Burger Night: Shake Shack (Double Vision Edition)

...Where your hosts, HT and MD, blog together! What craziness will ensue, dear reader?! HT: I was due for a visit to Shake Shack; I hadn't been there in 9 months, and I had heard that they had made some changes -- most notably, a new french fry supplier. And hell, it was high time we made a concerted effort to not only eat outside our burger comfort zone, but to eat outside, period. It's summertime, people. Make use of your al fresco dining establishments. Pronto. That said, Shake Shack requires a wee bit of patience. Even with the live Shackcam to let those of us leaving the office know how long the line is, there's really no telling how bad it's going to be until you actually get to Madison Square Park. When MD and I got there, the line looked like it might use up 30-40 minutes of our early evening. We braved it anyway. I was mildly dying for some red meat. Some 45 minutes later, our food arrived: A double hamburger for me, a single shackburger for MD, two orders of fries, a bird dog (chicken and apple sausage), and a lemonade. And ... huh. Something had changed. I mean, the burgers were still pretty good, but something was missing. The oomph. The joie de vivre. And the fries -- overdone! They used to be something close to manna, and now they were just ... serviceable. The bird dog, however, was a thing of beauty: the dog itself had such snap! Such life! Probably the best thing we had all night. As disappointed as I was with the meal, my body was clearly happy. So happy, in fact, that when I got home around 10:30 that evening, I promptly passed out. For 11 hours. No joke. I apparently went into some sort of red meat/protein shock (you try to eat two burger patties and half a hotdog the day after consuming the largest porkchop on the planet and see what your body does). I hadn't slept that well in years. MD: I had actually planned to write about Shake Shack awhile back to kick off my "Overrated" series of posts. I never got around to it and discovered how much HT loved Shake Shack and decided to back off. So when HT suggested a trip to the Shack, I was thrilled -- we could finally exploit the full potential of team blogging. We could be Point and Counterpoint! It would be like Crossfire but no one would be wearing a bow-tie and annoying sh*t-eating grin. We arrive and the line seems to stretch for miles. Luckily HT and I have steeled ourselves for this with a couple drinks and some amazing onion rings at a bar that shall have to remain nameless. (It is a chain. It is in Midtown. We are not proud. The drinks were free.) We wait about a half hour and get our food. I bemoan the fact that today is "Salty Caramel" custard day and not "Strawberry Rhubarb." We sit and start to eat. The food was ok. I have not so much to say, honestly. The dog was amazing and the french fries were a crime against G-d. However, one thing was amazing and horribly distracting. At the table nearest to us were two men in matching outfits -- dark shirts, khaki shorts, leather footwear. Both were late thirties/early forties. Well-manicured, beefy, presumably gay and the tension between them was palpable. But the tenor of the tension was unclear. The man on the left sat back, coolly, but jutted his legs forward, but together into the other man's space. They shared a beer and their hands almost touched as they traded it back and forth. The other man was clearly more eager. He held the beer with his arm extended into the other man's personal space. His legs fell open with another hand upon his inner thigh. At this point HT asked a question I won't repeat about who played which sex role... but it was unclear if they had ever had sex. They were talking about mutual acquaintances but were they friends? Coworkers? In the end we decided they had "loved" physically and guy-on-the-right wanted a repeat, while guy-on-the-left was probably playing it cool (although I have no doubts he was going to give in that night unless something better came along). While it was fascinating and intriguing, their inchoate relationship upset my stomach much more than the poorly done burger ever could.

Burger Night: Epstein's Bar

There's not much to say about Epstein's Bar, down in the Lower East Side, other than its slightly horrific pun, and the fact that it's got some good Sunday and Monday night deals. Sunday nights are 2-for-1 burgers ($7), and Monday nights involve $5 burgers, 25-cent wings, and $3-$4 drink specials involving liquor that I'd never consume, no matter how cheap. MD and I partook of the wings (decent), and ordered a couple of burgers. And ... they were fine. Could've been juicier. A bit on the overdone side. Fries were of the generic Sysco variety, but were nonetheless pretty good. All in all -- eh. But cheap! Completely overshadowing the meal was the conversation that ensued. A brief glimpse into what we're like when we're all burgered up (and beer cans aren't flying at us): MD: If everyone did things with a clear logical motivation the world would be a better place. HT: If everyone did that there would be no love. MD: Well there'd be something LIKE love.

