Offbeat Eats

(Closed) After years of visiting Manchester’s famous Red Arrow Diner, I figured it was worth checking out downtown Manchester’s other diner, the Manchester Diner on Hanover St. I recall that this place has been here as a diner for a while under other names (I think the last incarnation was the Golden Oldies Diner), so it’s one of those slightly gritty and worn-around the edges cozy diners that most any New England city like Manchester used to have dozens of, with your basic lunch counter and a few tables, and a few black and white photos and knick-knacks. It also appears to be owner-operated…

Every spring, I go with the local high school FIRST Robotics team down to compete at Manchester, New Hampshire, for three or four days. Usually this means that I have a few hours to explore the local food scene a bit more. In the past, that’s pretty much the way I discovered the Red Arrow Diner, Greg’s Place, Golden Bowl, and Gauchos Churrascaria. (And I should actually write up all of these, too.) This time, I made a concerted effort to find someplace good for breakfast that was off the beaten track. A quick web search lead me to Belmont Hall, at the corner of Grove and Belmont SE of the Verizon Arena.

One of the odd regional idiosyncracies about New England is that very few places actually have hash browns (“hash browns” defined as crispy fried shredded potatoes, as per the image below and right). Most places have “pan fries”, “home fries” or “american fries” instead, which are all variations of cubed or sliced potatoes deep-fried or grilled. Now, some of thes home fries are indeed delicious (for example, Daddypop’s Tumble Inn diner in Claremont, NH, or the Fairlee Diner in Fairlee, VT are both good examples of excellent homefries). But sometimes I just find myself craving good hash browns. Seeing that my last good HB fix was Al’s Breakfast in Minneapolis, it was time for another fix.