets; they come from Holland and are definitely a cut above.
There are many more variations, too numerous to mention. Also, the hot dogs are delicious, fat and juicy, and full of flavor. We sampled several of both the burgers and the hot dogs and found everything very good.
Dudes Burger does a very brisk trade in takeaway, with helmeted motorcyclists coming and going all the time. But we actually enjoyed sitting on the wooden benches and getting the youthful vibe.
Depending on what you choose, a meal with a soft drink or a beer will cost somewhere between NIS 75 and NIS 85. All in all, a very good value for your hard-earned shekel.
Dudes Burger4 Hakarminyan 4, Netanya.Tel. (09) 765-3110Open: Sun.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-1 a.m.; Friday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; Saturday, after Shabbat until 1 a.m.Kashrut: Netanya Rabbinate
The writer was a guest of the restaurant.