Way back in 2009 (ancient history by modern internet standard), I remember seeing several of my online friends passing around an article from Travel+Leisure on America’s Best 10 Burgers. Normally I don’t pay too much attention to these sorts of Top 10 lists, but this one caught my attention, since burger number 10 on the list was the “Murph Burger” from Murphy’s on the Green in Hanover.
This caught my attention, since I’ve been to Murphy’s on the Green a lot (one of the byproducts of living in an area with few restaurants is that any that are halfway decent get a lot of my repeat business), and had even had some burgers there, but couldn’t recall ever having a “Murph Burger”, and none of the burgers there really struck me as being memorable.
But I made a note to go get a Murph Burger at some point and report back. Well, months kept passing by, and mostly my visits to Murphy’s were for beer, but a few weeks ago we found ourselves looking for dinner in Hanover, and I decided it was finally time to cross another item off of my to-do list.
So we wandered into Murphy’s for dinner, and ordered up a pair of Murph Burgers, both done medium rare. The Murph is differentiated from your normal burger by two small changes: it’s got deep-fried shallots on it (giving a slightly stronger garlic-style twang to the dish), and instead of your normal mayo or “special sauce”, it comes with a thin layer of remoulade sauce, which gives it a subtle curry note. Add in some good, thick local bacon (don’t know who their supplier is, but it resembled either Vermont Smoke and Cure or North Country Smokehouse bacon), and it’s a winning combo. This combination works quite well, and the only other place I’ve had anything similar to it was the Elephant and Castle bar in Dublin, which had the Elephant Burger with curry mayo and scallions. It was a good burger. It was also a $13 burger, so at that price it better be good…
They also weren’t slouching with the fries, these were good, honest, double-cooked french fries with a decently crispy exterior and a soft, fluffy interior. I’ve had better, but these weren’t underperforming by any stretch of the imagination
The rest of the meal was quite good as well. Our appetizer was a plate of nicely done falafel fritters served up with a nice (bright) turmeric aoili. Being little pockets of nicely-seasoned falafel, these actually did a pretty good job of tickling my Middle Eastern food cravings (“Middle Eastern” being one of those cuisines nearly absent in the Upper Valley). And the desert, a nice little Molten Chocolate cake, was a nicely executed little chocolate treat.
A good overall dinner, and I was glad that the Murph Burger was actually quite good. I’m still not sure it’s $13 good, but it is indeed a good burger.
