Shake Shack - NYC

While in New York City's theater district recently my sister-in-law, Mary, treated us to a meal at Shake Shack. For a burger joint it has a pretty fun menu - I wish we had something similar to it near where we live. Judy had independently heard of this place from her niece, Lisa, who ate there on a visit from London. Judy had the vegetarian "'Shroom Burger" 

which has a fried portobella mushroom instead of a beef patty with Muenster and cheddar cheese. 

I didn't have a bite, but it looked good and Judy enjoyed it. New York fast food is all about hot dogs. Hot dogs dominate the street carts which are everywhere. So when I saw the "Second City Bird Dog" on the menu I had to try it. The "Bird Dog" is a chicken sage sausage and "Second City" is a reference to "Shack-cago." 

It is loaded with relish onions, cucumber, pickle, tomato, "sport peppers," celery salt and mustard. In a web-search to determine what a "sport pepper" is, I came across a site that describes a Chicago style hot dog and the Second City Bird Dog pretty much compares to it, with its ingredients, except that site says it has to be an all-beef dog. The site claims the sport pepper is about 1 1/2 inches long, is green, of medium-hot taste and must be whole, never sliced. Note the sport pepper below, hanging out the middle of the bottom of the dog.

The sport peppers are what made the dog for me. When I bit into the dog and that tang lit up my mouth I realized I was biting into a dog like no other dog I'd ever eaten. 

It really was very good. We each also had a peanut butter and chocolate shake that would have been at home at Baskin Robbins. Very very rich. Fortunately we did a lot of walking around and were able to walk-off some small portion of the calories that we inhaled during our meal. Shake Shack gets a 4 on Yelp and is rated number 20 out of 6,936 restaurants in New York City on Trip Advisor. Definitely worth a visit.