Event Catering by The Common Man Restaurant, Claremont, NH

The Common Man family of restaurants is an institution around New Hampshire.  While we don't have one in the town I grew up in, nor even particularly close by, of course I knew of it.  It was the place people had weddings, or other receptions.  It was the place that people went for a date night.  In the New Hampshire restaurant scene, it was a touch upscale, had unique elements (like a complimentary bread/crackers/dips and white chocolate (!) bar you could help yourself to throughout your meal), and was generally well liked.  The original opened in 1971, and now they have ... well, a slew of restaurants, some operating under the Common Man name, others more branded concepts (like the  the Tilt'n Diner in 1992, Italian Farmhouse that opened in 1993, etc).  2015 really put the brand on the map, when they opened stores in the major rest area off the highway, attached to the NH liquor store, just over the Massachusetts border, a destination due to the lack of sales tax in NH.  The Common Man at this point, is, well a common name around New Hampshire.

I've attended events at different Common Man locations over the years, and, besides the aforementioned bread/cracker/dip/chocolate bar, I don't really remember finding them all that interesting.  And I know people always said it was pricey for what it was.  I recently got the chance to dine again, this time for a reception honoring my grandmother. 

Our location was the Common Man in Claremont, set in a historic mill.  We had a private room, and catering was provided buffet style, for 20 guests, for lunch.  The restaurant was not open at the time (they are open only for dinner, since the pandemic).  Service was provided entirely by one person - she fetched the food from the kitchen, set up the buffet, cleared plates, etc.  She never had any other help.  She was friendly enough, but there were some hiccups with some basics, that I'm not sure were her fault, or that of the person who did setup (if not her).  For example, there were pitchers of lemonade, but no glasses to actually drink it in.  Dessert was brought after cutlery was cleared away, and most folks were left with no fork or spoon to eat it with.  We had provided details on having 2 children, aged 2 and 4, and no child cups, nor something with lids, were available for them.  The food was brought out about 30 minutes after our specified time.  Etc.  Just little things that added up to make it not seem like a very professional event team.

Snack Attack: Gluten-Free Nibbler. $5.99/pp.

We wanted to have something for folks to munch on as they arrived, so we added an item from the "Break bites".  I really wanted the "Snack Attack" which included mixed nuts, house made chips, popcorn, warm pretzels, and dipping sauces/mustards/cheese sauce, or even the "Uncommon Cheese Table" which features their famous dip and boursin cheese (among others) from the regular restaurant crackers/dip table, but my host opted for a healthier selection, the "gluten free nibbler".  If you wanted something sweet, there are a couple sweet "Break Bites" options too, like a donut cart with apple cider, or ice cream sundae station.

Adding these was a good call, not because we didn't have enough food (we had way too much), but because our main food came 45 minutes after we arrived (even though our BEO had asked for it 15 minutes after we arrived, and we arrived right on time ...).

Vegetable Crudite & Dip.

The "nibbler" referred to crudite, which turned out to be cucumbers, carrots, bell peppers, celery, and broccoli.  All was fresh, crisp, colorful, fine, although the cucumbers were soft and rather slimy. 

The "dip" turned out to just be ranch, and didn't taste particularly homemade.

This was certainly no different from what anyone would put out at their own house, with a bottle of ranch, and didn't seem worth the $5.99 price at all.  **, because it was below average, and those cucumbers had seen better days.

Fruit Bowl.

The Nibbler package usually includes a fruit platter, with a lot of melon involved.  Since I'm allergic, we asked to have no melons, and the chef suggested a fruit bowl instead, as the fruits they usually use on a platter would be kinda lacking without the melons.

The fruit was all fresh and decent - sliced strawberries and pineapple, blueberries, and grapes.  It was nice to have something refreshing.  ***.

Uncommon Lunch Table.  $19.99/pp.

For lunch, our host selected a buffet rather than plated meal.  I tried to encourage a 'real' buffet, the standard lunch package at the Common Man features fresh rolls and butter, salad, starch of choice (mashed potatoes, maple mashed sweet potatoes, herb roasted red potatoes, rice pilaf, or mac and cheese), seasonal veggie of the day, choice of two main entrees (from a great list ranging from New England style haddock to grilled steak tip and everything in-between), plus a real dessert (warm apple crisp, strawberry shortcake, cheesecake, chocolate cake, etc) for $23.99/pp, but she wanted it to be a lighter, more casual thing, and went for one of the additional simple buffets.  The other simple options are a sandwich version, Italian one with pizza/pasta, or Mexican one, priced at $18.99 - $19.99 per person, and these do not include bread & butter, and have simple desserts (cookies, brownies, or, in the Mexican case, churros). 

