If Bill Gates were to phone me and tell me he wanted to take me out to the restaurant of my choice, we would not be going to Tommy's Cafe, 74 Rainier Ave S, Renton 98055 tel 425-227-9910.But I usually pay for my own meals, don't live far from Tommy's, and it's consistently pretty good food at reasonable prices.
Service is unfailingly good, and the place is comfortable and homey.
Breakfast is served all hours, and includes pancakes, omelettes and scrambles. Particularly noteworthy are the in house made home fried potatoes, made with onion and peppers.
They also roast their own turkey, and have a pretty decent salad bar.
The Tran family has operated Tommy's for almost 25 years, and some of the regular customers have seen little Trans grow up to be big Trans as they worked there over the years.
Tommy's does some things quite well, and are always willing to cater to customers weird dietary requests. One of the breakfast dishes, "The Mess" is a scramble with potatoes, eggs, meat, etc, but they'll happily substitute broccoli for the potatoes if you are so inclined.
Burgers and steaks are better than you'd expect, and the salmon is also quite good.
You can choose to spend a lot of money at Tommy's on things like NY steak with lobster or crab.
But Sauteed prawns with garlic is a less expensive winner, as are the stir-fries.
Salads include a warm seafood salad containing salmon, shrimp, and scallops, bacon, and parmesan. Again, they'll happily delete the bacon or the scallops if that's your inclination.
They also have milkshakes, and will tolerate weird customer requests in that vein too.
Diane had dental surgery about a week ago and couldn't eat solid food, so she ordered a shake, wondering if they could add tofu for extra protein. They didn't have tofu but suggested adding peanut butter to the chocolate shake, and it turned out great.
What don't I like about Tommy's?
Not much. The soups are home made but sometimes too bland.
I'd love to see more fresh veggies.
What I do like is the diversity of the customers, almost reminding me of an East Coast style diner ( without the rice pudding.)
Senior citizens, folks of various ethnicities, gay couples...all are accepted and welcome at Tommy's.
On my 0-4 scale, for food Tommmy's rates a 2.75, service is a 3.5, atmosphere a 3.5 and value a 3.5.
From the outside, Tommy's might appear to be a dump, a bad greasy spoon, but it really isn't.
Tommy's is better than it's competitor around the corner , Mimosa's, and it appears that the All City Diner is out of business, and the Yankee Grill in Renton is barely better than Tommy's at much higher prices.
Ordinary American food is increasingly becoming harder to find in these parts.
Too many places serve things like marinated pigeon entrails in a beurre blanc ginger cream reduction, served on small plates for 25 dollars, so going to a place like Tommy's is refreshing.
6 comments:
I don't like tommy's. First of all, the floor is crooked, slanted. It doesn't have a nice homey atmosphere at all. Dark and depressing. The menu has reasonable prices, but nothing exciting. The seafood salad made me sick. The coffee is weak. The salad bar unimaginative and nothing that fresh. Canned olives, canned beans. Your expectations are too low; just because something is near your house doesn't necessarily make it good.
I don't think my expectations are too low, it's just that I have certain expectations for different kinds of places.
When I'm going to an "ordinary" American restaurant, I don't expect a lot of fresh stuff or innovative menus.
Little ethnic holes in the wall I have higher expectations for, and go to more often.
Mimosa's is near my house too, and I know it's not good.
Yeah, I know: Not everyone is going to like Tommy's. My sister think it's a disgusting place to eat.
Maybe i just have an iron stomach.
Yeah, All City does a better breakfast, certainly a little more imaginative...
But, they've been closed for the last month or so, they don't seem to be working on the place, and the sign reads something like...
" Closed for remodeling til further notice."
I *highly* recommend the Basket Case Drive-In in Skyway. Its near Skyway Park Bowl/Casino/Mini-golf. The fries are fantastic, service smiley, and burgers tasty!
I've never tried the Basket Case except for espresso. My sister and her husband love the place, so one of these days I'll definitely give at a shot.
Tommy's.... was in town last May (2009) and took my Aussie wife there for breakfast for a taste of Americana. The place was just like the way I remembered it when it was my high-school hangout The Maverick (hense the cowboy). In fact, I'm sure the coffee cups we used were the ones that replaced the lousy, low brimmed ones of the 70's. The service was old-school, with my coffee being re-filled just about after every other sip. The food was big and basic, and we walked away full and happy.
It had the menu basics of a truck-stop and the meal sizes to match. It was WAY better than the last breakfast I had at Ken's Truck Town in North Bend, and much cheaper.
Was the coffee weak? No, not really. It was the same ol consistency that fresh drip Farmers Brothers coffee has. In these days of multi-steamed espresso shots in an Americano being typical, it would seem weak. But hey, a buck-fifty gets you all you can drink. The service was way better than I remember it being at the Maverick, but then I'm now a greybeard, not a high-school punk from the school down the street.
Yes, I'll definitely be back for breakfast when I'm in town next.
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