Order two burgers

Although May is approaching shortly, the weather this past weekend seemed oddly suggestive of a my nights in San Francisco. During this time of year, I expect to be wearing shorts and a tee, but earlier I dressed warmly in jeans and sweater.

Considering the weather, I thought this past afternoon would be the perfect time to finally try the burgers at Shake Shack for the first time, hoping to avoid an extremely long line. However, after exiting the R train and crossing the street to get to Madison Square Park I noticed a considerable amount of people in line even before I entered the park. There were probably about 40 people in front of me once I got in line. I contemplated just leaving and going to City Bakery - mmmmmm pretzel croissants - but I stuck it out and waited about 20-25 minutes. Standing in line wasn't so bad. I overheard a couple stories about how this girl standing behind me parties with this 70 year old man and very quickly, I saw a co-worker, whose name I could not remember, from a job I had 2 years ago walk past me.

I also watched the people that already had their food to see what they were eating since I was undecided about what to exactly order. Although, many people were eating cheese fries along with their burgers, I ultimately decided on one shack burger, one shroom burger, one order of french fries, and a regular size arnold palmer (half ice tea/half lemonade). Before I explain the food, I just want to illustrate how small of a world we live in. One of guys I saw eating cheese fries around 3PM would later be grocery shopping, list in one hand and cart being pushed by the other, at the Dean and Deluca in Soho around 7PM. I wanted to stop and tell me him I saw him at Shake Shack, but I was actually more interested in asking him why he grocery shops at Dean and Deluca since it's rather expensive. I'm a sucker for Teany's Ice tea with lemon and bought the remaining 4 bottles at 2.25 each. This isn't the first time encounters like this have happened to me in New York, but the next time it does I will stop the person.

I purposely ordered all this food since I couldn't decide on one burger and I didn't want to have to go back and wait in line again to try the other burger. I also asked for my order to go since I didn't expect to eat all my food in one sitting, but I ended up eating all of it with the exception of half my fries. My uncertainty worked out since I don' think I would have been full if I just got one burger. In fact, a guy who sat in front of me told me how he wished he got a second burger.

I first took a bite out of the shack burger which is a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, and some special sauce. It only took me one bite to realize that this is the most well seasoned and tastiest burger I've had in a long time. The meat was also juicy and perfectly cooked. Even the tomatoes on my burger were good. They were room temperature which is how tomatoes should be served. I finished my burger so quick that I'm glad I had the shroom burger to try. My first bite of this burger tasted amazing, but my last wasn't so much. The shroom burger was a deep fried portobello stuffed with munster and I believe american cheese. In my first bite I saw melted cheese ooze out and tasted a great meaty burger. I probably could feed it to my nephew who hates veggies and he would like it. However, a little over halfway of eating this burger, it got cold and it didn't taste as great. Maybe it's because I ate this second, but it's definitely worth trying. Fries were nothing too special, but still good and my drink was unsweetened which is how I normally drink my tea now.

Overall, Shake Shack was worth the wait. I've read reviews of people that waited an hour and my roommate - yo Jules - told me the line once circled somewhere outside the park. I will without any question visit again when I'm craving burgers; though, I might pick a day when the weather is colder or rainy. Maybe the line will be shorter or maybe it will be longer.