1. Price
Before we get into anything, we'd like to mention that Shake Shack has probably one of, if not, the most expensive fastfood burgers available in the country right now. The cheapest burger (ShackBurger) available comes in at P250, while the most expensive burger (Shake Stack) comes in at a whopping P545. The shakes also cost quite a bit, going for P190 a cup (it's a big cup, though). Not really fastfood prices if you ask us, but we guess A LOT of people don't seem to mind considering the lines.
2. Ingredients
Even though we ordered three items from Shake Shack: Shake Stack (P545), ShakeBurger Double (P410), and Black & White Classic Hand-spun Shake (P190), we'd just like to discuss two of them since the Shake Stack pretty much has all the ingredients the other burgers have.
Taking the price into consideration, the ingredients Shake Shack used were pretty good quality. Even after a couple of hours, without much protection from the elements, save a paper bag, nothing fell apart. The vegetables were fresh, the meat was still tender, the mushroom patty was still pretty crispy, and the buns... the buns were amazing. Never have we seen a burger that had buns with that much integrity. Even after leaving them in the bag, they still maintained the softness and fluffiness from when we got them, which was amazinggg.
What makes the Shake Stack ( the 'Shroom Burger in extension) unique is its usage of a crispy portabello mushroom patty filled and topped with signature Shake Stack toppings and sauce. It doesn't taste like something you would get from the local Mushroomburger in Tagaytay since this mushroom is actually one giant cap (or head) which adds a lot bite to it in contrast to the mushed-up, chopped-up variant. We'd liken the texture much more to something like POUND by TODD ENGLISH's Portabello Mushroom Sliders (P280).
3. Taste
Both the Shake Stack and the Portabello Mushroom Sliders have a lot of texture to their burgers because of how the stuffing of the portabello mushroom explodes into your mouth after you take a bite. Even when the beef of the burger has already dried out because of something like air-conditioning. The juiciness of the burger still last because of this effect. Unlike the sliders at POUND however, the Shake Stack offers a much heftier bite considering it's actually a pretty big burger containing a sizable beef patty and other ingredients (it should, after all, it costs almost twice as much).
After a few hours though, the portabello mushroom itself tends to get a little bit chewy, forcing you to bite down harder if you don't want to pull it out of its crispy patty. We also tried microwaving the burger at the office but unsurprisingly, we couldn't get back the original crispiness the mushroom patty seemed to have when it was freshly made. The beef patty itself still had a bit of juiciness in it without being microwaved and the cheese still had quite a bit of pull.
Being the mad men that we are, we decided to not drink the Black & White Shake while it still had ice and decided to just put in into a fridge when we got to the office. When we drank it, we could still taste how creamy the shake was. It was literally like drinking thick melted chocolate marble ice cream except with much more even consistency.
4. Final thoughts and recommendations
a) Even though the burger itself made it through the ride to the office in one piece, we felt it could have been protected by better packaging because seriously, we were kinda tense leaving it at the back seat without any cover.
b) The burgers all in all, are delicious. It might well be our first or second favorite fastfood burger out in the market but damn is it expensive.
c) It managed to exceed our takeout expectations since even after a couple of hours, we still enjoyed the hell out of eating the burgers even while they were cold (we ate half cold and half microwaved). We would recommend that you don't microwave the burger (or take out the beef patty at least) to preserve what remains of the tenderness of the burger and the integrity of the cheese.
d) Would we eat there again? Yes, (we're already getting hungry just by writing this) but definitely after the hype has gone down. No burger is worth staying in line for five hours even if it was free. Doing it for the clout on the other hand...