Location: 3401 Dufferin Street, North York (inside Yorkdale)
Website: https://shakeshack.ca/
I guess Shake Shack collaborating with a local restaurant is becoming a yearly tradition, because they did it with Mimi Chinese at around this time last year, and now they’re doing it again with Badiali.
(Badiali, in case you’ve been living under a rock, is maybe the best pizza place in the city? Clearly, this is a collaboration I can get behind.)
Up first, the Spicy Vodka Chicken Parm: “Crispy, white-meat chicken breast layered over a Badiali and Shake Shack hot pepper mix, topped with Badiali’s spicy vodka rosé sauce, aged parmesan cheese, sliced mozzarella, and fresh basil on a toasted potato bun.”
This was mostly quite tasty — I mean, you can put Badiali’s rich, creamy vodka sauce on pretty much anything and it’ll taste good, so yeah, of course. The combo of that, the slightly gooey cheese, and the zippy pepper mix is a clear winner.
But the fried chicken itself was overcooked and quite dry — I was honestly having a tough time even biting through it in spots. So that was a shame.
There’s also the Pizza Fries: “Crispy crinkle cut fries dusted with Badiali pizza seasoning and aged parmesan cheese, served with Badiali’s signature housemade pepperoncini dip.”
I’m not sure if the “pizza seasoning” adds a whole lot here (and the teeny-tiny bit of parmesan definitely doesn’t add anything), but the fries are tasty and the pepperoncini dip is zippy and creamy (if a bit more muted in flavour than the version I had at Badiali a couple of years ago).
Finally, there’s the Brio Chinotto Shake: “Vanilla frozen custard blended with Brio’s classic bittersweet Chinotto flavour.”
This was a bit thin (the texture was more like very rich chocolate milk), but the taste was really nice; it has an interesting, almost gingerbread-like flavour and a mild bitterness that helps to round out the sweetness.
Michael Eats 