Not blood, nor sweat or tears

When HT outlined Burger Night she omitted some of the rules, and my wanton breaking of them on the night in question: First, I don't make random forays into the realm of fromage -- I have my burgers with bleu cheese and bacon OR on nights of less wanton abandonment, avocado and cheddar. Beer Can Night, I ordered gruyere, and I believe that was the beginning of the end. Second, burger night for me revolves around manhood. To be fair, I have not always been much of a man. When I met HT I didn't smoke, had never watched baseball, and my favorite drink was whatever was whatever was available. HT introduced me to nicotine, the World Series, and bourbon. It changed my life. I now work in sports media, struggle with addiction, and subsist on Maker's Mark. For me, burger night might as well be called Gout Night. It's a celebration of the good life, of red meat, whiskey or red wine, and how this wonderful woman made me a man. (1) That night we shared white wine. Third, Burger Night is about hate or more accurately "righteous judgment." This night we decided to not judge for the whole dinner. Bad outfits, doomed relationships, amusing sluts... we let it all slide until we walkd out the door. And it was THEN and only THEN that G-d's beer can rained down from the heavens in a show of righteous judgment for our trangressions. Also, I got water balloons thrown at me later that night in Williamsburg. They missed, but splashed my pant legs making me worry they were filled with something disgusting, but, thankfully it was none of my titular fears. So from now on, the rules will be well observed. Even though I really wanted a burger and company tonight. It is, after all, not Tuesday. (1) We didn't have sex. And she could only do so much. I am gay. I love pop music. I cry at movies.

Burger Night: or, On Burgers, Exes, and Burying the Lede.

There are few things I find more deeply satisfying here in the city than indulging, midweek, in a proper slab of red meat. The weeknight part of it is key – the potential for food coma on a school night somehow makes the experience that much more gratifying. Also crucial: good company. Consumption of the four-legged works much better if someone is there to watch you, and to partake in the sprawling mess of it all. This is probably how MD and I came to have at least once-a-month burger nights. Burger night does not vary much in its structure: it takes place either at Dumont Burger or at Schillers, almost always on a Tuesday night around 7 pm. I order my burger rare, plain, with fries; MD gets his medium rare, will occasionally experiment with cheese, and also indulges in the fries. If we’re at Schillers we also ask for a side of au poivre sauce, which the nice folks there will gladly dole out free of charge, and which makes the entire experience that much more glorious: dipping burgers into what is essentially a side of gravy is very very dirty. I love it. Burger night is a thing of beauty, partly because it’s a freestanding engagement that has its own rules and logic, and to which very few components can be added without potentially messing with the gods. Sometimes we’ll wander into a bar afterwards for a drink or two, the ‘wandering’ a crucial aspect, as we need to walk off the protein-carb blitz. But that’s about it. We don’t mess with burger night. It goes without saying, then, that the formula goes horribly awry when you try to combine burger night with “meeting up with your ex for the first time since he may or may not have broken your heart three months earlier” night. Based on the events that unfolded this past Tuesday night, it would appear that the following things will happen to you if you mess with the gods of burger night: 1. Upon leaving Schillers, with an hour to kill before the appointed meeting-up time, you will check your voicemail messages. While standing on the sidewalk, phone in hand, you will get clocked on the head by a flying can of PBR. A full, open can of PBR. It will hit you squarely on the forehead, and as it rolls off the sidewalk and into the street, you will crumple slightly to the ground, moaning “What the fuck?” on your way down. 2. Bystanders will start pointing at open windows in the apartment building above you, trying to figure out where the can came from. The nice hostesses at Schillers will sit you down and offer to call the police. You decline their offer. You’re still in shock from the realization that a can of PBR just connected with your head. You’re offered a pack of ice wrapped inside paper towels. You accept. Five minutes later, while crossing the street with MD, you will burst into post-shock tears. You will start feeling incredibly ridiculous. While all of this should have served to perhaps nudge you in the direction of postponing this meet-up, you, head throbbing, decide that it's still a really good idea. 3. An hour later, icepack still firmly attached to your head, you find yourself waiting to see the guy who may or may not have broken your heart three months earlier. Twenty minutes into your silence-filled reunion, you put the icepack down on the bar, excuse yourself, head to the ladies room, and promptly throw up the entire contents of burger night. 4. Made slightly crazy by the night’s events, you will then find yourself opening the door of discomfit that much further by telling the ex who may or may not have broken your heart that the one date you’ve been on in the three month interim was with one of his former co-workers. Because really, at this point, with no remnants of burger night actually in you, all bets are off.