Michelle Obama Eats at Shake Shack

First Lady Michelle Obama ate lunch at Shake Shack in Dupont on Monday. To remind everyone, Shake Shack is the horrible overhyped fast food burger place that opened in May. She ordered a cheeseburger, french fries, a chocolate shake, and a Diet Coke. This healthy meal added up to approximately 1,556 calories. Mrs.Obama has made obesity her cause as first lady, and her "Let's Move" campaign encourages kids to exercise and eat healthy. Michelle is obviously setting an excellent example for the kids when it comes to eating healthy.

Shake Shake Sucks

Make sure the little kids and grandma are out of the room. It's going to get profane.

Fuck Shake Shack. Fuck New York. Fuck the hype.

Alright, now that's out of the way, let's get down and dirty. Shake Shake Sucks. Shake Shack is the legendary burger joint based out of New York (Manhattan if you want to get picky), and I hate every New Yorker who thinks Shake Shack is so awesome. It seems like everyone (including AHT) claims that Shake Shack is the best burger joint ever to exist. That builds a lot of hype, and keeping with what seems to be the usual, the hype came crashing down in a miserable pile of expectations that leaves one sadly underwhelmed and disappointed.

The Shack Burger single is a 4 ounce patty, and the double is two patties which makes for a burger that will actually fill you up. If you aren't a child or a small asian woman, you'd better get the double. The quality of the meat was decent, but the burgers all came out medium to medium-well, which is way overcooked. I would have appreciated being asked how I wanted my burger cooked if I knew they were going to fuck it up. That being said, some juice from the burger did exist, but overall impressions of the patties were uninspiring.

The bun was a potato roll. (Yawn) Thanks for saving me the time of walking to Giant and buying a pack Martin's potato rolls. Not to over-hate on potato rolls; potato rolls are awesome at a back yard cook-out, but anyone in the business of selling food for a profit should put in a little effort. The bun did squish nicely and had a decent texture, but was average at best. Potato roll.

The cheese was standard American cheese which was melted nicely and was probably the best part of the burger. It is appreciated that they use one slice of cheese for each patty, but it'd be nice to be given a choice for my cheese. This is not communist China. Don't tell me what cheese I want. Give me an option.Been there. Done that. Next.

Toppings have to be requested. Fuck you Shake Shack. Lettuce, tomato, onion (LTO) should come standard on every burger. You should have to request that a topping not be included. Still, the toppings were fresh and pretty good. Crisp lettuce. Juicy tomato. Solid raw onion. Good enough, but you don't get bonus points because you'd didn't fuck up.

The line when we showed up was out the door and around the corner (and it's been this way ever since it opened two weeks ago). Outside line (10 min) + inside line (10 min) + wait to burger (10 min) = 30 minutes. Ridiculous considering the

quality of the burger. Fuck those hype-lemmings waiting in line, wasting everyone's time for a sub-par burger. We managed to snag a table in the back of the restaurant; the tables are made from old bowling lanes, which is pretty cool. The fries were crinkle cut. If you are someone capable of buying shitty frozen crinkle cut fries, you've had the exact same fries served by Shake Shack. The fries weren't crispy and lacked any trace of seasoning. Fail. We tried the ShackMeister Ale, and while it's good to see them serving beer, their namebrand ale is a watery pale ale that is way overpriced at five bucks. Go with tap number two and get a Flying Dog.

It needs to be made clear that this is not an insult to the people working at the Shake Shack in Dupont. When we arrived there was a nice lady handing out menus to people as they waited in line. The guy taking the orders was nice and even let one member change from a single to a double when he realized he ordered wrong. The guy didn't even charge extra even though a single is $4.75 and a double is $7.25. The manager was friendly and even came around and talked to us for a minute when she saw we were all fervently jotting down reviews.

Regardless, the experience at the legendary Shake Shack was a miserable failure if there every was one in the history of over-hyped burgers. Maybe I'm missing something, but everyone raves over Shake Shack. It's a fast food quality burger that's neither cheap ($7.25) nor fast (30 minutes). A Five Guys burger is bigger, cheaper, has more toppings, comes with free peanuts, and there is one on every block so there is never a line. The Shack Burger is okay, but this is the DMV and this is Five Guys turf.

Go home Shake Shack and take the hype with you.

Shake Shack Opening in Dupont

Shake Shack is set to open a new location in Dupont at 1216 18th Street NW. If you have never heard of them, Shake Shack is the New York based burger joint that has won many awards and is rumored to have some of the best burgers around. The location in Dupont is set to open the week of May 16th.

The Southwestern at The Burger Joint in Dupont

We went to The Burger Joint with somewhat lifted expectations, only to have our high hopes ungracefully plummet back to earth in a heaping mess of burger. Most of us have been to one of the several Burger Joint locations before and we have tried several of their burgers before. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to this week's adventure.

