Any of you Fairfield County folks ever travel to the New Rochelle shoreline for a Greasy Nick's (formal name: Lido's Clam Bar) burger? I used to eat there a lot when I worked in Pelham Manor.
The burger is nothing to write home about, a simple frozen patty, but it's served on a pretty decent hard roll. Anyway, it's the holistic experience that's the draw. The place is a dumpy little shack on Shore Rd. favored by old guys who dress in velour sweatsuits or kids in wife beaters wearing baseball caps backwards.
You basically have two choices of toppings: cheese or grilled onions. There are no vegetables. You can get Hoffman soda or, if you're inclined to have a beer, go to the cooler and you'll have a choice of two kinds, which are often things like Piels or Knickerbocker or Rheingold or whatever the cheapest crap at the nearest distributor is.
They also offer steamers and fried clams and steamed corn on the cob, which can be ok or completely overcooked.
You order inside and then wait outside at a picnic table shared with a hundred sea gulls crapping all over. I took my 25-year old nephew there last summer. He'd never heard of it and thought I was joking. After eating there once - and it wasn't a good day for the kitchen - he's all over it and it's one of his top 10 places.
