How do you even begin to describe a house? Do I need to describe the juicy meat first? Maybe the way the vegetables are cleverly placed under the patty? The excitement before every special? The disappointments from some specials that won’t come back? Or maybe I should start from another restaurant altogether.
My good friend Shahar and I wanted to go to Track de Luxe (the late one), where we planned to eat a buffalo meat hamburger, because of course we would eat a buffalo meat hamburger. It was only on the way there that we discovered that the restaurant was closed during lunch hours, so we took a taxi towards Porter & Sons to check out another dish which we wanted to try (shrimp wrapped in bacon, for all the curious). But on the way, a large yellow sign caught our eyes, like a sun or a cheeseburger in an overhead view. We told the driver to stop and went inside. I didn’t expect too much, since when does a hamburger blow my mind? It must be another Agadir or Moses, I thought. But I didn’t imagine the softness of the bun or that the toppings would waltz with the meatball inside my mouth. Everything suddenly made sense. All the stars lined up in the sky. And I realized that I had found a home.
you make me feel special Port 19’s special (photo: from the Facebook page)
A week later we went back there for the special – then it was a Portobello and Cheddar special, today it is already on the menu regularly. We decided to come back every month for every special that comes out, and since then we haven’t missed a single special. We were with Port 19 all the way. We were there when they opened another branch, we ordered from there in Corona and participated in the photography contests they held. We even won them (because we set up HML and made sure to bully everyone we know into voting for us). Sometimes they would recognize me as “the one from the Port competition”, and so it turned out that we just ate there for free for a year. To this day I remember the caramelized watermelon special, a special I dreaded because I was afraid to try something new, but as soon as I took the first bite, it jumped to the top of the specials ranking. Heck, even the hot dog special was excellent.
What a special. Port 19 (Photo: PR)
As in every house, there were also disappointments in this house. We were disappointed when they changed chefs, We were disappointed with the special bun And we were disappointed when we found out that the caramelized watermelon special is not being brought back, but rather the shrimp and cheddar special remains on the menu. The fort accompanied me through the highs and lows. We would go to Fort to celebrate and to mourn and never give up a special.
I know that some of the things I write here may sound like criticism, and maybe someone on their behalf reads this, and gets upset about the special bun (I’m sorry, I don’t know what was going through your mind – it’s not wedding catering), but what is a home if not a place where you Celebrating, mourning, enjoying and also being disappointed. The port not only taught me what a delicious hamburger is, it also taught me about friendship and in the end, even when I eat a hamburger abroad – it’s hard for me not to compare it to the port’s hamburger. The food is from home.