The problem is that the Southwestern isn't really a burger. It is the bastard child of a burger and the sloppy joe that the cafeteria served you in middle school. The chili that is mixed in with the burger meat results in something more resembling a sloppy joe than an actual burger. The burger is infused with chipotles, poblanos, onions, and chili. While the flavour was nice and spicy, and it tasted great, everyone's burger fell apart almost immediately. Having special ingredients mixed in with the burger is awesome, but I don’t prefer half of my burger to fall apart after one bite. This leaves you holding an empty bun. The bun was delicious, but it was an empty bun after the messy burger decided to abandon ship. The bun was nice and fluffy, and of course sesame seeds on a bun are always appreciated.

The obvious cheese to pair with a southwestern style burger is pepper-jack cheese. The cheese had nice flavour, but was overwhelmed by the spiciness of the burger. It needed to have more than one little slice of cheese to have an impact. The Burger Joint is located in a prime place in Dupont, but it was packed and overcrowded. The walls are painted a disgusting purple and are falling apart. The line was long and the wait was longer. They were playing loud Christmas music that only your grandmother enjoys. There were flies hovering around, and the server denied a promotional coupon for a free burger. That's a great way to treat customers. The sweet potato fries were great, and the fact that they have Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA on tap is the only saving grace. The synergy really killed this experience. It's in Dupont so it's 'hip', but this place is a dump. The Burger Joint in Bethesda is ten times better. The Southwestern fell apart. I have had the Southwestern before, and it didn't fall apart. This may just reflect the incompetence of the Dupont location. A burger should be able to last at least one bite before breaking into a thousand pieces. The chili added great spice and flavour, but it can also be blamed for the messiness of this high class sloppy joe. It needed more pepper-jack cheese to compete with the spice, and a burger needs to come with lettuce, tomato, and onion. The bun, sweet potato fires, and the beer were all good and should not be brought down by the rest of the burger.

The Southwestern is basically a nine dollar sloppy joe. Way too overpriced for the poor quality that we received. We have all eaten at The Burger Joint before so we were looking forward to this one. The Burger Joint has other burgers and other locations that are very good, but this experience was overall very disappointing.

The Burger Joint tomorrow

The Burger Joint tomorrow (Tues Dec 21) in Dupont at 7:00pm for the Southwestern. It's located by the north exit from the Dupont Circle Metro stop.
Here is the address:
1514 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

Brickskeller: The Brickburger

The Brickskeller is a special place and the Brickburger is a special burger. The burger had great flavor, and the portion size was just right. The outside of the burger was charred perfectly, yet the inside still had a nice pink color.

The Brickburger comes on a toasted kaiser roll. It was a good bun, but unfortunately, the coleslaw leaked over to the burger side of the plate and made the bottom bun little soggy. This is a problem that could have been avoided. Put the coleslaw on a separate dish. The bun didn't fall apart despite it's coleslaw soaking.

Cheddar cheese comes melted over the burger, just underneath a layer of salami. The cheddar provided a nice taste but failed to outshine the salami and bacon. A little more cheese would have made more of an impact. The burger comes with specialty toppings of salami, bacon, onion, and coleslaw. The salami is a very unique topping for a burger, but it was quite tasty. Two strips of bacon were nice and crispy, providing a excellent smokiness to the burger. The coleslaw was nice to have as an option but was rather runny. Frankly, with the other toppings on this burger the coleslaw wasn't really necessary, but it did provide a good balance to the bacon's smokiness. The interplay between the well-cooked burger and the salami and bacon was crucial in the creation of a great burger. The fries were good, but nothing more than standard fries.

The atmosphere at Brickskeller is one of a kind. You enter through the Brickskeller Inn, which was built in 1921, and it still has that nostalgic feel to it. The restaurant and bar are located on the first-thing on the right at you walk in. The old brick walls donned with old beer cans and memorabilia serve as a reminder of the history of this place. Some people may classify Brickskeller as a dive bar, but the 'hole-in-the-wall' vibe is comforting and gives a special uniqueness to the Brickskeller. The beer selection is second to none. (They hold a Guinness record for their beer selection.) No one has better beer, and no one has more beers than the Brickskeller. It can be overwhelming trying to select a beer from the 15 or so pages of beers nicely organized by their country of origin. The waitress wasn't as alert as she should have been, but she was helpful and knowledgeable when it came to the beer. We had to wait around for the waitress to get us the check, but it gave us time to finish our beers before heading back out into the cold. The burger is great, and the top-notch beer is a perfect pairing. The bacon and salami added the perfect amount of smokiness to an already outstanding burger. The beer was amazing and the old school atmosphere is distinctive and exceptional. The Brickskeller is the owner by the same people who own RFD. RFD has good beer too, but RFD can't hold a candle to the Brickskeller both in terms of beer and ambiance. Sadly, the Brickskeller was recently sold, so stop in and grab a burger and beer while you still can.