Squeeze Inn & the Miraculous Skirt of Cheese

For lunch yesterday, Barnaby and I went to Squeeze Inn (http://thesqueezeinn.com/) for the second time in the last three days.  There are two reasons that we went back again after our initial trip on Wednesday.  They are:

1.)  The Food.

Pictured above is the best damned veggie burger I have ever eaten in my life - a Veggie Burger with Cheese to which I requested the additional toppings of mushrooms and avocado.  You can see the mushrooms (big, meaty, juicy babies), but the veggie burger, avocado, and other toppings are hiding beneath the first thing you notice upon looking at this picture: that miraculous, revolutionary development in cheeseburger technology known as The Cheese Skirt.  From the Squeeze Inn website:

    Q:  What is this unique cooking method I have heard about?
    A:  Our famous squeeze with cheese is made in a unique way. After cooking the patty on a flat top grill we cover it with a handful of cheese and the top of the bun before throwing a handful of ice chips on the grill and covering the whole thing in a hood.  The skirt comes out perfectly.
    Q:  Where did the unique cooking method come from?
    A:  It was invented by the previous owners and handed down to our cooks when the restaurant was purchased.

I believe that everything happens for a reason...  not that I necessarily think this is Absolute Truth; it's just what I believe.  Beliefs are choices.  And I believe that the reason my transition from a vegetarian to a vegan diet - which I intended to make at the onset of my travels - has been a failure thus far was so that I could experience The Most (un)Holy Glory of the Cheese Skirt.  Just look at that thing!  The furthest, distant edges of this cheese galaxy are a crispy mass of hardened brownish-orange bubbles.  As you travel to the center of the burger, the cheese gradually becomes soft, pliable, molten.  Really, when I ate that burger I ate a divine galaxy from it's outermost reaches to it's core.  I'm having trouble explaining it... as with the strange beauty of a dream or a mushroom trip (could they be using that kind of mushrooms?), words fail.

Don't for one minute think, however, that The Most (un)Holy Glory of the Cheese Skirt is just some gimmick meant to spruce up an otherwise inferior burger.  Squeeze Inn's burgers - whether beef or veggie - come with fresh, quality vegetable toppings: the best kind of sliced onions (red ones); thick juicy tomato slices; crunchy dill pickle slices, and some kind of actual, dark-green lettuce (not that iceberg crap).  Mushrooms, avocado, and jalapenos are available for an additional charge.  As I said, the one in the picture had mushrooms and avocado.  On the one I ordered yesterday, I skipped the avocado and added jalapeno.  This second veggie burger ended up in a tie with the first one for the title of Best Damned Veggie Burger I Have Ever Eaten In My Life.

Oh yeah... there was that other reason Barnaby and I returned to the Midtown location of Squeeze Inn.

2.) Our lovely, friendly, and charismatic waitress, Sam (sorry folks: she's got a boyfriend).