Author: Matt Ingersoll

Matt Ingersoll writes about all things food and drink, covering new restaurants and following the most delicious foodie trends in the state. Reach him at [email protected].

Best spuds

Manchester couple launches The Potato Concept

A new local business venture is proving that a simple russet potato twice baked with butter and salt is a great vessel for all kinds of flavor profiles, from broccoli and cheddar to a poutine potato with cheese curds and gravy to a Mexican-inspired “PoTaco.”

Brandon Rainer and Lauren Lefebvre, owners and founders of The Potato Concept. Courtesy photo.

The Potato Concept was founded by Lauren Lefebvre and Brandon Rainer. The Manchester couple sold their first loaded spuds at the Made in New England Expo last month and will next appear at Great North Aleworks for a pop-up event on Saturday, Jan. 29.

“The versatility behind a potato was very attractive to us,” Lefebvre said of coming up with the idea for The Potato Concept. “It’s also accommodating to all dietary restrictions or needs, whether you’re plant-based or vegan or dairy- or gluten-free. … There’s something for everyone, and the toppings that we put on them are really what make each individual recipe unique.”

Each potato is hollowed out before it’s filled and topped with your desired flavor option. Licensed through Creative Chef Kitchens in Derry, The Potato Concept will often have specially curated menus depending on where you find it. A pop-up they hosted at Rockingham Brewing Co. in mid-December, for instance, featured a beef stew option cooked with the brewery’s Belly of the Beast bacon imperial stout. At the Great North Aleworks event on Jan. 29, you can order a broccoli cheddar loaded potato with an amber lager cheese.

“It’s not an idea that has to stay with a brewpub, but if we were to pop up anywhere, we can kind of collaborate with a different product or atmosphere that we’re catering to,” Lefebvre said.

The Ginger Sweet (Sweet potato blended with brown sugar and butter, topped with marshmallows and gingersnap cookie crumbles). Photo courtesy of The Potato Concept.

Other menu options include the Classic, with lettuce, tomato, chives, sour cream; a Loaded Classic option that adds bacon and cheddar cheese; and the Buff Potato, which features Buffalo chicken, Gorgonzola cheese, sour cream, celery and scallions. The “PoTaco,” meanwhile, has lettuce, tomato, sour cream and cheese, and can be made with either Angus or vegan beef.

Lefebvre and Rainer also continue to experiment with different flavors, trying out recipes like a cheesy spinach and artichoke potato; a barbecue pork potato with coleslaw, pickled red cabbage and fresh corn; and the “Ginger Sweet,” featuring a sweet potato that’s blended with brown sugar and butter and topped with marshmallows and gingersnap cookies. They’ve also created a few breakfast-themed potatoes, like bacon or sausage potatoes with scrambled eggs and cheese, and a corned beef hash potato with steamed asparagus and hollandaise sauce.

A catering menu offers all of these and more, along with the ability to design your own creations, right down to the potato itself, the protein and more than a dozen toppings. Their ultimate goal, Rainer said, is for The Potato Concept to eventually evolve into a traveling box truck.

The Potato Concept

When: Saturday, Jan. 29, 2 to 7 p.m.
Where: Great North Aleworks, 1050 Holt Ave., No. 14, Manchester
More info: Visit thepotatoconcept.com, find them on Facebook and Instagram, or email them at [email protected]

Featured photo: The Buff Potato (Buffalo chicken, Gorgonzola cheese, celery, sour cream and scallions). Photo courtesy of The Potato Concept.

The Weekly Dish 22/01/27

News from the local food scene

• Seniors Valentine’s luncheon: The Salvation Army of Northern New England is inviting Manchester and Bedford area seniors to attend its annual Valentine’s Day luncheon, which will take place at the organization’s Manchester Corps (121 Cedar St.) on Thursday, Feb. 10, at 11:30 a.m. Entertainment will be provided by The Sunshiners. Call 627-7013 by Feb. 3 to make a reservation, or visit nne.salvationarmy.org/manchester.

