Riding to and from my mom & sister’s house takes me to the Renton Transit Center twice daily, and I’ve been intrigued by a vegetarian restaurant across the street, named simply Blossom. So what the heck, a few days ago I stopped there for lunch.
The place is kinda big, with probably more than a hundred seats, but business was not brisk while I was there, about 2PM to 3PM on a weekday. Which is OK by me. I hate crowds. Three tables were occupied when I walked in, nobody else came in after me, and I was the last customer remaining when I left.
This is an injustice against the universe, because Blossom fed me a pretty dang good lunch. And it was vegan, not merely vegetarian.
I ordered Tofu with Assorted Vegetables ($17), described on the menu as “Tofu with bok choy, broccoli, carrot, celery, zucchini, baby corn, mushroom, snow peas, cauliflower. (Rice not included).” I chose it because I’m increasingly weary of tofu pretending to be meat. Even if the restaurant nails it and you’d swear it’s chicken, beef, prairie dog, whatever, meatlessness is the point of being vegetarian, so eating fake meat seems peculiar.
$17 is a reasonable price for lunch in the Trump hyperinflationary era, but it made me suspect portions would be smallish. Being a fat man who hates leaving a restaurant hungry, I added an appetizer, the Blossom Fresh Rolls ($9.50). “Assorted mushrooms, tofu, carrots, jicama, lettuce, basil wrapped in rice paper, served with either peanut sauce or lime vinaigrette.” I went with the vinaigrette, because it was marked as vegan, and the peanut sauce wasn’t.
It took ’em twenty minutes or so to prep my lunch, which gave me time to absorb the place’s atmosphere, and there’s plenty. With wooden tables, heavy wooden chairs, and plenty of Asian décor, including inside trees and bushes and ferns galore, artsy sunflowers, paper lanterns, a bamboo and rock garden in the corner, a friggin’ life-sized statue of some woman/goddess, and lots of art all over the walls, Blossom looks like a place where a meal would cost plenty more than $17.
On my table were three mid-sized silver cruets, each containing who knows what. I neither peeked nor poured.
The waitress was college-age, efficient, courteous, and authentically Asian, complete with an accent from across an ocean or two.
The only drawback was the recorded music, which was weird and got weirder the more I listened. Sitar-heavy pop, heavy on the woo, with oddly over-romantic lyrics sung in a whispered, new-age style. The singers alternated, breathless female and male voices. The arrangement and performance were so damned mellow, it could’ve been fluffy Christian light rock, but instead of lyrics about Jesus it was all about love, bordering on creepy. One of the songs was “I Am Obsessed with You,” but that seemed to be the theme of all of the songs, for the whole hour I was there.
Then the food came, and it was way better than the music.
First, the appetizer: there were supposed to be three rolls, but there were four, each the size of an erection bigger than mine’s ever been. Wrapped in lettuce and a thin layer of some stretchy, almost elastic material, the rolls were exquisite, whether dipped in the lime vinaigrette or eaten without.
Then, the main course: It came on a pretty big plate (rectangular!), jammed with food enough to fill me, so ordering the appetizer wasn’t necessary (but I don’t regret it). All the promised vegetables were there, seasoned and sauced very nicely. The tofu was mixed in like it was another vegetable, and tasted fine.
Despite the menu’s statement, “rice not included,” a large mound of brown rice was present. It was bland and rather dry, same as rice almost anywhere (I’m not a fan), but it became something seriously special when I poured the leftover lime vinaigrette over it.
This felt like a major discovery — boring old brown rice becomes actually, honestly scrumptious, just by drenching it in the lime vinaigrette. Suddenly, that rice was better than the tofu, at least as good as the (very good) vegetables, almost as good as the (fantabulous) Fresh Rolls, and definitely the big surprise of my meal. Best rice I’ve ever eaten.
When I return to Blossom Vegetarian Restaurant, I’m ordering the Fresh Rolls again, with the lime vinaigrette, which I won’t use at all except to pour over the brown rice.
A fork and chop sticks were both supplied, and the latter were real, not cheap balsa wood. I’m a fork guy, though, and never touched ’em.
No fortune cookie, which is my preference.
The restaurant asked for customer feedback on both the tab and the credit card form, so both times I scribbled the same thing — excellent food, very good waitress, reasonable prices, and could you please axe the awful music?
Blossom Vegetarian Restaurant
Food & drink: excellent
Price: reasonable
Service: excellent
Transit: #101, #105, #106, #107, #148, #153, #160, #240, #560, #566, #907, RapidRide #F
Verdict: BIG YES.
6/19/2026
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