I’d heard good things about Salty Blue Fish’n’Chips, so it had been on my to-eat list for a while. It’s a block from the Renton Transit Center, where I was waiting for a bus that wouldn’t arrive for half an hour, so Salty Blue it was.
It’s fast-food, with no particular atmosphere or decorations on the wall, but I go to restaurants for the food, mostly. Salty Blue has three kinds of fish’n’chips — Alaskan halibut, Australian barramundi, and a New Zealand hoki cod described as the “house fish.”
Perhaps this is where I should’ve paused to reconsider. We’re in Seattle (a suburb called Renton, actually), and Seattle’s famous for fish, so why’s the house fish from 7,000 miles away, and all the other fish far from local? Their website says, “We are excited to bring our Aussie take on Fish and Chips to the Pacific Northwest.”
I ordered the hoki, because it’s the cheapest ($17), and the service was cordial, even polite, though after ordering I could’ve done without the three-minute conversation between co-workers at the counter, loud enough for everyone to hear, discussing whether or not surgery would be required. The good news is, they don’t think surgery is necessary, so there’s that.
My order was up in about the time you’d expect, but in a word, no. There was only one piece of fish, though it was largish, maybe one side of a mid-sized fish’s entire body, sans head and tail. But having eaten at least hundreds maybe thousands of orders of fish’n’chips, the fish is supposed to have a touch of crispness to the breading. Maybe it’s the Aussie way, but this fish was limp and greasy.
The fries were worse. Despite being fresh and hot from the kitchen, the entire (but small) pile of potatoes was melded together into one clump of crunchlessness, firm as an old man’s erection without a prescription for Viagra. The ‘fries’ were so unified, picking one to eat was impossible. You had to tear off a lump, like injera bread.
The tartar sauce on the side was an odd color and flavor, as if it’s infused with whiskey. It isn’t — if it was, the menu would have to say so — but whiskey tartar was the taste. I had only two bites of it — the first because I wanted tartar, and the second because What the hell was that?
I was hungry so I ate the fish’n’chips, but left the tartar, and left with a queasy belly for the rest of the day.
That was a few months ago, but today I was stuck at the Renton Transfer Center again, and I’m a slow learner so I gave Salty Blue a second chance.
This time I ordered the fish burger ($17), described as “battered hoki, slaw, cheddar, and tartar.” In a word, no.
Again, the allegedly battered hoki was completely texture-free, and might as well have been fish-flavored oatmeal. The coleslaw was aggressively so-so, redder and with less flavor than proper coleslaw, and to my surprise it was in the sandwich, not on the side. A slice of melted cheddar helped, but the whiskey-tartar didn’t, and the whole thing was soggy.
But not as soggy as the sweet potato fries (regular fries are included with the fish burger, but I’d bumped up to sweet potato for an extra $2). Again, same as the regular fries the last time, they were limp, crunchless, and all merged together into a pile of greasy vegetation that couldn’t be separated into individual fries. I ate ’em with a fork, helpfully provided on request, and again left with a queasy belly for the rest of the day.
Most ironically for a place that has “Salty” in its name, in both visits everything on my plate tasted like a low-sodium diet, and needed several seconds of salt from a shaker to even half-hold my tongue’s interest.
Will there be a third visit to Salty Blue? In a word, no.
Salty Blue Fish’n’Chips
601 South 3rd Street (Renton)
Food: bad
Price: reasonable
Service: OK, glad you won’t need surgery
Transit: #101, #105, #106, #107, #148, #153, #160, #240, #560, #566, #907, RapidRide #F
Verdict: BIG NO.
6/4/2025
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