Shake Shack - Madison Square Park, NYC

On our first ever visit to Manhattan, the top of our itinerary list was Shake Shack at Madison Square Park. This is the original location and still the best. Unless you happen to live near another location, don't waste your time anywhere else.



When we arrived, the line looked a mile long. We had already walked a long stretch of Madison Avenue to get there. It was hot and we wanted food fast but we decided we would wait. This might be our only chance to experience the legend of Shake Shack. About an hour later, we finally reached the window and placed our order.



About 10 or 15 minutes later, the buzzer went off and our dreams came true! This meal was extremely satisfying and well worth the wait. Be warned, weekends and nice weather days can be very busy. If you want to avoid the longest lines, check the Shack Cam first and allow yourself plenty of waiting time just in case. But like I said, totally worth the wait. I'm drooling just looking at this photo.



The Shack Burgers are as close as you can get to perfection. Soft potato bun with a bit of a crunch from the grill, perfect meat to bread ratio, melted American cheese, Lucky's tasty bright red tomatoes, crisp fresh lettuce and that Shack Sauce. To die for! I also happen to love their crinkle cut fries. Yeah they're from frozen, but they're golden, crunchy and oh so delicious. To top it all off, Shake Shack has frozen custard! We went for the Black & White Shake and were very happy with our choice. On a later visit we tried the Chocolate Truffle Cookie Dough Concrete and this was a meal in itself. A concrete is thick enough that you have to eat it with a spoon. Yes please!



Shake Shack in Madison Square Park was one of the highlights of our trip and along with pretty much everybody else who has ever been there, I highly recommend it.

Food Carts - New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven, Connecticut is home to Yale University, Louis Lunch (where the hamburger was supposedly invented), New Haven style pizza (aka "apizza"), and on weekdays at lunchtime in New Haven, it's food cart mania! We were lucky enough to be passing through at the right time on a weekday so we headed straight to Yale-New Haven Hospital at Cedar and York Streets.



The quantity and variety of choice was staggering. Check out the number of choices on this cart's menu!



If you live, work or study in the area, you've got absolutely no reason to ever bring your lunch. With food from so many different countries represented here, it's like a tiny Epcot Center of food carts. Free entry and large serves for $5 or $6. Who could resist? Everything looked so good (and cheap) so it was extremely difficult to decide what to order. Malaysian, Ethiopian, Spanish, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Cuban, Peruvian, and Turkish were some of the choices. We settled on a chicken burrito from La Carreta Mexican Food.



This was a massively huge burrito, made with care. I ordered mine with the works and the most interesting ingredient was pickled cabbage. This was a first for me in a burrito but very interesting to try. The burrito was big, delicious and packed a punch so I could hardly believe it was only $5.

If you're in the New Haven area at lunch on a weekday, stop by one (or more!) of the 150+ food carts. More carts are at Elm and York Streets or Prospect and Sachem Streets. You'll be able to find pretty much anything you're in the mood for, or if you go window shopping, something is sure to take your fancy.