Shake Shack Attack
...Or the story of how I queued for an hour for a single sloppy burger.
Two items of interest whilst queuing. Firstly I'm just in front of some pony tailed son of the sixties who is getting passive aggressive telling his mother about the history of the said Shack. Awakening one ear from hibernation I learn that this is shack mark two. Apparently it attained such popularity early on that they closed it down and excavated underneath to create subterranean store caves of buns, burgers and perhaps soylent green mincers that magically feed the forty thousand queuing outside. Second item is the tv screens surrounding the seating area that segue through a barely visible sequence of coloured circles but more interesting play a single bar of the bass riff from the Fire Walk With Me bar scene. For sure.
I get my cardboard pallet with a rather restrained looking solitary burger whilst others carry away potato thickened and cheese melted towers fit to clog the arteries of an entire football team (american or soccar - take your pick). They also do shakes (duh), fries and concretes. None of which I have dared to touch as it's T minus four days to an Italian lake-side holiday. The fries weirdly are of the crinkle cut variety and not the expected shoe string. The concretes I would normally have been tempted to try - these are super thick 'custard' ice creams with all manner of add ons. I am not sure whether it is madness or genius but there is a pooch shake for dogs too (an insane man is sane in an insane world?).
And the culmination of all this? Yeah, it certainly is sloppy but damn it is also good. I've gone for the double shake burger which is two patties and as they cook medium (when in Rome) this means there's no pink centre or meat ooze. But hey, that's sloppy burger territory. It still tastes beefy so this is no particularly loss. The American cheese is spot on and combined with the shack sauce conspire to create an alarmingly delicious and buttery mix that spills over my fingers and face. I literally drink my last bite before working my way through the obligatory finger suck. My overall impression is of a McDonalds double cheese burger but on steroids. Perhaps not the best of analogies as the reverse is more likely - these guys make a big deal out of the fact that their beef is organic aberdeen angus raised without any weird science shit. So, what I'm trying to say is that this is good like the best of Maccy D double cheese burgers when you really want it but times ten. Where does it fit into the London best burger scene? Hmmm... no comment.
Well, truth be told it was more like 45 minutes to get to the shack then another 15 for the order. Bizarrely, I wasn't clock watching or finger knawing in the slightest. I think I'd somehow managed to lull myself into a zen like food queue trance, imagining myself maybe as an intergalactic space traveller held in cryogenic freeze, fleeing from a meat ravaged world where no burger survives, blasting through cold deep space on a lonely mission, waiting for signs of bovine life to be picked up by the ships sensors, slowly awakening, and then... Mmmmmm... Uh, Where was I?
So what was this meat packing New Eden I waited so patiently for? Shake Shack in Madison Gardens - THE New York sloppy burger mecca. When I eventually found this fabled shack I was not in the slightest bit surprised to find the queue curling a good fifty metres from the line A order window, wrapping around the side of the footpath. That was coming up to midday and sitting here now an hour and a bit later the queue has nearly doubled and is touching the park gate (looking around again to verify I can see that actually it reaches beyond but our eager shackers are observing good queuing etiquette and have formed a break around the gate). I guess I knew this hence falling straight into line without so much as a whimper (and would have looked a bit weird whimpering to myself).
Two items of interest whilst queuing. Firstly I'm just in front of some pony tailed son of the sixties who is getting passive aggressive telling his mother about the history of the said Shack. Awakening one ear from hibernation I learn that this is shack mark two. Apparently it attained such popularity early on that they closed it down and excavated underneath to create subterranean store caves of buns, burgers and perhaps soylent green mincers that magically feed the forty thousand queuing outside. Second item is the tv screens surrounding the seating area that segue through a barely visible sequence of coloured circles but more interesting play a single bar of the bass riff from the Fire Walk With Me bar scene. For sure.
Item of interest three (I'm throwing in an additional 50% for free), after placing my order and parting with my greens I'm given an electronic key, which by the power of Comic Sans (okay, not quite but scarily close), tells me it will flash and vibrate when my order is ready. It does.
I get my cardboard pallet with a rather restrained looking solitary burger whilst others carry away potato thickened and cheese melted towers fit to clog the arteries of an entire football team (american or soccar - take your pick). They also do shakes (duh), fries and concretes. None of which I have dared to touch as it's T minus four days to an Italian lake-side holiday. The fries weirdly are of the crinkle cut variety and not the expected shoe string. The concretes I would normally have been tempted to try - these are super thick 'custard' ice creams with all manner of add ons. I am not sure whether it is madness or genius but there is a pooch shake for dogs too (an insane man is sane in an insane world?).
And the culmination of all this? Yeah, it certainly is sloppy but damn it is also good. I've gone for the double shake burger which is two patties and as they cook medium (when in Rome) this means there's no pink centre or meat ooze. But hey, that's sloppy burger territory. It still tastes beefy so this is no particularly loss. The American cheese is spot on and combined with the shack sauce conspire to create an alarmingly delicious and buttery mix that spills over my fingers and face. I literally drink my last bite before working my way through the obligatory finger suck. My overall impression is of a McDonalds double cheese burger but on steroids. Perhaps not the best of analogies as the reverse is more likely - these guys make a big deal out of the fact that their beef is organic aberdeen angus raised without any weird science shit. So, what I'm trying to say is that this is good like the best of Maccy D double cheese burgers when you really want it but times ten. Where does it fit into the London best burger scene? Hmmm... no comment.
Okay, twist my arm I will consent, with caveat, that it is the best sloppy burger I've ever had.
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