Sami’s Café – An Embarrassing ‘Find’!

OK… We get around to a lot of restaurants.  In our 7 plus years here in East Tennessee we’ve never run across any folks in our neighborhood/development who have sampled as many different restaurants as we have. 

That was a fact until very recently!

This is Sami’s Café on Kingston Pike in Knoxville Tennessee.  Sami’s is located in the Franklin Square Shops area just across the way from The Chop House, a restaurant where we have eaten before.  Sami’s has been in this location since before we moved to the area and yet we missed it!

Our foodie frustrations in East Tennessee have centered on finding quality breakfasts, pizza and ethnic food.  Sami’s Café serves breakfast and lunch so when another couple from our village told us about this restaurant, we were eager to join them for a morning meal! 

It was a Thursday morning after 9AM and Sami’s was very busy.  We actually had to wait a short time for a table… Sami’s Café has that small town local diner atmosphere going for it…cozy but nothing fancy.  Service was friendly and efficient.

This is Linda and Norm… I bow before them as they have been to every restaurant that we have except one.  Beyond that fact, they have been to many more restaurants in East Tennessee than we have!  Part of our first meeting was involved in naming restaurants to see if we could name ones that the other couple hadn’t eaten at.  We were completely outclassed in this game!

We were at Sami’s Café for breakfast… No one ordered anything unusual.  This was a Sami’s Breakfast Special…an order of scrambled eggs with bacon, home fries with a biscuit and gravy. ($5.75)

Sami’s breakfast menu isn’t fancy...or expensive.  They offer various types of pancakes, French toast, omelets, breakfast sandwiches, oatmeal and country ham.  The most expensive items on the breakfast menu are the Ultimate Omelete ($7.50) or an egg, pancake/French toast and meat breakfast. ($7.25)

This is a photo of the biscuit and gravy side that came with our Sami’s Breakfast Special.  The biscuit was nice and despite the fact that we prefer sausage gravy, this white gravy was very good, peppery and with enough flavor to be distinctive. 

Laurie had the same breakfast with her eggs over easy.  They were cooked properly but she thought that the bacon tasted more like Canadian bacon.  She really liked the potatoes.

I also checked out the lunch menu… Sami’s Café offers burger combos, a sandwich board, sandwich specials, salads, wraps, soups and daily lunch specials.  The daily lunch specials follow the tried and true Meat and 2 combo. (an extremely reasonable $6.50) For example, Thursday’s choices were Beef Tips, Turkey and Dressing, Chicken Fried Chicken with White Gravy and Mettwurst.  The vegetables that day were White Beans, Cole Slaw, fried Okra, Mashed Potatoes or Green Peas.

I also ordered Sami’s Special Breakfast, but I ordered it with a sausage patty and rye toast.  The sausage had a nice flavor.  Sami’s home fried potatoes are kind of a cross between hash brown potatoes and home fries.  They kind of ‘mash’ the home fries together and create a nice crispy crust that provides a lot of flavor. (Sami’s also had Tabasco for discerning diners like me!)

Sami’s Café is now our new favorite breakfast place!  We just wish that it was a bit closer to our home… It’s about 35 minutes away.  We will return to give lunch a try.  Sami’s Café is located at 9700 Kingston Pike at Franklin Square in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 865-531-7900.  Website: http://www.samiscafe.com/tv.swf.

Thanks to Linda and Norm! 

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by to see what was for breakfast!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave