Adam & Eats: Dodson Diner

Editor’s note: Adam Brandt is a graduate from the Cobra Kai School of Culinary Callousness, where he received their highest award, the Red Apron of Merciless Eating. Aside from eating and talking about eating, he makes pots, paintings, prints, books, photographs, and generally, a big mess. He has been the studio assistant at Mudpuppy Pottery for almost nine years and is attending a local university in a desperate attempt to earn a biology degree. Feel free to give him a hard time.

When you are a person who talks about food constantly, like I am, people tell you about restaurants about as often as you say the word sandwich. Someone recently spoke the two magic words that never fail to pique my interest, diner and comfort food. Okay, so I know it is actually three words, but who’s counting?

Located across from Sparks Medical Plaza on Dodson Avenue is the aptly named Dodson Diner. The word that pops into my head when asked to describe their building would have to be old-fashioned. Okay, the two words. Jeez. Anyway, the Dodson Diner is a cozy little hole-in-the-wall kind of a joint that serves up country and diner style comfort food.

Typically I am a breakfast-all-day kind of person, and in this respect the D.D. (the Double D just made it sound way more risqué than it actually is and I don’t want to be accused of false advertising) would have gladly obliged. They even offer brunch all day. But, alas, I was not hunting biscuits and gravy on my most recent trip there. I was craving home cooking and more precisely, Grandma’s home cooking. Almost everything I ate at D.D. took me back (figuratively, not literally) to my Nanny’s kitchen table.

Sweet tea, sweet tea, how I love thee, let me count the ways. The D.D.’s sweet tea tastes frighteningly identical to my grandmother’s tea and the pinto beans tasted like the cook used her recipe exactly, right down to the same bacon. It was so scary that I had to sit and just let it all sink in. I am sure that the waitress was wondering if something was wrong with me, because of all of my wide-eyed thousand-yard staring, but she never let on that she thought I was a big weirdo. (She was thinking it, though. I could tell. Hell, I was thinking it.) But, once again, I digress.

Their roast beef is slow cooked for 12 hours and melts into a puddle of savory goodness right in your mouth. The meatloaf recipe, once again stolen directly out of my grandmother’s hands, was tender, moist, and perfectly assembled, right down to the corn flakes and ketchup. Although the mashed potatoes and rice pilaf could use a little work, the yeast rolls were top notch.

This is the part of the article where I go out on a limb and say that I think that Dodson Diner probably has the best fried okra in town. I don’t know what they do to it, but, what ever it is, it is magical. They were not greasy, they where hot and perfectly crunchy, and they tasted surprisingly like fresh okra. If they are actually making fresh breaded and fried okra from scratch in their kitchen, my hat is off to them. I did not want to ask, for fear of ruining the mystery and deliciousness of such a wonderful side dish.

Overall, the Dodson Diner is very, what’s a good word, charming. Anybody can serve breakfast all day. Heck, even Sonic does these days. But, it takes a little bit of kookiness and whole lot of Southern charm to offer brunch all day.

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Adam also has this thing called Sandwich Control.