Good Eats Café – Lenoir City Tennessee

This restaurant used to be located in downtown Lenoir City.  However, parking was a bit difficult or awkward and the space inside the restaurant was very limited.

So…after closing the old location and looking for a new spot, the owners of Good Eats Café finally found a site that met their needs… This time they’re located on the primary highway bisecting Lenoir City…US 321, which stretches from I-75 all the way to the Smoky Mountain National Park.

This spot isn’t the most attractive and the parking lot needs some attention.  However, visibility is good and every time I’ve driven by, Good Eats Café has been busy… At lunch time the parking area is packed!

Since we’ve lived in the area, (almost 4 years), there have been 2 BBQ joints and a Caribbean themed restaurant in this building… It’s been like a revolving door! 

Nice shot of my bald head…my fault as Laurie told me not to put my head down.  In any case, once you get past the glare from my skull, you can see that this looks like your basic diner type restaurant.

This photo shows the front end of Good Eats Café… It’s pretty standard as well but that’s what we expected as we knew that the food offerings consist of basic diner cuisine. 

This is one side of the menu… The positive news is that Good Eats Café serves Breakfast ALL DAY…or at least until they close in mid-afternoon.  This is a vast improvement over most local restaurants who only serve breakfast until 11 AM.  We like breakfast out and we truly are late risers and late starters…

This is the reverse side of the menu… One fact that must be helping to attract so many customers to date is probably the prices.  You can have a grilled cheese with a small side for only $1.99 plus tax and tip!  Or…you can chow down with the daily special for only $5.99…or a cheeseburger with a side for only $6.28.  Another advantage is that it isn’t fast food per se…you also have table service at what are almost fast food prices.

Laurie ordered the French Toast with a side of bacon. ($6.98) They take rustic French bread, dip it in cinnamon, sugar and egg batter, grill it and then serve it with fresh berries and whipped cream.  Laurie liked the French toast and would order it again.  The bacon was OK…if not exceptional.

I ordered this side of hash browns to go with my breakfast. ($1.79) They could have been cooked a little longer and I would prefer them a bit crispy.  I’ll order them that way the next time we eat breakfast at Good Eats.

My breakfast entrée was listed on the menu as ‘My Dad’s Breakfast’.  It was 3 eggs easy over with 2 pieces of sausage and 2 biscuits covered with sausage gravy.  The eggs were done right and the biscuits were OK.  The sausage gravy lacked any real flavor…it was kind of bland.  The Tabasco helped a bit… You might have noted that I only have 1 sausage patty on my plate.  When the waitress brought the food, she told me that they were cooking up another patty and she’d bring it a.s.a.p.  The good news is that she brought me 2 more patties before I was done eating!  The sausage patties were quite good…lots of good sausage flavor…

We will return to Good Eats…definitely for breakfast…but we’ll also try out the lunch menu.  They serve good food at a fair price.  It’s not the best we’ve ever had but it sure filled our yearning for breakfast food!

Good Eats Café is located at 521 US Highway 321 N in Lenoir City Tennessee.  They are open for breakfast and lunch.  Phone: 865-816-3281.  Their website is currently ‘under construction’, but when it is completed the web address will be http://www.goodeatscafeandbakery.com/. 

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by and sharing breakfast with us!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Robert James Thomson – Artist

Robert James Thomson was my brother… He was born on June 2, 1948 and he passed away on April 25, 2013 at the age of 64.  While he lived what must be termed as a challenging life, he seemed to have been born with an artist’s genes.  In fact, his father Hugh, his brother Ian and his sister Anne, as well as our mother Elizabeth, all had these genes/talent to one degree or another.

This is Robert “Bob” at 9 years of age, sitting at an easel completing a pencil drawing…

This is one of those pencil drawings from that stage in his life…and I can’t even draw a straight line using ruler!

This is another early pencil drawing…all by free hand and with tremendous detail!

This is one of my favorite pencil drawings by Bob… I like ships and the detail in this drawing is spectacular!  This drawing is probably from the late 1960’s.

