Hey Steempress!
Since all my food posts have mostly been about Singapore food I thought I'd change it up a little and write about the food we ate in Finland! I was in Finland for about 4 months on an exchange program and we got to try a lot of different (and delicious) food. đ Enjoy!
Our very first meal in Finland was from a Finnish fast food chain called Hesburger!
Our exchange buddy, Hilma, drove us here from our apartment as it was pretty late, and even in our small town it would've been quite far to walk. We were also really hungry after unpacking and cleaning our apartment.
Hesburger has quite a wide selection, with many different types of hamburgers, salads and sides, like McDonalds. They also have various shakes and even tortillas, which was what Hilma recommended. I like that their menu is pretty accommodating for people with different dietary preferences; so you can choose if you want your meal to be dairy-free, lactose-free, gluten-free or even egg-free!
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Anyway, we decided to order a chicken burger set and a chicken tortilla set, each of which comes with a drink and fries. It was reeeeeally delicious but the burger was pretty huge; easily 1.5x the size of a normal burger in Singapore. Even between the 2 of us we could barely finish the whole meal.
When I found out that Hesburger was actually based in Finland and is a Finnish brand, I was pretty impressed. I guess I was too used to imported brands in Singapore (thanks to globalisation). What impressed me even more was when I found out that Hesburger is the largest hamburger restaurant chain in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; even bigger than McDonalds!
So Hesburger actually started in 1966 (while McD started in 1940) when 20-year old Heikki Salmela opened a street food kiosk in Naantali, a small town in south-western Finland. He later opened the first Hesburger in 1980 on Kristiinankatu in Turku, which became the first element of the first fast food restaurant chain in Finland.
In 1980s fast food became more popular and they experienced massive growth. After making a huge profit selling the business and buying it back during the recession (smart move Salmela), Hesburger expanded from only 12 outlets in 1992 to over 200 outlets within the next decade. Now Hesburger has restaurants in 10 countries; not as many as McDonalds, but I'd say they have a pretty firm standing in Finland so they're not gonna be taken over anytime soon.
I read that they've even expanded their services to include HeseKebabs (kebab products), HesePesu (car wash) and even HeseHotelli (hotel). It's surprising that a fast food restaurant is offering these services. I'm not sure how successful they are compared to their main fast food business but I guess it's pretty complementary; especially the car wash with their drive-in service.
I think we ate Hesburger quite a few times and one of our favourite things to order is actually the soy strips.
Obviously neither of us are vegetarian because we love meat too much, and I'm not 100% sure if this is vegetarian, but it's actually really yummy! đ You can't even tell that it's not meat! The spices they used in the batter make the strips so savoury and delicious, they make a good snack! 10/10 would recommend
me when I smell food
That's all for now! Thanks for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://tacocat.vornix.blog/2018/07/19/tacocats-tacocats-treats-8-what-to-eat-in-finland-hesburger-%f0%9f%8d%94/