• Tastes through time: Join chef Liz Barbour of The Creative Feast in Hollis for Cooking Lessons from a Colonial Kitchen: Recipes Then & Now, a virtual event scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 30, from 4 to 6 p.m. Barbour will take attendees on a tour of her historic 1744 New Hampshire village kitchen, discussing its workings and the typical foods that would have been prepared during the colonial era. The class will then include a cooking demonstration featuring some recipes with historic roots that Barbour has adapted for today’s cooks, including rack of lamb with roasted potatoes and a mint vinaigrette. Recipe information, along with the ingredient and equipment list, will be emailed to participants shortly after registration. The cost is $20 per registrant. A link to the recording will also be emailed following the class. Register online at thecreativefeast.com. or find Barbour on Facebook @thecreativefeast.

• Flavors of the world: Copper Kettle To Go (39 Main St., Wilton) is inviting you on a year-long culinary journey with Around the World in 36 Dishes. Every month, the eatery will combine various internationally inspired dishes with its own unique hometown flair — guests will receive a culinary “passport” marked for each country visited. The month of January is celebrating Turkey. Countries to follow will include Brazil in February, France in March, Greece in April, India in May, Sweden in June, Spain in July, Argentina in August, Thailand in September, Germany in October, Italy in November and Vietnam in December. Tickets are $50 per person and cover one three-course meal for each month (items are currently dine-in only; optional add-on wine bottles are $30). Visit copperkettletogo.com.

• Wine and dine: Third-generation Argentinian winemaker Patricio Santos will be in New Hampshire for three local wine events this week – catch him at The Black Trumpet Bistro (29 Ceres St., Portsmouth, 431-0887, blacktrumpetbistro.com) and at Gauchos Churrascaria Brazilian Steakhouse (62 Lowell St., Manchester, 669-9460, gauchosbraziliansteakhouse.com), which will hold wine dinners on Thursday, Jan. 27, at 5:30 p.m., and Friday, Jan. 28, at 6 p.m., respectively. He’ll also be at WineNot Boutique (25 Main St., Nashua, 204-5569, winenotboutique.com) for a wine class and tasting on Saturday, Jan. 29, from 2 to 6 p.m. Santos is the owner of Tercos Winery and the son of Ricardo Santos, the first winemaker from Argentina to export Malbec to the United States more than 30 years ago, according to a press release.

• Chili cook-off postponed: The Amherst Lions Club’s sixth annual Fire & Ice chili cook-off and ice cream social, which had been set for Friday, Feb. 4, has been postponed due to the latest Covid surge. The goal, according to Amherst Lion Joan Ferguson, is to have a new set date for the event in mid- to late March or later in the spring. The cook-off brings together area restaurateurs and community members for a friendly competition for the best chilis, all to raise money for local charities. Visit e-clubhouse.org/sites/amherstnh or follow the Amherst Lions Club on Facebook @amherstlionsclub for updates on the cook-off.

In the kitchen with Celine Costa

Celine Costa of Newton is the owner and head chef of Up Street Food Truck (upstreetfoodtruck.wixsite.com/upstreet, [email protected], and on Facebook and Instagram), which she runs with her partner, Scott Magnusson. Up Street gets its name from its “upscale street food” concept, offering a rotating menu of options like fish tacos, sandwiches, hand-breaded chicken tenders, Thai curry fries or tater tots, fried pickles and more. Since launching the 32- by 10-foot trailer last year, Costa and Magnusson have parked at several spots all over New Hampshire, including Lithermans Limited Brewery in Concord and North Country Hard Cider in Rollinsford, and have participated in local events. Up Street is also available to book for corporate events, weddings and private parties and gatherings.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

Herbs are such a big part of our cooking, whether they’re in the dish or as a garnish. I like pairing herbs with different things that you wouldn’t think would necessarily go together.