Robert’s father died when Robert was only 10 and his father was his hero.  It seemed to change the course of his life.  Trouble found him in many ways over the ensuing years and he struggled for the rest of his days.

This is definitely one of my favorites… ‘The Fish Mongers’.  I know that this drawing was copied from another work by a different artist but the skill level with the pencil has always dazzled me!

This is a photo of Bob/Robert at work at a home he owned in Kansas City Kansas.  While he was in the VA hospital for a lengthy stay and in critical condition, the power in his home was turned off and the house was left sitting empty.  The house burned down… As per a fire marshal I spoke to, it was definitely a case of arson.  With no insurance on the house, he spent the last few years living in a trailer park… Even more significant, he lost all of his art work, equipment and other belongings.

 

His primary medium was oil paint.  Much of his work is quite linear…leaning towards graphic art.

Some of it is a bit startling…like this cat on a railing.   Note the cat on the couch next to the painting.

He worked for the railroad for a while and he really liked trains or anything related to the railroads.  This study showing the drive wheels of a steam locomotive is a graphic example…

Railroading was the best job he ever had…and when he was laid off in a cut back, he never really held a good job after that.  He kept trying to duplicate the salary and those jobs were just gone forever.  His trains kept coming though, via his paintings…

…and, if not trains, such as the less graphic but ‘warmer’ painting above, many of his paintings were at the very least train related.

Like this painting of a railway trestle…

…or this view along one side of Union Station in Kansas City Missouri.

Then there is this 30” x 40” painting showing Union Station and the Kansas City skyline.  An art collector, dealer and antique collector in the Kansas City area owns this and several other paintings by Robert.

But, just when one thinks that they have Robert and his style ‘pegged’, he would come up with a surprise or two…

My son has this stylized painting of a mountain lion hanging on a wall at his home in Ohio…

He also has this painting…which Robert painted from a photograph he took in Hong Kong while in the Navy.

Then there is this very large painting…in my own collection.  This is Robert’s wife’s grandpa from down in Arkansas and she assured me that the shotgun was right next to him on his right side…

When I saw this painting, I was very surprised… Its style and composition was unlike anything I’d seen Bob create.

His skills continued to evolve…with another nod to railroading and a windmill.  This painting and most of the others were painted before he lost his house. 

Robert did spend a few years in the US Navy aboard the USS Kearsarge.  This was during the Vietnam War… It wasn’t too surprising that he drew and painted boats and ships as well.   

The William S. Mitchell was an Army Corp of Engineers Side-wheel Dustpan Dredge.  She was built ca. 1934 and was retired in 1986.  This ship was 277 feet long and 87 feet wide.  She spent most of her working life dredging the Missouri River in order to keep the shipping channels open.

This is another of Robert’s paintings that belongs to the collector in Kansas City.  This ship has had quite a history.  It was known as the ‘death ship’ because of all the crew members who died during the working life of this vessel. 

There was also a major incident that happened in Kansas City when this ship broke loose from its moorings and floated downriver, crashing into bridge after bridge.  For a video re: this news story, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jJG9r4t7lc.  Amazingly, this ship still ‘lives’.  It is now a tourist attraction…the USS Nightmare…a haunted ship moored at Newport Kentucky, right across from Cincinnati.  Check it out at http://www.ussnightmare.com/history.html.

We really like this painting… It has some of the linear qualities of his earlier works but it has much more character.  I have no idea what happened to this oil painting.  Robert may have sold it… He sold a number of paintings over the years, usually for amounts well below their value, often because he needed some money to pay the bills…

 

This pencil drawing is the last piece of art work that I have from Bob… This is a portrait drawn from a photograph of our brother Ian.  At this stage in Ian’s life, he was dying from cancer.  Robert truly captured the humanity…the suffering that Ian was experiencing…

Robert had a lot of talent…and many demons as well.  He mellowed out and was more in touch with family in the past 4 or 5 years.  I hope that he has found the peace that he struggled to discover all these many years.  Hopefully, his art work will survive as a lasting memorial to his talents here on earth…

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by and viewing an art exhibit by Robert James Thomson.

