I recently had a short business trip that involved both dropping equipment off in Haverhill, MA and then driving up for a tour of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) Space Science Center at University of New Hampshire (which was excellent). This ended up having me driving through parts of New Hampshire’s Seacoast region at breakfast time, which is quite unusual for my travels. Looking at the various dining options, I decided I’d take a back route to Durham via the small town of Greenland, NH, and stop in and check out one of the area’s breakfast spots: The Country View Restaurant.
The Country View is a relatively unassuming yellow clapboard building on the north side of State Highway 33 just west of downtown Greenland NH. But, like a lot of breakfast places I review around here (like the recent re-visit to The Post), once you are in the door, it’s actually a surprisingly nice and welcoming dining room: a good dozen tables, a large woodstove to keep it warm in the winter, a breakfast counter, and a lot of nice windows letting the night in.
The menu at The Country View is primarily a breakfast menu with a bunch of omelet and egg scramble dishes, a variety of Benedicts (including one of my favorite Benedict variations, an Irish Benedict with Corned Beef Hash), pancakes, and even a few of the higher-end breakfast dishes like country-fried steak, steak tips and eggs, or chicken and waffles. But on this visit a few days before St Patrick’s Day, I had to go for the Irish Breakfast special: two Irish-style bangers, bacon rashers, grilled tomato, beans, home fries, and a slice of house-made soda bread. This was a particularly hearty breakfast, and well-executed: the rashers had a nice crisp, beans flavorful, the home fries perfectly crisp. The bangers were particularly good, which is a nice surprise (we don’t regularly encounter either Irish-style sausages or white/black pudding much in New England, these were well-sourced). And usually I’m disappointed by soda bread, but their version was flavorful, slightly crispy, and had a good crumb. Overall, a nice, satisfying breakfast.
One other thing I liked about the Country View was the staff; one of the owners, Doug, was working the counter and was very outgoing and friendly. Running the Country View is a second career for him, and he enjoys talking with diners and finding good ingredients (he was particularly interested in what I thought of the Irish-style bangers).
So, if you are looking for a good hearty breakfast and some nice service in the seacoast region, give The Country View a try. I think you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.