Our buffet was the "Uncommon Lunch Table":

• Salad Choices (2)
• Garden Salad
• Uncommon Salad
• Classic Caesar
• Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
• Grilled Sides — Chicken, salmon, portabella mushrooms.
• Marinated Roasted Vegetable Platter
• Uncommon Mac ’n Cheese 
• Cookies and Brownies

Beverages were included, basic canned soda, lemonade, coffee, and tea.

The only item we had to select was the two salads from a list of four, and my event host opted for the simple garden salad and the classic caesar, skipping the "uncommon salad' with candied nuts and gorgonzola and the chickpea option.  

The menu was entirely cold / room temperature items, besides the mac and cheese, which we didn't quite expect (we thought the grilled chicken, salmon, and portabellas would be warm, possibly even the roast veggies).

Many of the other lunch buffets include Common Man's bread and butter (a signature part of the restaurant experience, where they have a bread & butter, crackers & cheese, dip, etc bar you help yourself to).  While I'm not a big bread person, I do think some rolls would have rounded out the menu a bit.

Overall, it was fairly underwhelming for the price, and I'd highly recommend going for the standard buffet, which ours ended up being priced the same as, because we added on a real dessert.

Salad: Mixed Greens / Classic Caesar.

Our buffet started with two salads.  Both were fine.

Garden Salad: "Mixed greens, cucumbers, carrots, red onion and tomatoes with vinaigrette."

The garden salad was a basic everyday garden salad.  Reasonably fresh ingredients, but nothing particularly interesting about it.  It came with both a vinaigrette and ranch on the side.  I think this was the same ranch as the crudite platter.  I didn't care for the dressings.

Classic Caesar: "Romaine tossed with aged Parmesan, house-made croutons and Caesar dressing."

The caesar was pre-dressed, seemed fresh, and had nice large shards of parmesan on top.  The croutons were on the side to accommodate gluten-free diners.

***, basic, standard, fine salads.

Marinated Roasted Vegetable Platter.

The other vegetable offering was marinated roast vegetables, served (unexpectedly to us), cold.  The assortment included mushrooms (both stems and caps), red peppers, red onion, asparagus, and summer squash, plus tomatoes that seemed marinated but not roasted.  These platters were a mixed success.

I was let down by the mushrooms as they really were slimy and didn't taste great, and the asparagus was very thin and lacked any flavor.  The red onions were fine, but fairly oily.  I *loved* the tomatoes though - they were crazy flavorful.  Shockingly good, and in a completely different league from the tomatoes in the garden salad.  They didn't seem roasted like the rest of the veggies, rather just marinated, but, wow, they were good.  Best part of the meal, no question.  I dislike summer squash so I didn't try the squashes, nor the red peppers, but my mother raved about the red peppers.

Overall, most of this was highly average, with the lowpoint of the mushrooms, and the crazy high of the tomatoes, making it another **+ overall (but really, for the tomatoes only, ****+).  I would have liked to have some warm vegetables though, and the chilled marinated vegetables didn't really go well as add-ons to the salad (the garden salad already had the raw veggies, and the Caesar was already dressed so the extra marinade was too much).

Grilled Sides: Portabella Mushroom / Chicken / Salmon.

Next up, an even bigger cold surprise: the proteins.  Grilled portabella mushrooms, chicken, and salmon.  Yes, all cold.

All seemed to be grilled with the same herb blend.  The mushrooms were very slimy, and didn't seem like much of an additional offering for vegetarians, given the roast mushrooms in the other platter. My sister's kids enjoyed the chicken.  

I had the salmon.  It was ok, it definitely had a fair amount of albumin coming out, and was cooked hard/well done.  I always prefer mid-rare salmon, even if cold, so this was definitely over done for me, and, clearly cooked on too high of a temperature to begin with.  Also, well, I wanted it warm.

Very average.  **+.

