Any restaurants you just want to root for?

The Picaroon, a fine Renton blog, recently had a post about how important it is to support your favorite local restaurant. Recently, a number of Renton restaurants have disappeared. Touchdowns, Fin and Bone, Calico Chesecakes/Cafe Lure/Tapestry Saloon, and most recently Billy McHale's..You'd think there was a recession going on or something.
Some restaurants I may like a lot but don't really feel they could benefit from my cheerleading. For example, there's a fairly recently opened pizza place in Seattle at 50th and Genessee called Flying Squirrel. The food is awesome, but every time I've been there the place has been full, with people waiting in line. This place doesn't need my cheerleading, in fact it would be counterproductive to me personally to see the lines to get in get any longer. So stick to Domino's, folks.
In the Picaroon post, Miss P recommended people go to to A Terrible Beauty Irish pub on 2nd in downtown Renton, and indeed the food there is great and it's a fun place to go, but unlike the pizza place in Seattle, it's not always crowded. The people who own the place are nice and the place deserves business.
Along the same lines, Lakeside Bistro on Rainier Avenue, at the north end of the Renton airport, is another place with amazingly good food and it too is not always crowded. They've got a happy hour 3-6 PM seven days a week, live jazz on Tuesday evenings,a lunch menu, calamari spring rolls ( how cool is that?)and fresh seafood that doesn't get any fresher. The basil clams are absolutely awesome,and they cater to vegetarians.
Some places I'll go to and like. I'll go to Chang's Mongolian Grill and have a good meal, but feel no urge to root for the place.
But A Terrible Beauty and the Lakeside Bistro are two businesses that deserve to stay in business for a long, long time.

Freddie's Club?

Omigod! Have I never reviewed the food at Freddie's Club in Renton?
Well, it's time. The food is better than one might expect, the service is pleasant, comfortable and quick, and the prices are generally pretty good.
It's normal American food, Vietnamese food, and sushi. I had something great there today, the beef short ribs sub. Something you never see anywhere else, and awesome. A tad pricey at eleven dollars, but it came with excellent house made waffle fries.
You know what else? They have a happy hour, 5-8 Monday thru Saturday, with three dollar nigari and sashimi, and four dollar rolls. I had the Seattle roll: smoked salmon, cucumber, and avocado, and it was a helluva deal for four bucks. california Rolls and Spider rolls beckon on future visits. Breakfasts are available 24 hours a day, so technically you can get pancakes, pho, and raw tuna together. I don't know who'd want that combo, but hey, it's available.
I like the place, the food quality is above average, and it's pretty mellow for a casino.
Freddie's Club
111 S 3rd St.
Renton 425-228-3700

Izakaya Sushi in the Landing

First, full disclosure: I'm not Freddy--although I certainly wish I was :)

Second, my wife and I are currently obsessed with Izakaya Sushi in the Landing. It's a kaiten-zushi bar and they also serve Yakitori -- basically barbequed meat skewers (which we have not tried yet).

We love to sit at the kaiten which is, quite literally a "Sushi train" (this is also what we call the resturaunt--i.e. "want to go to sushi train tonight?"). It's a conveyor belt of increasingly interesting sushi selections, everything from salads to exotic rolls (Boeing Roll anyone?) sushi, and even desserts. Each plate has a different price (from $1-5) and you just pay by the plates at the end of the night. The food is really really good (although, I'm not sure if it surpasses Renton staples like New Zen). The novelty and the atmosphere are amazing, however. We'll definitely be back to try the tempura and the Yakatori.

I see it's getting some mixed reviews on Yelp. Anybody else been there? What do you think?

Naan N Curry's New Menu

Of all the Renton eateries that Freddy has discovered and shared over the years of writing Displaced Hipster, my #1 favorite hands-down is the fabulous Naan N Curry in downtown Renton. We were for years a loyal Pabla customer, shunning the red-and-yellow McCurry looking awning that cried out "food court Indian". But Freddy convinced me to try it when he first wrote about it in 2006 in his post "Moses and Krishna vs. Mohammed".

We've never looked back. We eat there regularly and sample widely -- Chicken Tikka, Lamb Handi, Gobi Gosht, Kareli Gosht, Chicken Jalfraizi -- good lord, they are all good. So very, very good. Part of what makes it so good is the attention to the spices, part is the dedication to broadening the standard Indian restaurant fare through numerous Pakistani dishes (cf. Lamb Handi).

Lately they have built on this strength by adding a one sheet of new recipes, which I've ordered from both the last times we were there. Tonight I ate the Achra Gosht, a curry with a mango base and chunks of tender lamb. Although the first bite I thought it might be a touch on the sweet side for me, three bites in I was hooked. Also notable is the Chicken Tikka prepared with a green sauce -- mint and coriander -- a delicious departure from the also excellent Chicken Tikka on the regular menu. The one and only downside is the steady creeping up of the dinner prices.

If you are a fan and haven't checked out the new menu, it's definitely worth a trip. Or two. Or three. Additionally, if you are a fan, Naan N Curry has been nominated for Best Indian in Western Washington -- you should add your vote!
http://best.king5.com/naan-n-curry/biz/137555

I voted from my table, as I sopped the last bits of Achra Gosht with my naan.

A Terrible Beauty is not terrible at all

I've now been to the Irish Pub A Terrible Beauty at 201 Williams Ave S.
a few times now, and like the place quite a lot. The place was once a bank, I think, and since then has had several incarnations. It was a brewery( and a good one!), and then several incarnations of Irish Pub. When it first opened as an Irish Pub, the food was astoundingly bad, and as fellow blogger Tin Foil Hat asked " How can you screw up corned beef and cabbage?"
Well, that was several ownerships ago, and I'm happy to report that A Terrible Beauty has really good food now. In fact, they make their own corned beef, the fries are skins on and hand cut, they serve breakfast on weekends, and reasonably priced above average quality pub food the rest of the time.
They had chocolate cheesecake the last time I was there, and it too was great.
Many pubs and taverns have food as an afterthought, and the patrons are too drunk to know the difference.
Not A Terrible Beauty. This place takes their food quality seriously. The place is a comfortable place to hang out in, and service is mostly just fine, though when I was there for breakfast they were understaffed, and the poor server was running around frantically trying to keep up. Go there.

Primo's Tacos

A scary thought occurred to me. Many of the restaurants I've reviewed in the last 3+ years are out of business. Some of them I've loved and miss dearly. One such restaurant that recently changed hands is now called Primo Tacos, and is at 239 Sunset Ave N. It most recently housed Antojitos La Villa, and before that was a Colombian place. It has hardly changed in it's most recent incarnation, and that's a good thing. It's friendly, it's cheap, and it's good. Renton is blessed to have many, many places to get tacos. Primos has more thn tacos, and has items not commonly found in more typical Mexican restaurants, such as huaraches ( not the sandals).
One of these days I'll do an extensive " best tacos in Renton" post. Until then, why not suggest taco places for me to try, not including Taco Bell and Taco time?

How's the real estate business?