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Another Mexican Restaurant…

Once again we’re out and about…and I have a coupon for another Mexican Restaurant, this time in the Turkey Creek shopping area in Knoxville Tennessee.  Actually the ‘coupon’ is from one of those ubiquitous books that are sold in many metropolitan areas to raise money for one cause or another…

What has stunned me is the number of restaurants that are in the book that have gone out of business in the past year…the Vietnamese Bistro, Sequoyah Grille, Ayala’s, Aegean, Riverwalk Grille at the Carmichael Inn, plus the Silver Spoon moved, invalidating that coupon.  I know that the restaurant business is tough but this seems like a very high ‘mortality’ rate!  One could speculate that restaurants listed in the book are not doing that well or they wouldn’t participate in the program.  I guess that’s a possible explanation but we liked the food in several of these places and there are many restaurants in the book that are strong and that are even opening additional locations…

Moving on… This is La Parrilla Mexican Grill and it’s located in one of Turkey Creek’s many strip centers along Parkside Drive, not too far from Campbell Station Road. 

The interior of this restaurant is a cut above average…although with all the signage, it sort of resembles a sports bar…sans the TV’s.  Note the homey touch with the children’s art work at the cash register…

Here’s another view of the restaurant.  As usual, we weren’t there during normal dining hours so the place wasn’t very busy.

About the menu at La Parrilla… It is as big as any Mexican, (or Chinese), menu we’ve ever seen.

There were: Appetizers (Botanas); an A La Carte menu (with 25 choices!); Ensaladas (Salads); Soups; Fajitas; Pollo (Chicken); Special Dinners for 2; Seafood; Enchiladas; Tacos; Vegetarian Dishes; Nachos; Chimichangas; Especialidades La Parrilla (House Specials); Burritos; and Quesadillas.  And then there is a Make Your Own Combo section; Lunch Specialties;Lunch Favorites; Sides; Postres (Desserts); a Kid’s Menu (Para Los Ninos)…and there are even 3 sandwiches on the menu!

Of course, they started us out with the obligatory basket of corn chips and salsa.  The chips were ordinary and we like them a little thinner.  I liked the salsa well enough but Laurie thought that it lacked any pizzazz! 

So after reading the menu for about 15 minutes, we finally made our choices…

This is the pretty photo of Laurie’s lunch…i.e. as it looked when it came to the table.  Yes…it is a quesadilla!

Laurie really liked her quesadilla, so much so that she would order it again and she wanted to expose the ingredients for this photo.  This is La Parrilla’s Spinach Quesadilla. ($7.99) It is a flour tortilla filled with melted cheese, spinach and mushrooms…and then it’s grilled.  As you can see, it’s served with lettuce, sour cream and guacamole.

For my meal, I ordered the Chunks of Steak Chimichanga. ($9.99) This consisted of a flour tortilla stuffed with pieces of steak then topped with cheese sauce, lettuce, sour cream and guacamole.  There was a choice of rice or beans as an accompaniment.  I gave my guacamole to Laurie…not my thing…and I chose the beans over the rice. 

The meal was good…although I thought that the cheese sauce was too thin…almost watery.  Fortunately for me, we had lots of salsa on the table so I was able spice my food up a bit…

The price was right and the food was a little better than average.  If one is shopping in Turkey Creek and craves Mexican cuisine for their food break, this is a good place to stop.  La Parrilla Mexican Grill is at 11639 Parkside Drive in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 865-966-3001.  Check out their Website and menu at http://www.laparrillaknoxville.com/index.html.  

Just click on any photo to enlarge it…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Another Wine Tasting…or Was it a Food Tasting?

About once a month, our wine tasting group gets together to socialize, taste some different wines and share some appetizers.  Sometimes there is a theme and sometimes, we all just bring a wine you like for everyone to sample… In April, it was our turn to stage this event… We chose wines of Eastern Europe as our theme.

