Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Sometimes a restaurant is so bad you have to post about it

Even though I haven't posted here in over a year and am mostly lazy and uninspired to do so, tonight I ate a memorably bad meal. It was at the Home Run Restaurant & Lounge on Airport Way in Renton, described on restaurant.com as a "gastropub." That suggests to me that the place ought to have good food and good beer. I'm a tolerant guy. I can forgive a lot in a place. If they'd had great beer, I could have tolerated mediocre food, especially if I didn't have to wait forever for it to show up. But in this case, there were zero local beers on tap. None. No Manny's, no Mac and Jacks, no Big Al's, no Odin, no Fremont Brewing, nothing. Blue Moon, Bud Light, and Stella Artois were available on tap. I could forgive that if the food were great. Or if the food were mediocre but brought to the table quickly. Well, even though the place was empty, it took 45 minutes plus to get the food. I ordered nachos, not exactly a challenging culinary item. My wife had a Cobb salad, and my dad had fish and chips. We were there to watch the first game of the world series. We arrived just before the game started, and the food came during the fourth inning. The nachos were topped with that liquid nacho cheese topping or velveeta or cheez whiz, or pasteurized processed cheese food liquid. Can you say nasty? Gastropub my ass. This was not the worst meal I've ever eaten. Only the worst meal I've eaten in the last 15 or 20 years. McDonald's is better. And there are so many other places in Renton that have both good food and good beer, ranging from The Red House to the 907 to the Dog N' Pony to A Terrible Beauty to the Whistlestop. Even the Beachcomber in Skyway has Mac and Jacks and Manny's on tap and terrific burgers. I guess this place might stay in business if enough people drink there. But nobody's going to go there for the food.