Uncommon Mac & Cheese.

The only hot item in our buffet was the mac and cheese.  This is a signature dish of the restaurant, featured on their regular menu (available with or without pulled pork).  My cousin who is a high school teacher in the town the Common Man is in said her students all rave about it.

It was ... fine.  I liked the use of corkscrew pasta.  The pasta wasn't too mushy.  It was creamy.  The sauce seemed to be a fairly nice blend including aged cheddar.

I would prefer to have a crispy top, and something more interesting about it, and it was entirely unseasoned, but, it was fine.  Average buffet quality mac and cheese, no more, no less.

**+.

Coffee & Tea.

To go with dessert, coffee and tea were provided.

I tried the decaf coffee.  It was not particularly warm, and it, like basically everything, was just average.  No horrible decaf funk, but, not complex or interesting either.

**+.

Assorted Cookies & Brownies.

Our buffet package only included cookies & brownies for dessert.  They didn't look worth even trying to be honest, but of course I did.  Not many others did, these were largely untouched.

The brownies were reasonably rich, reasonably moist, fudgy, but, just a brownie.  The edges were dry.  They were cut into completely irregular shapes and sizes, which might be good so folks who wanted just a tiny one could get that, but it looked fairly unprofessional.  Eh.  **+.

The regular restaurant menu has brownies in the form of a salted caramel brownie sundae with salted caramel ice cream, fudge, whipped cream, and candied nuts, and cookies in the form of a warm toll house cookie pie (also with ice cream, whipped cream, and fudge).

Cookies.

The cookies honestly looked ... awful?  They looked hard and dry, small.  Nothing homemade or bakery fresh about them.  They were exactly the sort of cookie I don't like.  They weren't labelled, but seemed to be only two kinds, chocolate chip and ... plain?.

I took a chocolate chip cookie home because I felt bad that they were virtually untouched, and was a bit surprised.   The chocolate chips were small, and not evenly distributed.  While it was crazy crispy and not the softer style I like, it was very sweet and buttery.  The base flavor was good, even if the cookie itself wasn't a style I prefer.   Better than it looked, but, again, they really didn't look good at all. **+.

The other cookie I honestly don't know what it was.  A chocolate chip cookie without the chips.  It wasn't peanut butter, it wasn't a sugar cookie, it wasn't a shortbread, it wasn't a snickerdoodle ... it was just a blonde cookie, no spicing, no add-ins.  Like the chocolate chip cookie, it was quite hard, but, the sweet and buttery base was decent.  I brought some home, warmed them up (which softened them considerably), and used them as a base for an ice cream sandwich.  That way, I enjoyed them, but again, not the style I'd prefer, and, strangely just a plain cookie.  I did like this more than the chocolate chip. ***.

Cookies & brownies are also available as an add-on to other packages for $4.99 per person, which seems crazy for the quality of these.

Strawberry Shortcake ($3.99 add-on).

"Macerated strawberries, homemade biscuits, whipped cream."

 If you know me, you know that I don't consider these "real desserts".  A brownie can be a base for a warm brownie sundae, but just a brownie?  Eh. And cookies?  Those are snacks.  I asked our host to add on another "real dessert" from the options from the standard buffets selections.  I was somewhat tempted to do the warm apple crisp with cinnamon whipped cream and housemade ice cream, or even the cheesecake as that is one that most places can do a decent job with, but, as it was summer, I selected the more unique offering: strawberry shortcake.

The shortcakes were plated individually, and brought to us at our tables, rather than buffet style.  I would have preferred a buffet setup, so I could get as much fruit and whipped cream as I wanted, but they did a nice job with the plating.

The biscuits were good.  Soft, slight tang to them.  Well made shortcake biscuits.  Slightly above average even.

The berries were far more sweetened and macerated than I prefer, but, I actually often prefer to just have fresh fruit and not sugar them for my shortcake (which my family always finds odd, given my love for sweets in general, I just don't like my fresh fruit extra sweetened for some reason).  If you like traditional macerated berries, these were good.

And finally, whipped cream.  I suspect it was from a can, or at least house made but from a canister, as it wasn't as thick as a non-aerosol version usually is.  Average, sweetened as well.

Overall, the best thing (besides those tomatoes!) served, and I enjoyed it, but wouldn't likely order again. ***.