Random Taste for Thursday 6/1/17

And so it continues ... a brand new set of tastes for 2017 ...

 here's the TWENTY-FIRST of FIFTY tastes of FLORIDA 

(coming to you on sequential Thursdays.  All.  Year.  Long.)!

Establishment:  Shake Shack
Location:  Boca Raton
Meal:  Lunch
Drink:  fountain Spr-oke (half sprite, half coke)
Appetizer:  n/a
Main:  Shack Stack (plus Bacon)
(cheeseburger plus a crisp-fried portobello mushroom filled with melted muenster and cheddar cheeses, topped with lettuce, tomato, and ShackSauce™, plus bacon)
Side(s):  Cheese Fries (plus Bacon)
(fries topped with special blend of cheddar and american cheese sauce, plus bacon)
Dessert:  Glades Donut Frozen Custard
(vanilla custard, the sugar monkey's glazed cake donut, peanut butter sauce and chocolate toffee)Server:   Dante (order-taker)
Website:  https://www.shakeshack.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/shakeshack/

If ever there was a reason for me to believe in destiny, finding myself at a Shake Shack for this ongoing series would suffice.  Some of you outside of the area may know of the expanding chain (that started in NY), but, as of the time of the meal, this location was one of just three in Florida (more are promised).  As to that reference to "destiny", regular readers know that I love me a higher quality burger joint ... one that isn't afraid of the bacon ... and one that takes just as much pride in its ice-cream-style desserts.  In this case, the establishment got on the radar because we were seeking the closest thing we could find locally to the best frozen custard we ever had (shout out to Kopp's in Wisconsin!), so keep on reading to see how the Troy-score shows that we weren't disappointed (and how this is now the best reviewed burger joint of them all).  

(A  bit of housekeeping:  due to publication delays, this review is being retroactively slotted to June 2017 but posted in September 2018 for a meal that was actually eaten and photographed in July 2017.)

AMBIANCE:   8/10 (it was like this:  walk in -- order your food -- and wait to be called [because everything seems to be made to order] in a pleasant enough space with big booths and a full view of the bustling kitchen ... I couldn't quite place the overall smell, until it hit me that it smelled just like the fast food restaurant known for its flame grilled burgers [which isn't a pejorative statement -- just something that makes sense since their grill is out in the open] ... one point is lost because the wifi was working in fits and starts that day, and the second one comes off the top because it was 90 degrees and we would have sat outside except management hadn't turned on the overhead fans to make it comfortable)

FOOD:           9.5/10 (here's the smartest thing ever -- they have a non-meat option [a two cheese filled portobello mushroom fried perfectly to be crispy on the outside and oozey-gooey on the inside] that they encourage meat eaters of a certain ilk [i.e. me] to stack on top of the cheeseburger, in effect exponentializing the taste, all served on a piping hot bun with other fresh toppings  ... the crinkle cut fries were appropriately crispy [at least underneath the two-cheese sauce] ... and that frozen custard dessert had chunk after chunk of peanut butter ... the [rare for this series] half point deduction is because the sandwich seemed to be missing the cherry peppers [and it's only a *half* point, because I'm not sure that I really missed them, tastewise]

SERVICE:      9/10 (the order taker was outgoing and super-smiley [especially when affirming that my request to add bacon to everything was "a good choice"], and every employee with whom we interacted before the visit was over was similarly friendly ... the one point subtraction comes from the length of time we waited for the dessert [ordered separately after the meal])

BACON:         10/10 (lookit -- they let me add it to the burger AND they let me add it to the fries [where it was big chunks and not crumbles or bits] AND they probably would have let me add it to the ice cream if I had remembered to ask them to do so ... so how could they *not* get a perfect score in this category)

BONUS:         10/10 (+3 for choosing to always have at least two cheeses in the mix whenever cheesiness was on the menu [for instance, stuffed in the portobello or ladled over the fries], +3 for having the foresight to merge the meat-eaters dish with the non-meat-eaters dish to create one mega-eaters dish, +3 for highlighting the fact that pregnant girls shouldn't drink [in giant signs behind the counter as if the area was dealing with some kind of epidemic of bad-choice-making from the younger crowds] and +1 for being a place to which we will most definitely return [especially now that we know that one is planned for our hometown of Ft Lauderdale])

TroyScore:  46.5 out of 50 -- aka 93, an A