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Home is where the heart is. If that statement were to be taken literally with a mild hint of a non-existent comedic rhetoric, I would be the proud owner of over a hundred different properties on the island. Over the course of four years, a list of prominence has been established in the Brobdingnagian brain of mine for the one place to be for any and all kinds of food. Ramen? Just head down to [redacted] for some soulful soups and noods. Craving dim sum? My incorporeal form recommends [redacted] for their hearty xiaolongbao spread. Hopefully, from the moment you laid eyes on the photograph heading this very long chunk of words that entail, you may intelligently assume that we’re going to be talking about the one place for burgers.
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The place in mind is a home away from home, a dim and dusky retreat with an iconic no-bullshit attitude and boldness that is apparent in their burgers. With classic kickass burgers like The Yolo ($18.50++) which features gloriously greasy layers of Spam, fried egg, fried onion strings, fried mozzarella cheese sticks nestled between an innocent sesame seed bun, the Fat Boys legion does the basics well and they do it right. Straying from the norm is The Elvis ($11.50++), a burger that defies purity with its juicy bacon-stuffed pork patty topped with grilled bananas and slathered with peanut butter. Unorthodox, but with all things coming out of the kitchen under their roof, delicious.
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My personal favourite throughout the years remains to be a staple of what I believe to be a burger of the utmost perfect proportions. Their Shroom Melt ($13.80++) features a thick and juicy beef chuck patty that is then topped with sautéed shiitake mushrooms, melted Swiss cheese, and garlic aioli on a wine-hued chia seed wholemeal bun. In addition to the sheer melt-in-your-mouth goodness that the buttery bundle of joy exudes, a personal touch of truffle mayonnaise and beef chilli cheese fries make for a complete and perfect mid-week cheat meal. Great place for great food and a great life thereafter.

Anyone who recalls me from my secondary school days would know that I loved cheeseburgers. Scratch that, I was obsessed with them. I was also fascinated by the components that came together to make the perfect bite from the texture of the buns to the crunchiness of the pickles within. As Aristotle said (fun fact: he didn’t exactly say it, but rather implied a similar idea in his Metaphysics journal as I discovered while writing a paper on Gestalt psychology about four months ago desperately attempting to source the saying but anyways), “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. One could say that the parts of the cheeseburger served at Hammee’s came together to create a much greater whole in the form of a delicious, no-frills cheeseburger. Their Signature Beef Cheeseburger ($6 for single, $8 for double) comes with a set of fries, with the burger being the star of the show, of course. Using a handmade beef patty that consists of a blend of beef chuck tender and beef brisket and fried using in-house rendered beef tallow (essentially beef fat), every bite of the burger is a delight alongside the buttery toasted buns, sweet and savoury caramelized onions, gooey melted American Cheese and briny bursts of pickled jalapeños to keep things interesting. If you’re looking for a cheap, consistent and overall honest-to-God burger with all the works, head down to Hammee’s and satisfy your cravings just as I had.