366 Columbus Ave. (The Upper West Side location)
New York, NY 10024
Visited: August 20, 2010

Now, now: The purists among you might be clamoring, “What do you think you’re doing? How can you go on a Great American Food Tour, not go to the original Shake Shack down in Madison Square Park, and expect to have any credibility? Besides, isn’t Shake Shack now a mini-chain? The other places on your tour have been one-offs, unique institutions whose charm is directly proportional to the individuality of each. Are you a real food critic anyway…?” and so forth and so on. First of all, if you are so clamoring, I’m mostly pleased to see someone with this shared passion, and to a degree that possibly exceeds my own. Also, if you are so clamoring, may I recommend that you put your mouth to better use and have a Shake Shack burger which, maybe sadly for the future of this tour, happens to be the best burger I’ve had in New York.

The reason this Columbus Avenue location makes the list is because my same drinking and eating buddy and I didn’t plan this one. It was toward the end of Summer, a Friday, and we were at a local bar completing another leg of another gastronomical odyssey (details forthcoming). Neither of us having dinner plans for the evening, out of nowhere I brought up the possibility of venturing over the few blocks to Shake Shack and we and our many drinks agreed we had to stop by.

There was much to choose from on the large wall menu. In another possible case of sacrilege, I didn’t get a shake, and in a third I ordered my Double Shack Burger without the Shack sauce, which arguably makes the burger. My friend said that’s what set it apart from the Burger Joint burger we’d had two weeks earlier. I said, and say, that it needn’t be the sauce that sets it apart — it’s just that little bit tastier. While the menu had a lot to offer, the restaurant had little in the way of seating, so we took our food outside. We found spots on a bench across Columbus from the restaurant and a block up, right next to the Museum of Natural History. It was a perfect time of night at a quintessentially New York location.

You might recognize this picture from my Twitter feed. That was the beer talking (mostly). I was there, but I wonder if you can see how good this food looks, because it tasted even better than that. The crinkle cut fries were just awesome, with just the right amount of salt (the increased surface area maybe the original reason for the crinkling?). But the burger stood alone for all the flavor it offered. I got my usual cheese-lettuce-onion-pickle topping. It could have been the extra layer of meat and cheese that again nosed it ahead of the nearly identical Burger Joint burger. I’m sure the beers had something to do with it, too, and the time/temperature/location of the devouring. In the end I think those things, not to be ignored, added more to the intensity of the experience without overshadowing the quality of it to begin with. I can only expect that enjoying one of these burgers in the beauty of Madison Square Park during the summer after waiting on that line would be similarly gratifying.

Well, for now, this burger is king. But for how long?

GRAFT: Burgers
1. Shake Shack – New York, NY
2. Burger Joint – New York, NY
3. Donovan’s Pub – Woodside, NY
4. Ted’s Restaurant – Meriden, CT