A recent hiking trip had us passing through Claremont, New Hampshire during breakfast time. Claremont has a good selection of restaurants, but it also has several locations that just, for one reason or another, seem to be challenging for restaurants to find success. These locations have a rapid series of different restaurants back-to-back, while the local diners hope that at some point something finally manages to stick. One of those locations is on Washington Street, the main route between Claremont and Newport, next to the Burger King. This location has been more than a few restaurants in my years living in the area; of the ones I remember, it was a “flash-fired pizza” place run by Ramunto’s (which I actually liked), then vacant for a bit, and then for a few years it was Claremont Country Cafe (unrelated to the now-shutter Country Kitchen in Newport), then that changed into Fast Lane Diner, which only lasted for a few months before reopening as Odd Duck Diner and Donuts.
Stepping in to Odd Duck, the ambiance is mostly the same as it was at Country Cafe: a wood-paneled dining room with a little bit of country character, with some light decor on various duck themes places around the area (I suspect from the number of small rubber ducks that someone in the place is a Jeep owner). But it otherwise looks like a nice, established restaurant, and that’s for a good reason: as the restaurant transitioned from Claremont Country Cafe to Fast Lane to Odd Duck, it’s mostly been a change in ownership and vision, and not staff; some of the folks working here go back to the Country Cafe days.
Since Odd Duck has “Donuts” right in their name, we decided to order donuts to start. They have two very different types of donuts at Odd Duck, their “Duck Donuts”, which are traditional, large raised donuts in the shape of a duck. These looked quite good, but we went for the second option: they offered up potato donuts as well. I like potato donuts (see my review of Portland’s The Holy Donut from a few years back), since they have a nice texture and fry up to a very good crisp, and these were a nice start to the meal: a good texture, a perfect crisp, and a freshly-applied and not damp powdered sugar coating. A great start to the meal.
While Odd Duck was still during their soft opening, the menu was a bit limited, but it more than covers the basics of breakfast and lunch, and even had a few unexpected surprises, such as the shakshuka that Carol ordered. The classic North African/Middle Eastern dish of spiced tomato soup with poached egg, feta, and toasted bread served on top, this was unexpected for Claremont, and actually quite good. I did find this a ittle more tomato-ish and less “pepper” and “spice” than I usually like, but this was certainly a good dish, and makes me interested to see what other non-traditional diner food they’ll be serving up in the future.
Myself, I went a bit more mainstream, ordering one of my secondary standards when a place doesn’t have a Benedict (which Odd Duck didn’t, at least during the soft open): Country-fried steak. At a “diner”, this is often a pre-made, frozen breaded cutlet from Sysco, but a pleasant surprise at Odd Duck is that the “hand-breaded cubed steak cutlet” was indeed hand-breaded and fried to order: this was a particularly good country-fried steak. The gravy on it was a sausage gravy; I usually prefer a cream-style gravy, but this was a decent, house-made sausage gravy that worked well. Add in some decent scrambled eggs and some double-cooked home fries (par-cooked, and then finished on the griddle), although I admit I like a bit more of a sear on my potatoes. Overall, one of the better, satisfying breakfasts I’ve had in the area.
Really, I liked what Odd Duck is doing. The area is really short a few good breakfast options in particular, and this is a particularly good continuation of an existing restaurant with a nicely-updated concept. I’m interested to see how their full menu goes, and really want to go back soon and try one of the duck donuts.