What would you have for your last meal?

I would definitely do malai kofta from Gypsy Cafe in Lincoln. It’s a north Indian potato dish with vegetables, rolled into little balls in a tomato cream sauce, and they serve it with basmati rice. It’s so delicious.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

Cafe El Camino in Plaistow. They’re right down the street from us and they’ve been really good friends. … I would say their beef empanadas are probably one of the best things on the menu, but they have a new guava and cheese empanada that is also really good.

What celebrity would you like to see ordering from your food truck?

Conan O’Brien, because he is my favorite. … I had a dream one time that Scott invited him to my birthday party, so now I just have this whole scene in my head of him showing up. … Scott said Adam Sandler would be pretty cool, too.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

We recently did a sandwich that we called One Hot Honey. It’s a hot honey fried chicken sandwich with a chile-infused hot honey and a spring mix. That’s probably my No. 1.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

One thing that definitely comes to mind is charcuterie boards. I feel like everybody is doing their own version of their charcuterie board, or something to do with charcuterie. … There’s also an emphasis on buying local. I feel like I see that growing more and more, especially as we travel around.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I would say my grandmother’s cranberry chicken recipe. It just brings back good childhood memories and it’s wicked easy to make.

Beama’s cranberry chicken
From the kitchen of Celine Costa of Up Street Food Truck

8 chicken breasts (totaling 4 pounds)
1 16-ounce can whole-berry cranberry sauce
1 8-ounce bottle Catalina dressing
1 package onion soup mix

Place chicken breasts in a greased baking dish. Preheat the oven to 355 degrees. Combine all other ingredients in a pot and simmer on low heat, stirring until ingredients have combined well. Pour cranberry mixture over chicken and bake for roughly one hour, or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees. (Suggestion: serve with rice pilaf, grape goat cheese garden salad and cranberry gin and tonic with a sprig of burnt rosemary).

Featured photo: Celine Costa. Courtesy photo.

Hometown comfort

Hare of the Dawg Bar & Grill opens in Derry

For longtime Derry couple Kevin and Lesley Decker, the restaurant business is a new venture, but their vision was simple: a local bar and grill with comfort foods, craft beers and cocktails, where the atmosphere is laid back and everybody knows each other’s names, à la Cheers.

Hare of the Dawg — or “the Dawg,” if you prefer, as Kevin Decker said some are already calling it — opened Jan. 9 in downtown Derry. The Deckers took over the space last year that had long been occupied by the C & K Restaurant and quickly began renovations, which include a 24-seat custom bar built from the ground up by local woodworker Matt Daily of Dailydoes.

The eatery’s name, Kevin Decker said, is a play on the “hair of the dog that bit you,” an old expression commonly heard in bars. The logo features a big black Newfoundland dressed in flannel garb, holding a beer-filled stein with a rabbit (or a “hare”) poking its head out of the top.

“Hair of the dog just means having another drink the day after to cure a hangover, so in other words, having some of the ‘hair of the dog that bit you’ the night before,” Decker said. “We just thought it was a cool name, and we loved the play on words, so we had a lot of fun designing the logo. … The flannel shirt … represents the theme that we wanted, kind of a blue-collar bar. We’re not trying to be a high-end restaurant. We’re trying to be a place where the locals can gather at the end of the work day and have an affordable drink and meal.”

The Deckers recruited Alan Severance, a Manchester native and veteran chef of more than 20 years, to design and oversee the menu. Severance’s culinary resume includes stints at several other local eateries, from The Foundry Restaurant and Moe Joe’s Family Restaurant in Manchester to the former DRAE and CR Sparks restaurants in Derry and Bedford, respectively.

“Kevin and I really wanted a comfort food menu,” Lesley Decker said. “Nothing is pre-made here, so you’re not going to get a frozen spring roll or a frozen mozzarella cheese stick.”

With an opening during the middle of winter, she said warm options like soups, chowders, melts and shepherd’s pie are all part of the menu’s initial lineup of items. But additional colder options, including lighter salads and sandwiches, will likely be part of the menu by the spring or summer.

Appetizers include “Rib off the Hawg” dry-rubbed and slow-roasted St. Louis-style ribs; house-made truffle fries with a shaved Parmesan cheese; and multiple flavors of fried spring rolls, from a Grecian option with spinach, artichoke and feta cheese to a “Rollin Reuben” with slow-cooked corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and a side of Thousand Island dressing for dipping.

There is also a build-your-own pizza option with nearly two dozen toppings to customize your pie with, as well as a few specialty flatbreads. The Arezzo flatbread, for instance, features a house mushroom prosecco cream sauce with sauteed spinach, mushroom, feta and mozzarella, while the “WaHuaGo” has a fig and balsamic glaze, caramelized pear, toasted crushed walnuts, and brie and honey goat cheeses. Burgers, sandwiches, sauteed plates and house entrees like meatloaf, fried haddock and beef tips round out the menu.

Hare of the Dawg’s bar features 12 tap lines of beer, and Kevin Decker said he’s aiming to have at least half of those always rotating out with local craft brew options.

“My hope is to bring in some smaller local brewers and do kind of like a craft brewers night, where we’d keep a tap open for them and people can come and sample their stuff,” he said.

A brunch menu of chef’s plates and a bloody mary bar is in the works to debut in the coming months. Lesley Decker added that a special food menu for dogs will be added once the weather is warm enough for them to open their outdoor patio.

“The doggie menu … will have a sweet potato burger that’s served on a Frisbee with our logo on it,” she said.

Hare of the Dawg Bar & Grill

Where: 3 E. Broadway, Derry
Hours: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. (closed on Tuesdays)
More info: Find them on Facebook @hareofthedawg (the website, hareofthedawgnh.com, will be live soon and will have an online ordering option) or call 552-3883

Featured photo: Rib off the Hawg (dry-rubbed slow-roasted St. Louis-style ribs). Photo by Matt Ingersoll.

Flavors of the islands

Caribbean Breeze now open in Nashua

A new restaurant in Nashua is a one-stop culinary destination for authentic Caribbean eats, featuring Haitian, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Jamaican and Dominican items all under the same roof.

Jamaican jerk chicken. Photo courtesy of Caribbean Breeze.

Caribbean Breeze, now open in the former Norton’s Classic Cafe space on the corner of Main and West Hollis streets, is owned and operated by Gerald Oriol, a seasoned executive chef with more than three decades of experience. Originally from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Oriol said he came up with the idea for Caribbean Breeze’s concept after noticing a lack of area establishments that offered a variety of menu items from more than one island nation or territory.

“This is a true Caribbean restaurant,” Oriol said. “You can order food from different countries in the Caribbean [and] you have more than one choice if you wanted to try different flavors.”

The eatery’s dinner menu breaks down each item by its origin and gives you the option to choose plated entrees or side dishes from there. For the most part, Oriol said, their differences have to do with traditional cooking styles, spices and seasoning bases, rather than the foods themselves. Griot, for instance, is a Haitian dish featuring pork shoulder marinated in a citrus spice, braised and then fried before it’s served with pikliz, a spicy pickled vegetable slaw. Pernil, on Caribbean Breeze’s Puerto Rican menu, is also pork shoulder, but is slow-cooked and served with arroz con gandules, or a combination of rice and pigeon peas.

Pineapple upside down cake. Photo courtesy of Caribbean Breeze.

Other options include Haitian-style red snapper; Jamaican oxtail, curry or jerk chicken; mofongo, a Puerto Rican dish featuring fried mashed plantains; pollo guisado, or Dominican stewed chicken; scratch-made pineapple upside-down cake as a dessert; and ropa vieja, the national dish of Cuba featuring shredded slow-cooked beef served with black beans and rice.

Because the space had an established loyal following for its breakfast when it was known as Norton’s, Oriol said, he decided to continue it. That menu includes many familiar items the former cafe was known for, from pancakes, French toast and Belgian waffles to egg sandwiches, omelets and more. A lunch menu, served six days a week from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., similarly features many of the same burgers, sandwiches, wraps and salads.

Oriol hopes to add more Caribbean entrees to the menu as time goes on, while the bar in the back of the restaurant will also soon be serving various beers imported from each island. Eventually, he said, he’d like to begin branding Caribbean Breeze as a franchise with additional locations.

Caribbean Breeze

Where: 233 Main St., Nashua
Hours: Daily, 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 to 9 p.m. (2:30 to 9 p.m. for DoorDash or GrubHub)
Call 883-4340 or find them on DoorDash or GrubHub to place an order.

Featured photo: Haitian red snapper. Photo courtesy of Caribbean Breeze.

The Weekly Dish 22/01/20

News from the local food scene

• Wine Week called off: New Hampshire Wine Week and the Easterseals Winter Wine Spectacular, scheduled to happen next week, have been canceled due to the continuous rise in Covid-19 cases, the state Liquor Commission announced in a Jan. 12 statement. All ticket sales to the week’s events will be refunded and the NHLC said it is “working with all of our partners to minimize the impact of this decision.” The statement says that given the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the future of the pandemic, New Hampshire Wine Week will not be rescheduled in 2022. “We look forward to seeing everyone in January 2023,” the statement reads. Visit nhwineweek.com to read the Liquor Commission’s full announcement.

• Fody’s winter festival to return: Get your tickets now before they’re gone to the second annual winter festival at Fody’s Tavern in Derry (187½ Rockingham Road) — the two-day event is scheduled to take place on Friday, Jan. 28, and Saturday, Jan. 29, beginning at 5 p.m. each day. Co-owner Maria Foden told the Hippo a variety of outdoor festivities are planned, from live local music each evening and an LED light show to vendor booths and pourings from several area breweries, like Great North Aleworks, Long Blue Cat Brewing Co., Rockingham Brewing Co. and others. Multiple ice bars and hot food stations are also expected, including a fire pit with make-your-own s’mores. Tickets are $15 per person (event is 21+ only) — search “Fody’s Tavern Winter Festival” on Eventbrite for more details.

• Brews and bites: Concord Craft Brewing Co. (117 Storrs St., Concord) is now serving food out of its newly expanded tasting room. Concord Craft Kitchen, which opened on Jan. 12, features a light menu of shareable items like honey garlic chicken tapas on naan bread, house-made hummus with pita chips, and spent grain beer pretzels served with a sweet mustard and a house Kapitol Kölsch cheese sauce. Also included are seasoned burgers, salads and smaller items for kids like pizzas and grilled cheeses. According to co-owner Dennis Molnar, the goal is to add stone oven flatbread pizzas to the menu by the brewery’s fifth anniversary celebration on Saturday, Jan. 22. Concord Craft Kitchen’s current hours are Wednesday through Friday, from 4 to 8:30 p.m., and Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., Molnar said — the brewery will remain open on Tuesday and Sunday for beer only. Follow them on Facebook @concordcraftbrewing.

• Uncle Joey’s opens in Merrimack: A new restaurant specializing in New York-style pizzas, pastas, fried chicken options, roast beef sandwiches and family-sized to-go dinners is now open in Merrimack. Uncle Joey’s held its grand opening Jan. 10, according to its website and social media pages — the eatery is at 733 Daniel Webster Hwy., the former spot of Spartan Pizza, which closed last fall. Uncle Joey’s is open Sunday through Thursday, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. According to its website, an online ordering platform is coming soon. Visit unclejoeysnh.com, find them on Facebook and Instagram or call 424-5693 to place an order.

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