Phantom Gourmet: Chez Vachon In Manchester, NH

MANCHESTER, NH - At Chez Vachon in Manchester, New Hampshire, small portions are not on the menu. In fact, it might even be an understatement to call the portions big, because at Chez Vachon, just about everything is absolutely over-the-top enormous.

"People don't go home hungry," said owner Jessica Perkins. "We give you a gigantic portion at a price that everyone can afford."

Finding Chez Vachon takes a little effort. It's located in a residential neighborhood on Manchester's West Side. Robert Perkins grew up nearby, and now he and his wife Jessica run the casual breakfast and lunch spot, serving plenty of American classics, and French Canadian comfort food.

"Meatloafs, and Macaroni and Cheese, and Omelets; Pork pies and crepes and smoked meats," Robert listed.

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Of course, if you've never been to Chez Vachon before, you could be a bit confused. With a name like Chez Vachon, you might expect snooty service and white table cloths, rather than friendly faces and paper place settings.

"We get a lot of calls wanting to make reservations, you know, like for dinner, and we say, 'Oh no. We're breakfast and lunch. We close at 2.' And they go, 'Really, a French restaurant?' And we're like, 'Well, we're French Canadian,'" Robert explained.

In fact, 'Chez Vachon' simply means 'House of Vachon', the name of a previous owner, who wanted customers to feel like they were dining in his own home.

"That's how we feel too. A lot of the recipes here are my mother's recipes, so we believe we're just sharing our food with the world," said Robert.

There definitely is plenty of food to share, especially at breakfast, where the oven baked omelets burst with fillings. There's the Westsider, with ham, sausage, bacon, kielbasa, onions, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, and melted cheese, and the extra indulgent Chicken Cordon Blue, made with ham, fried chicken and Swiss cheese, topped with hollandaise.

"You would swear you would be eating a piece of Chicken Cordon Blue. They're unbelievable. It's probably one of our most popular omelets," Robert said.

Also quite popular are Chez Vachon's breakfast crepes, but these aren't that dainty, fancy French style.

"Our crepes are huge. They cover the plate. It's a 12-inch plate and they cover it and drape over the ends normally, and that's rolled up," described Jessica. "It's funny, we'll bring them out to the table and people will be like, 'What is that? What did I order?'"

You can get them filled with fresh strawberries, spinach and feta, or bananas and homemade maple cream.

"You cook the crepe and then you flip it over. You put your bananas in the middle, and then you roll your crepe up, and then you put it on a plate and you cover it with the maple cream on top," Robert explained. "To me it just reminds me of when I was a kid. I mean, we used to cook crepes at home probably every weekend. That was our breakfast."

For a breakfast that will fill you for the rest of the day, nothing beats the Farmer's Skillet.

"It's a plate of home fries. We take onions, peppers, sausage, ham, and bacon. We throw that on top of the home fries, with a couple of eggs, and then we cover that with a cheese sauce that we make in house. So it's a very thick and heavy plate. People do finish it, but they walk out a little slower after," Robert laughed.

Lunch at Chez Vachon is all about meat, served in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and styles. For a taste of the familiar, the Ruben is messy masterpiece, but for something a bit different, try the Montreal Style Smoked Meat, piled so high on rye that the meat can barely be contained.

"Montreal Style Smoked Meat is basically Pastrami done in a Canadian way," Robert said. "It's got more coriander, and the cumin, and some allspice, and some garlic. We actually cure it here, and then we use our spice rub on it. So basically it's a French style pastrami."

Another French Canadian favorite is the old fashioned Pork Pies, made from a family recipe passed down for generations.

"The one thing you've got to know about Pork Pie is every family had a Pork Pie recipe. Even if we were neighbors, you probably had a different Pork Pie recipe than I did," Robert said. "Every once in a while somebody will say, 'I don't like your Pork Pie,' and I say to them, 'That's okay. It's no big deal. I might not like yours either.'"

There are plenty of guilty pleasures on the menu at Chez Vachon, but none are guiltier than the classic Canadian Poutine, which is also their top seller.

"It's hand-cut French Fries; we use a curd cheese, and we also use a peppery chicken gravy," described Jessica.

"The cheese to me is the best part. It gets all creamy and those curds are a little salty, and the gravy is really peppery. We make our own gravy from scratch right in the house, so it's really good," confirmed Robert.

Everyone will definitely like the value at Chez Vachon, because the prices are incredibly affordable.

"We like to keep ourselves on the low end of what people charge out there, and we like to give you food," Jessica said. "It's just the way we are, we want to feed everyone."

You can find Chez Vachon at 136 Kelley Street in Manchester, New Hampshire, and online at chezvachon.com.

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