New cafe claims to be Renton's premier Kosher restaurant

Gold Schnitzel Mediterranean delivers on some Israeli classics.

One of Renton’s newest restaurants is claiming to be the area’s premier Kosher food spot as it serves up some classic Israeli cuisine.

Gold Schnitzel Mediterranean, located at 1190 Sunset Blvd., had been open for only a week or so when I decided to give it a try.

Their menu has a variety of enticing Israeli-inspired options including Arayes, a pita bread stuffed with minced Kufta kebab meat and toasted to be crispy before being served with grilled tomato, onion and tahini sauce made of sesame; Israeli schnitzel, chicken pounded thin and then breaded and crispy-fried, served with challah bread, fired jalapenos, eggplant, tahini sauce and Matbucha, a sauce made from stewed tomatoes, peppers and seasoned with garlic and chilis; as well as Tabbouleh salad, with bulgar grains, fresh cucumber, tomatoes, and dried cranberries tossed in a lemony olive oil dressing.

The menu also includes their take on a hamburger, other salads, and a variety of schnitzel sandwiches.

I came to try their food in the morning, not realizing that they also had a breakfast menu with some appetizing options like avocado toast topped with pickled onions, a seed mix and an optional egg; or the Israeli breakfast, which includes the option of eggs, an herb omelet, a fresh salad, hummus, tahini, harissa and tomatoes.

They also had some varieties of shakshuka, a delicious mediterranean dish in which a stewed sauce made of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and other aromatics has eggs cracked directly into the simmering sauce so that the egg poaches inside of the sauce, collecting all of its flavor.

I love shakshuka, or any dish that lets me dip warm bread into a saucy egg yolk. I ordered the hummus shakshuka, which, you guessed it, is a shakshuka sauce with poached eggs spread over a bed of fresh hummus.

The dish came with a fresh bell pepper, tomato, and red onion salad in a light and simply delicious olive oil dressing, as well as some scrumptious marinaded olives. It also had warm fluffy pita bread to dip into the hummus shakshuka with some condiments. One of the condiment sauces seemed similar to a zhug sauce, with a zesty cilantro kick, while the other was a creamy, presumably tahini-based sauce.

The shakshuka was tangy and aromatic and the hummus alone was among the most velvety and rich I had ever had, topped with a light layer of olive oil. It was a fantastic breakfast that I did not expect to have.

I am very much looking forward to my next visit to try some of that schnitzel I had only heard about.