This is our kitchen counter just prior to the arrival of our wine tasting group.  Members of this group only number 7 couples…with an occasional guest or guest couple…and sometimes a substitute couple. 

For awhile, the host couple furnished a main course and the others brought side dishes, appetizers or dessert.  It was decided that this was too much pressure and since everyone in the group is retired or mostly retired, who needs the stress!  Now it’s 'just' appetizers with the host furnishing desserts…

We always start out the evening with a little ‘non-theme’ basic wine furnished by the host and, in this case, Laurie also whipped up a batch of Tellico Bourbon Slushies…always a winner!  You have to ‘eat’ these slushies’ with a spoon…

Holly and Joel brought these terrific little ham and cheese sandwiches on poppy seed buns. 

You will note that we didn’t take any food pictures showing a complete platter of food… We were too involved with pre-tasting libations and the food itself and we almost forgot to take photos at all!

I hope that I remembered correctly who brought which appetizer!  If I got it wrong, you have my apologies up front...

Here Martha is working her way past the stuffed grape leafs (from Karen), the olives and cheese, the smoked salmon and the lox…all with toast crisps, sour cream, dill sauce and capers.  And yes…just to the right of the photo…there is a bottle of Tabasco for those like myself who like a little added ‘heat’ with their food.

Thanks to Karen, would you like to try a little Greek spanakopita?  Karen was on her own this evening as Charlie was out of town on business. (As mentioned above, not everyone in our group is totally retired)

How about Larry and Bev’s stuffed potato skins…3 different varieties?!  My favorite was the Greek version…with feta cheese and sausage.

 

Irv and Martha really went out of their way to match their appetizer with the Eastern European wine theme!  Martha made up this batch of Latvian piragi that was accompanied with a sour cream and horseradish sauce.  These are the Latvian version of Polish pirogi.

Fred and Jenny brought this great carnivore’s platter of meatballs and little pork ribs while Dick and Susan brought that nice looking pate and crackers…

Just in case anyone was still hungry there were bowls of mixed nuts and chocolate covered pomegranates here and there around the party space.

Then we had to stop eating and actually begin our wine tasting!

I included this photo just to prove that we did eventually stop eating and started tasting the wines that people brought.  This is Irv talking briefly about their wine… One can get ‘booed off the stage’ if they go into a long dissertation about the wine that they brought to the party!

Our people photos didn’t come out too well for this evening’s events… We have a brand new camera and Laurie is still figuring out how it works.  Worse yet, I took some of these photos…and many others that I’m not sharing.  The fact is that I don’t learn about these newfangled gadgets until my better half tells me the basics about how they work.

Here are the wines we officially sampled at our wine tasting party… From the left there are wines from Moldova, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Greece, a wine from the ‘Russian’ River valley area of California and finally, another Greek wine.  We were pleased and surprised to find that we generally enjoyed all of these wines!

This was a nice selection of eastern European wines considering that we live in eastern Tennessee.  While we wouldn’t have had any real challenge finding comparable wines in a major market, very few stores in these parts carry any wines from that part of the world.

Thanks to Bob’s Package Store Inc. (http://www.bobswine.com/), McScrooge’s Wine and Liquor Warehouse (http://www.mcscrooges.com/) and Corks Wine and Spirits Inc., a new small batch wine retailer located in the Turkey Creek shopping area next to the new Publix Store. (http://www.corkstn.com/site/) All of these retailers contributed to our gathering as they all carried at least one variety of wine from Eastern Europe.  McScrooge’s had the widest variety from this region while Ryan McElveen at Corks actually offered to provide us with a bottle from his own personal collection…  

Did I mention dessert?!  This is a Carmel Tres Leche Cake from Costco.  It was a definite winner, capping off our little party with a bit of sweet to settle all of that food and wine…

But back to the basic question… Was this really a wine tasting or was it a food tasting?  The fact is that tasting is a ‘gentle’ way to describe either part of this evening… The wine was great, the food was delicious and the socializing was even better!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…especially if you’re hungry!

Thanks for stopping by and sharing this fun evening with us!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave