Have you ever taken a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains and weren’t sure where to get some good diner food? Well you are in luck because Happy Healthy Daughter has found the spot for you as long as you don’t mind waiting for about half an hour to get a table. But this place is so good, we’ve eaten there on both our trips to the Smoky Mountains.
This time, we started off with a shrimp and chips appetizer. This was a excellent decision for our family since the rest of them love shrimp and the fries were good too. It comes with a large amount of shrimp and a cocktail sauce for dipping. If you like fried shrimp, then this is a dish for you.
We also ordered a few dinner selections. The Nashville Hot, the pot roast, the works burger, the French dip and fried catfish. Let me start with my least favorite food – fish. Generally, I do not like fish whether it’s fried, baked, in a soup or otherwise and I especially don’t like fish that comes from a lake. My only fish rule exception is raw salmon when ordering sushi. So I was quite surprised that I actually enjoyed the fried catfish. The coating was crispy and tasty. The tartar sauce wasn’t much more than a flavored mayonnaise, but if I had to order it again, I wouldn’t mind.
Next I tried the pot roast. Personally, I’m not a big fan of pot roast, but this one was just as tender as they claimed it to be. The flavor of the roast reminded me of the flavor of my beef stew but without all the juice. It was quite dry, but the flavor was good and it was a tender roast. Would I order this one again? No.
Happy Healthy Daughter wanted to try the French dip and though she wasn’t a big fan, I thought the French dip was quite good. The meat was cut thin, the cheese nicely melted and the au jus was a great dip of flavor. Not a bad selection if you like a good French dip sandwich.
Happy Healthy Son decided to go for the Nashville hot chicken sandwich. The meat was extruding beyond the bun and did have a nice Nashville sauce on it with just a hint of spiciness. Of the dishes we ordered this time, this was my absolute favorite. The chicken was nice and crispy, the vegetables on the sandwich offset the spiciness of the Nashville flavor and overall, it was a better chicken sandwich than any of those fast food restaurants could produce. Definitely would order again.
As for me, I wanted a burger and what better way to order a burger than to get one with the works. It comes with your choice of cheese (I chose American), chili, bacon and strangely enough mushrooms along with the standard pickles, lettuce, tomato, and raw onion. I love all those extra ingredients. I’m still not sure what the mushrooms were doing there, but the chili was very well flavored, the bacon added the salty crunch, the cheese did a fine job and overall, I enjoyed the burger. I probably wouldn’t order that exact burger again, but you cannot deny that their burgers are good and certainly worth it.
Now onto the desert items. All told we had 4 different desert type items: A root beer float, a vanilla malt, a banana split and a cinnamon roll. The root beer float wasn’t anything spectacular, just your standard root beer float. If you like one, then you won’t be disappointed.
The malt I really liked, but that’s also because I love malt flavoring. Vanilla ice cream with malt. A nice tasty treat that I really enjoyed. They did their malt right.
The cinnamon roll is another great desert type item you can get. This one is Happy Healthy Daughter’s favorite and on of the best cinnamon rolls we’ve had. It may not always look the best, but it beats the pants off of Cinnabon.
Lastly, we all took our turns enjoying the banana split. The three flavors of ice cream, the three sauces, the banana, the whip cream and nuts all combined to make this a spectacular finish to a filling meal. All the ice cream and toppings melded well together to make this one a tasty treat that is always welcome on a hot summer day.
All and all, for our dollar, this diner truly lives up to the hype around it.
See their website: https://www.melsdinerpf.com/
