Ms B and I are currently planning our next visit to one of our favourite cities on this planet: New York City. This is how we ended up researching the best burgers in town and were hugely surprised that several of the 23 NYC Shake Shacks make it into some of the most widely-referenced top 50 lists, some even into the top 20, for example The Infatuation (at #10).
How is it possible that some fast food chain whose Double Shack Burger with Cheese costs $8.09 gives the $33 Black Label Burger at Minetta Tavern or the $36 21 Club’s ’21 Burger’ a run for their money?
We like the story behind Shake Shack, how for the first three years it was just a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park, before setting up properly at a permanent kiosk there in 2004. Long story short. We decided to visit the Shake Shack in London Victoria for lunch today.
Ms B ordered a chicken burger (£4.95), I ordered their double signature burger (£8.95), each with fries (2x £3.50). Ms B also picked a lemonade and I went for their raspberry cheesecake shake (£5.50).
The buzzer you get to take to your table started buzzing after about 12 minutes and I collected the goodies from the counter. I was extremely pleased with my burger and would rate it among the best I’ve had this year. The smoothie was out of this world (but too thick to be sucked through a straw, so had to be eaten with a spoon, which is fine in my book). Ms B’s chicken burger was okay, but perhaps a bit dry and not very flavoursome. The lemonade was lovely and so refreshing. However, the fries were ridiculously bad. We left nearly all of them, even though we were absolutely starving after a boxing class earlier today.
Overall, I’d still give this burger joint a 4.5 out of 5. Though shallst judge a burger joint by its burgers it sayeth in the book (even though fries do matter, of course).
Looking for reviews of other burger places? Definitely avoid Bleecker Burger, directly opposite the street, at any cost. Just around the corner, 1 minute’s walk away, the Rail House Cafe‘s Burgerdict (burger Benedict with poached egg) used to be pure bliss, but somehow all went downhill from there and we ranked them 2.25 out of 5 during our last visit. However, the best burger around here can be found at bbar, simply another minute’s walk down the passage past by Rail House Cafe: The African (with venison and boar).
For adventure, check out our posts about skydiving, and our rides on a helicopter, a jetlev, a jetski, and two very fast rubber boats (Spitsbergen and London).
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