Over the All Star break, my wife and I tossed around the idea of going to the Mets-Phillies game on Saturday. We really enjoyed taking the family to Citi Field last year and wanted to re-create that experience.

We called around and it looked like my parents and siblings were also going to be able to make it.

Then there was some rain in the forecast, and we started to second-guess a 3-hour ride into 90-degree temperatures and a rain delay.

We cancelled the trip.

But my wife suggested that in honor of Citi Field, we check out the new Shake Shack in Chestnut Hill.

We've had Shake Shack at Citi Field - it's the only place we have, actually. (There are 10 locations in New York State, a few in Florida, a couple in Connecticut, and the one in Massachusetts, which opened up just this past March.) And the first time I realized Shake Shack extended beyond New York City was a year ago at this time, when I was in Washington, D.C. I saw there's one at Nationals Park - that's one of three Shake Shacks in the DC area.

Anyway, as many food options as there are at Citi Field, it's a credit to how good Shake Shack is that there's always a really long line there - by far the longest concession line in the park. And we'll usually wait in that line too. The burgers are so good. And the fries are excellent too.

Saturday night my wife and I got burgers, the girls had hot dogs, and we got an order of regular fries and an order of cheese fries, figuring the girls might not like the cheese fries. They ate almost all of them. (Next time it'll be two orders of cheese fries.) And then, of course, we topped it off with some shakes. (My wife had ice cream, actually, which she thought was better than the shake.) At some point I'll have to try their 'concrete', which is ice cream with toppings blended in. It looks like a dessert you have to eat with a spoon, though, and Saturday night I was only interested in a shake.

If you're familiar at all with the Chestnut Hill Mall (and The Mall at Chestnut Hill, which are two separate things, as far as I know, on opposite sides of Route 9 in Chestnut Hill), there's a whole lot of work being done in that area. They're building a Wegman's and there's a whole bunch of other construction there too (the Wegman's is the only site that's labeled), and the Shake Shack is part of a stretch that's completed, called 'The Street'. It's next to Legal Sea Foods, there's a City Sports and a Sports Club LA there, a Pottery Barn, a couple of other restaurants, and a movie theater that we couldn't tell was open or not yet.

It's a pretty hopping area right now. We went for Shake Shack and discovered a whole lot else was happening.

Which is good. Because it's only about a 30-minute drive to have a little bit of New York City here in my current home state.

And it sure is worth the drive.