Restaurant review: Fernando's offers huge selection, good taste, great value

A fried chicken breast, fried okra and green beans, at top, are examples of items featured at the hot food bar. Below, the chicken souvlaki plate comes on pita bread with tzatziki sauce and a side of fries. The meal comes with a Greek salad. Rice can be substituted for fries.

A fried chicken breast, fried okra and green beans, at top, are examples of items featured at the hot food bar. Below, the chicken souvlaki plate comes on pita bread with tzatziki sauce and a side of fries. The meal comes with a Greek salad. Rice can be substituted for fries.

When Eidson Restaurant in East Ridge closed in 2010 after more than 50 years business, most people wondered what would sprout up in its place.

That was a half decade ago and finally, this spring, new life came to the building near the intersection of Ringgold and McBrien roads. In late May, the sad old sign with a farewell from previous owners vanished and a truck showed up with a new, striking blue one announcing Fernando's Italian-American Cuisine & Pizza was coming to town.

First, my wife and I saw it was going to be an Italian-American place and then we heard about a hot food bar with a meats and veggies lineup. And they serve a breakfast. That indicated Fernando's meant to compete with most of East Ridge's already established institutions.

Though the restaurant is really only a few weeks old, it already is drawing a crowd of curious locals, and we joined them last Thursday night. About the half the tables were filled when we arrived around 7 p.m., and the food inside smelled hot and fresh.

The staff seated us immediately and left us with a surprisingly expansive menu for a place with a food, salad and pizza bar. My wife decided to try the hot bar, and I perused the main courses so I could get a sense of all the offerings.

THE MENU

Before you even get to your seat you'll spot the hot food, soup, salad and pizza bar. It's $8.99 for full access.

The first glance at Fernando's menu caused me to think of City Cafe for its wide-ranging cuisine. With Fernando's menu, you have a choice of a breakfast, burger, pizza slice, meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, BLT, lasagna or a gyro simply by flipping a page.

The first two of the menu's seven pages start out with breakfast items ranging from pancakes, waffles, French toast and all varieties of omelettes and eggs paired with bacon, sausage, steak and ham. You'll pay $1.79 for one buttermilk pancake or up to $9.99 for the grand breakfast that comes with three eggs, choice of meat, home fries or grits, choice of two biscuits with gravy or two fruit-topped pancakes.

Leafing inside, there are chicken, steak, shrimp and combo stir-fry dishes with a side salad ($6.99 for the veggie version to $11.99 for a chicken, steak and shrimp combination), 18 traditional Italian pasta dishes with salad or soup and breadsticks (ranging from $7.29 for spaghetti to $15.99 for the Italian trio), and burgers priced at $6.29 for one made with a half-pound patty to $8.29 for the bacon cheeseburger version. Burgers come with fries and a pickle.

Toward the back of the menu you'll find a collection of sandwiches, subs and pitas ranging from $4.99 for a grilled cheese sandwich to $7.29 for a gyro on pita or a club sandwich. Sandwiches come with fries.

There are three "Greek specialties" listed: a gyro plate and chicken souvlaki plate, both served over pita bread with fries or rice for $8.99, and a Grecian-style chicken plate featuring marinated chicken breast with rice for $9.29.

Then there are a variety of meat and vegetable plates. Entreés include chicken livers, meatloaf, country fried steak, fried chicken strips, Italian chopped steak, grilled pork chops, grilled chicken breast, country ham, chopped steak, baked ham, grilled tilapia, fried or grilled catfish, grilled salmon, grilled or fried shrimp or a 10-ounce ribeye steak. The prices for these dishes go from $5.99 for a three-vegetable plate to $13.99 for 12 hand-breaded shrimp. Most plates fall somewhere in the $8-$9 range.

Pizza-wise, it's a traditional selection of small ($10.99 for cheese), medium ($12.99 for cheese) and large ($14.99 for cheese) pies with a number of toppings available that tip the prices up to as much as $22.99 for a large (14 inches) special supreme. Calzones and Strombolis are $6.59 for the cheese version, up to $8.29 for chicken Florentine or the house special with beef sausage, pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, onions and green peppers.

THE ORDER

My wife ordered the food bar, and I opted for the chicken souvlaki plate and fries and side of tzatziki sauce and Greek salad. I expected, for $8.99, that my salad would be forgettable, but it was served up in a large plate and had thumb-size chunks of feta cheese with red onion, tomato, banana pepper, cucumber, black olives and two small containers of Italian dressing. It was fresh and tasty.

I got my salad as my wife returned with a couple of slices of pizza - pepperoni and supreme. I managed one bite of the supreme before it all vanished. It was a good standard "supreme" with a nice tender crust.

My chicken souvlaki arrived hot on a pita, and I popped the top off the tzatziki sauce and dipped a piece of the marinated white meat chicken in it. Nice. A little dry, maybe - it's skinless and grilled after all - but the lightly seasoned marinade made it good and the tzatziki made it better. The fries were what they should be - golden, slightly crisp and hot. I added some salt and never opened the ketchup.

My wife returned from her second trip to the food bar with a fried chicken breast, fried okra and green beans. She said the chicken was "pretty OK" and she didn't think the okra was cooked crispy enough. The green beans were standard good beans.

I know you're not supposed to share buffet stuff, but I sampled her picks and I thought the fried chicken was good, the beans, I agreed, were standard, but we differed on the fried okra. I don't like dark brown, really crispy okra but instead prefer it golden and still fresh and veggie-like. That's the way this was. My wife also likes her sausage and bacon well done, almost burned. So there you go.

THE SERVICE

It's a new place and I wasn't expecting five-star service with a staff that is probably learning the ropes. After being seated immediately, it was a good 10 minutes before our young server returned to take our order. There were only two waitresses to take care of the dozen or so tables in the room where we were seated, so she was quite busy and had several large tables already.

During the meal, our server returned to top of my sweet tea, but my wife hadn't had much of her drink yet. It was nearly the end of the meal before our server returned again to refill my wife's Diet Coke. It was fully another 15 minutes after we finished eating before we got the check. I think this part of the experience will improve as the wait staff gains experience.

THE SPACE

The old building still retains its character, but the new owners have worked hard to spruce up the interior with fresh paint, new carpet and tile. It has the familiar four-seat dining tables and booths and there was plenty of seating available even on the busy night we visited. The equipment, mostly stainless steel, appears new or at least newish, and everything was clean and tidy.

THE VERDICT

Although it irritates me to wait on the check or to order, I used the extra time to fully check out the menu. It's huge, and nearly everything but pizza is under $10. The time I spent waiting for the check allowed me to discuss meals with other diners. A man sitting next to me, who said he'd visited a couple of times already, ordered fried chicken livers - he seemed to be something of an expert - and he said they had been cooked too fast. He relayed this information to our server, who in turn headed to the kitchen to pass along his suggestion to cook livers longer at a lower heat.

I got the feeling from the staff that they're working hard to get up to speed and will make accommodations when things go awry. A table beside us ordered pizzas that arrived with the toppings a little mixed up. The managers resubmitted the correct pizzas, left the wrong-but-still-tasty pizzas on the table for the customers to eat while the right ones were made and put in take-home boxes.

The chicken livers expert told me he'd be back to try them again, and the people with the pizza problems left with four to-go boxes full of pizza and smiling goodbyes for our server.

I'm sold. I'll be back, and next time I'm coming for breakfast.

Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.