The Shannon Rose, Ramsey, NJ

Murder Burger

The Shannon Rose sounds like the name of either a beautiful Irish Lassie, or a rusty tramp steamer out of Belfast bound for some exotic port of call. In this case it is a rather nice Irish restaurant on route 17 in Ramsey, NJ, part of a small chain of three restaurants with the same name. Looking at it you realize that someone spent a whole lot of cash to build it and that money was well spent. It is large and well appointed with dark wood and glass etched with Irish expressions. 

Murder Burger on the menu

We looked over the menus and Teresa decided on the open faced Rueben with fries. The meat was lean and it had Irish cheese on it instead of the traditional Swiss cheese. She said it was quite good. I debated between three burgers. One was the Dublin with Irish rashers and cheddar, the second was the stuffed bacon and blue cheese burger. 

The winner was the Murder Burger, shown at top. This burger consisted of quality meat cooked exactly to the medium which I ordered. It sat in a brioche roll with American and pepper jack cheese, sautéed onion, jalapeños, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup and thousand island dressing. They took the whole thing and battered it in a Harp beer batter, then deep fried it. 

Okay, this sounds like a heavy burger, but it had a nice light taste to it. The cheeses and the dressing gave a creamy taste with a slight crunch from the bun. The bun actually took on a donut taste. Overall, it was amazing and I would order another. The next time I'd ask for a few more jalapeños to kick it up a bit.

The food was very good, the ambiance nice and the prices reasonable. The two sandwiches set us back $25 with tax. We'll definitely stop by again. By the way, they have traditional Irish fare such as; shepherd's pie, bangers and mash, meatloaf and a traditional Irish breakfast with both black and white sausages.