?> {"id":2524,"date":"2010-02-28T23:54:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T03:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/?p=2524"},"modified":"2013-09-02T13:17:25","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T17:17:25","slug":"in-search-of-the-elusive-shamrock-shake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/2010\/02\/in-search-of-the-elusive-shamrock-shake\/","title":{"rendered":"In Search of the Elusive Shamrock Shake"},"content":{"rendered":"

After filling our bellies with burgers and fries at White Manna<\/a>, Josh and I continued on our Jersey food adventure and went in search of the famous Shamrock Shakes from\u00a0McDonald’s. I’ve\u00a0heard about Shamrock Shakes in passing but admittedly never thought too much about them. After reading about them on Serious Eats<\/a> and on various other blogs, I started to get curious about how hard or easy it would be to find the shake in northern NJ, since they don’t seem to be available anywhere in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

There is a McDonald’s almost directly across the street from White Manna but we didn’t see any signs for the Shamrock Shake, and it’s hard to make the left turn onto River Street from White Manna. Instead, Josh decided to search on his iphone for Shamrock Shake sightings on\u00a0Shamrockshake.com<\/a>, the website where people post confirmations about which McDonald’s offer the shake and which do not.<\/p>\n

The closest confirmed sighting was in Paramus on Route 17 North. We headed for the highway but the mall traffic on Route 4 diverted us from going the more direct way. We decided to take back roads, and in doing so I knew that we would be passing by a McDonald’s in River Edge that was much closer. We pulled into the lot but didn’t see any Shamrock Shake posters there either. Bad sign.<\/p>\n

Undeterred, Josh hopped out of the car and went inside to ask. He was gone for 10 minutes, and I figured that he must have been successful. Indeed, he came out carrying two shakes in medium sized soda cups. He said that when he first walked in and asked about the Shamrock Shakes, he was promptly rejected. As he turned to walk out, the counterperson called him back and said that he was wrong, they had just gotten the shakes in that day. Perfect!!<\/p>\n

I quickly removed the lid from one of the cups and took a peek at my very first Shamrock Shake. At first glance, the shakes were a very light green in color, with darker green swirls. A quick sip yielded mostly vanilla flavor, with a few hints of mint.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Darker green swirls in an unmixed Shamrock Shake<\/p><\/div>\n

Using the straw, I mixed up the shake as best as I could so that it was a pale green color overall, without the darker green swirls. My second sip yielded more minty flavor, but it was still pretty subtle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

After mixing, the shake is a pale green color with subtle mint flavor<\/p><\/div>\n

The verdict? Not bad, but also not mind blowing. It did have a refreshing minty-ness to it without tasting like toothpaste, which was a good thing, but if you really didn’t know what you were drinking you’d probably think it was just vanilla flavored.<\/p>\n

Some people on other sites complained about getting whipped cream and a cherry on top, but ours didn’t come with those. Our shakes also weren’t served in the smaller clear McCafe cups, but in regular medium sized soda cups. They definitely didn’t mix the syrup into the shake very well but that was easily remedied using the straw. I can’t comment on the mint factor though, or lack thereof, since I’ve never had a Shamrock Shake before.<\/p>\n

I do think that the main appeal of these shakes are that they’re only offered for a limited time, and finding a McDonald’s that serves one is half the fun. Josh and I were more thrilled with our success than with the actual shake itself. Would I drink another one? Sure, but I won’t go out of my way to find one the next time.<\/p>\n

McDonald’s<\/a> (multiple locations)
\n1118 Main Street
\nRiver Edge, NJ <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After filling our bellies with burgers and fries at White Manna, Josh and I continued on our Jersey food adventure and went in search of the famous Shamrock Shakes from\u00a0McDonald’s. I’ve\u00a0heard about Shamrock Shakes in passing but admittedly never thought too much about them. After reading about them on Serious Eats and on various other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[142],"tags":[48,180],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2524"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6254,"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524\/revisions\/6254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}