May 08 2008 / (0)

Have a snack.

Shake Shack drink

Cinnamon and I recently visited New York for five days. The impetus for the trip was a visit to Electric Artists, who I've worked with for three years on a variety of projects and had never met, and for Cinnamon a trip to the Garment District to source fabrics, zippers and the like for her bags. But that was mostly finished in the first 24 hours; the rest was time for us. We made the most of it.

One of the first things we did when we got there was have a late lunch/early dinner at the Shake Shack. We planned on hitting it at some point during the trip, but it just happened to be four blocks or so from the hotel, so it worked out well. And the line wasn't bad -- we got through it, got our food and ate in about an hour, during which time the line at least doubled in length. I guess the magic hour for a quick Shack run is 3-4pm.

The Shack-burger was excellent -- toasted fresh bun, salty burger, tangy "Shake sauce" (essentially homemade thousand island dressing, but better than that sounds) and freshly sliced tomato and lettuce. The chocolate shake was great. The "Shake-ago Dog"... well, here's where they go a little wrong.

the "Shack-ago Dog" at Shake Shack
(We skipped the onions in deference to Cinnamon, but otherwise got their stock dog.)

To start with, the bun was poppy seed, which is fine, but it seemed a little stale or mealy to me. This was aggravated by the copious amount of mustard -- rather than the squiggle across the dog that you'd find in Chicago, it's slathered on NYC streetdog style. The other issue was the relish. In Chicago, the relish is a sweet-sour "picklelilly" with about a 1/8-inch dice consistency. The Shake Shack uses a sour dill relish that seemed more minced, and lacked the sweetness of a Chicago-style relish. Plus, it was wetter than Chicago style relish, so between that and the extra mustard, the bun was done for.

Then there was the matter of the dill pickle spear and a cucumber spear. That is definitely not canonical. I didn't detect any celery salt, but at least it was listed on the menu. Oddly, the photo on the Shake Shack menu page shows a Chicago dog topped with lettuce, even though the menu doesn't list it. Overall, the toppings overwhelmed the flavor of the hot dog itself, which is not typical here at home. I think the sour relish and excess mustard were to blame.

I guess I can't complain too much -- at least they're trying, and they get it almost right. But I do sort of hear the pissing and moaning of New Yorkers in Chicago complaining about the poor imitations of NY-style pizza available here, so maybe I shouldn't cut too much slack.

A full photographic tour of our trip is available over on flickr. We had some amazing meals while we were there, most notably Momofuku Ssam Bar with our friends Dan and Kathryn. They're regulars and know everyone in the kitchen, so we were treated to several dishes compliments of the chef. Cocktails before (at Death & Co.) and after (at PDT) were perfect bookends to the meal. I look forward to going back soon.

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