Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Good new Chinese place in Renton

I'm generally not a big fan of Chinese food, but the recently opened Szechuanese First Restaurant at 18124 East Valley Hwy,( 425-656-0889) just south of the Great Wall Shopping center really impressed me. Several things come to mind: Good, fresh flavors, large portions, and low prices. Large menu, and best of all, typos on the menu. For some reason, I always see that as a good sign, that they're devoting energy to food rather than spelling. This menu has Chinese celery with lamp.
But what we did eat was all delicious, and I'll be back for more. We had Eggplant with garlic sauce..they don't skimp on the garlic and it was attractively presented with red and green peppers.
Chicken with broccoli was also a good choice, the broccoli nicely tender and the chicken lean and flavorful. Curry prawns were fabulous, and the pot roast with flank was spicy and tender and great.
Most items on the menu are 6.95-9.95, and portions are larger, prices are lower, and the flavor is better than the same items ordered at many other Chinese restaurants.

5 comments:

Shaughnn said...

Thank you for the recommendation! My wife and I are returning to this gem for lunch today. This will be our fourth trip back in a month! Clean food, good portions without being wasteful, very good service. Took my in-laws there last week and the five of us cost less that $40!
They need to advertise though. I haven't been able to find them in any telephone listing. Even Google's never heard of them?!?

Africola said...

freddy & DH have done it again! best chinese food i have had outside the ID, and it beats out a number of places there too. it's a far cry better than renton's hong's garden imho.

restaurant was only partially full when we arrived at 7:00 on a Friday night, but by 8:00 it was packed.

don't let the strip mall setting throw you off. this is a real, for-real south-end gem.

one note: i think it's actually just _north_ of the great wall shopping center, in the same parking lot as the large tool emporium-y thing that i (helpfully enough) don't remember the name of.

Africola said...

ps. my kids asked me on the way out of the restaurant, how does freddy know all the good places to eat? :)

Freakazoid Freddy said...

Yes, it is north of the Great Wall, south is the new North.
The tool place is Harbor Freight Tools, and...
How do I know all these good places to eat?
I'm totally, completely food obsessed.

Unknown said...

I just re-found this blog yesterday, and we tried this place last night for our first recommendation. We were not disappointed!

You have got to try the Hot Spicy Lamb Steak. It is unbelievable. Fried rice is perfect and not greasy, and as you say the menu is cheap across the board.

Thanks for the great tip, we'd never have stumbled across it otherwise.