Grub Scout: Maryville's Red I strives for fresh spin on diner faves

There was quite a buzz about Red I Diner when it opened for business in Maryville a few months back. Our Blount County sources had good things to say about it, so The Grub Spouse and I got around to checking it out for ourselves.

The diner is adjacent to a convenience store at the corner of Hunt Road and Old Knoxville Highway in Maryville, and it occupies what once might have been a Waffle House. The floor plan is virtually identical, with a row of counter seating facing the grill on one side of the room and a bank of booths running along the windows on the other. We slid into a booth, where menus were already on the table.

Breakfast is served any time and features the usual morning fare, with folksy names like 2 X 4 Biscuit Hammer N Nails (biscuit with one egg and sausage links), Train Wreck (three eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, biscuits and gravy), and The Locomotive (two eggs, a grilled loin chop, side of toast and biscuit with gravy). You can also get omelets made to order.

The Spouse and I gave more consideration to the lunch and dinner items and requested a basket of hand-breaded, deep-fried portabella mushrooms to start off. They were out of the portabellas, so we settled for the regular mushrooms, which were still some of the largest fried ’shrooms I’d ever seen. They were hot and delicious.

In addition to several salads, the menu primarily features sandwiches and burgers. There’s the Red I take on the Monte Cristo sandwich as well as a fried chicken breast sandwich, a pork tenderloin sandwich and a panini.

The Spouse got the fish and chips with fries, and I got the Papa Burger, a half-pounder. I requested baked beans as my side, but they were out of baked beans too, so they offered to substitute one of their newest creations, hobo fries, which are topped with a cheese blend, bacon bits and ranch dressing.

One nice touch came when we were waiting for our orders and the cook sent everyone a small portion of another new dish, a pork chop Parmesan, essentially grilled and topped with a homemade tomato sauce and cheese. It was quite good.

Our meals, however, were respectable but not distinctive. The burger, which I requested to be grilled medium, was closer to well done and on the dry side. I had also asked for Gouda cheese and got American. I got tomato despite requesting it be held off. I ordered mayo and got none. And it’s not like they were slammed. There were only two other customers on hand. On the flip side, the hobo fries were a nice touch.

Overall, the service was inconsistent. Our server was the nicest, most genial guy you could expect, but we inexplicably were ignored for way too long when ready to place our order and when waiting for follow-up service like refills. We had to ask for too many basic things (ketchup, mayo, extra silverware, etc.) that most servers would have likely seen to without prompting.

By the way, they were also out of the chocolate cobbler we wanted for dessert, so we fell back on another inventive creation featuring ice cream between Otis Spunkmeyer cookies and topped with strawberry sauce. It was decent but had clearly been kept in the freezer too long that day.

While I applaud Red I Diner’s sincere effort to put a unique spin on down-home cooking, the multiple eighty-sixed items and lack of attention to detail left me feeling flat.

© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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