Peterborough Diner - 17

Date: 8/28/10

Restaurant: Peterborough Diner   
Address: 10 Depot St.   
City: Peterborough   
Phone: 603-924-6710

Web site: www.peterboroughdiner.com   

Breakfast Hours: 6-noon M-F, 7-8 Sat & Sun.       

Potatoes *
Kind: Home fries. Horrible. Seriously, look at this...

You may not be able to tell from the picture, but they were crunchy. Not from being sufficiently cooked on the griddle, but because they were raw! I would like to say that it is starting to get humorous that NO ONE can cook good home fries, but really, this isn't a laughing matter.
       
Toast ****
Kind: Multigrain   
Homemade? N
Even though this bread was not homemade, it was pretty great. It was thick cut, nicely toasted and big. It was way too big for the breakfast sandwich, so I ate one slice with the sandwich stuff and one slice with strawberry jam. I would have to say that the toast was the best part of the breakfast. 

       
Bacon *
Overdone and dry. There was zero moisture, not a speck of grease. He thinks it was either cooked in the microwave (to death) or it spent the night in a food dehydrator.
   
SERVER RECOMMENDATION
Omelets and breakfast sandwiches.

      
   
SVEN'S BREAKFAST: *, **, ***   1,2,3 (1 egg, 2 bacon, 3 french toast)
See "Sven's Take" below.

OLGA'S BREAKFAST *** Breakfast Sandwich
One egg over medium on multigrain bread with cheddar and sausage. The bread was great, the egg was fine, the sausage was decent. The bread was big enough to accommodate two eggs and it would have been better if the cheese had been fully melted. The potatoes... well you already know about the potatoes.

SERVICE ***
Our server was sweet. She was a little flustered at first due to a broken juice machine. We were the first ones to arrive, right at opening, and even though she was trying to deal with the juice problem she was able to answer, or find out answers, to our questions. She definitely put forth a good effort.        
    
   

DECOR ****
This was a great classic diner car. Photos of old cars hung on the walls. It wasn't quite as decked out at the Tumble Inn, but it was pretty great. I large outdoor seating area gives the place even more curb appeal!    


NOTES
The place was pretty quiet, but it was pretty early. The people who did show up while we were there were mostly old men who seemed to be regulars of the place.

SVEN'S TAKE
This is just the kind of place I love to eat at. According to their website, the core of the restaurant is a 1950 Worcester Lunch Car, in a very groovy dark green and cream color scheme. It sits right in the center of Peterborough, with a big parking lot, and about a dozen picnic tables available for outside dining. In typical New England fashion, the years have brought more than a few additions to the place. Case in point: walk through the kitchen and say "Hi" to the cook on your way to the boat-like bathrooms jutting out into the back parking lot.

The food here (and the service) were just OK; but honestly it didn't detract much from the experience. I ordered up the appropriately named "1-2-3" --"appropriately" not because it included 1 egg, 2 pieces of bacon, and 3 pieces of French toast; but rather because the bacon earned 1 star, the egg got a generous 2 stars, and the French toast got a middle-of-the-road 3 stars. The bacon was something: easily taking the title for the driest bacon I have had in the past decade. In fact, I felt a little like an archaeologist handling a delicate old fossil as I tried to gingerly lift the bacon and move it towards my mouth without having it fall apart under its own weight. The one egg I had was comically tiny, but good nonetheless. The French toast was actually awesome, with plenty of cinnamon and a generous helping of maple syrup. It might have been worth 4 stars, but I docked it for the cold plate it was served on (and cold syrup, to boot); and frankly just to deliver some poetic justice.

While eating there, I was reminded of a story from my college days. I want to caution that this story has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the Peterborough Diner, other than the fact that they had an out-of-order Vitality Juice machine. Long ago and in a different state, I had a friend who worked in the cafeteria at Boston College. While he was working there, they began to have trouble with the Vitality Juice machine delivering less and less flow. They cleaned it, looked at it, did some standard maintenance to it, but couldn't figure out what was  wrong with it. So they called in the Vitality Juice man. He came in, took the machine apart, and came to a filter screen that was only accessible by taking the machine apart. All the juice flows through that screen. That screen had become completely, entirely clogged with . . . hold your breath . . . dead cockroaches. No kidding. And what is worse is that my friend reported they were meticulous about cleaning the counters every night with bleach. By his estimation it was one of the cleaner kitchens he had worked in. In any event, suffice it to say that I don't drink Vitality Juice or any other cafeteria juice for that matter. So I wasn't too disappointed that the Peterborough Diner's machine was on the fritz.