It’s not easy for restaurants to gain buzz, and it’s even harder for them to keep it.

Both are increasingly challenging to do in Huntsville, where it seems like new restaurants, both chains and locals, are opening every week.

Below are five local restaurants that, in my opinion, are currently underrated.

For this list, we’re spotlighting places that weren’t in AL.com’s recent best Huntsville hole-in-the-wall, barbecue, breakfast, pizza, burgers, chicken wings, meat-and-three, hot dogs, sushi, tacos, nachos or fried chicken lists.

Being underrated can be overrated. But I feel these five restaurants should be on the radar for more Huntsville dining enthusiasts, whether long-time locals or recent transplants.

JAMO’S CAFÉ, DELI & GRILL

413 Jordan Lane N.W., facebook.com/jamoscafe

Jamo’s was ahead of their time in Huntsville. After starting off as a coffee, juice and health food venture in the late ‘90s and spinoff of the shuttered 5 Points Expresso, in the 2000s Jamo’s expanded into Mediterranean cuisine as Jamo’s Café, Deli & Grill, with a sister biz, international foods retailer Jamo’s Grocery, just down the street on Jordan Lane.

Walking into Jamo’s Café now feels like stepping back in time to yesteryear Huntsville bohemia.

Located beside Psychic Center, where services include tarot and palm readings, chakra balancing and dream analysis, Jamo’s has a covered wooden deck out front. Inside, there’s a patinaed plastic wall menu and couple rows of vintage tables.

The hummus at Jamo’s is good enough to eat with a spoon. Dense and smooth and way more 3D compared to packaged mass-market grocery versions. Served with harm, supple and homemade tasting pita bread. Punctuated with a pickled pepper and olive. App-wise, their tabbouleh (tomato, onion, feta, lemon juice, etc. with crackers) is also a move.

Pita wraps are a big deal at Jamo’s. They also do salads, burgers and loads of coffee drinks and smoothies. I’m a fan of their kabobs, available in chicken, lamb and other versions, including a hearty kafta (aka kofta), Lebanese-style grilled ground beef links with parsley, onions and spices.

TAMARIND ISLAND GRILLE

5909 University Drive, facebook.com/Tamarindislandgrille

Lauren Herbert grew up in a beautifully blended place, coastal South American country Guyana, and her cooking is that way too. Herbert is the founder of Tamarind Island Grille. They serve real deal Caribbean soul-food out of an Airstream trailer at The Camp, the charming outdoor spot at the MidCity development, home to Orion Amphitheater.

Tamarind’s jerk chicken is a super tender and aromatically seasoned. They marinate their bird in jerk spices for days. The shapeshifting menu extends to oxtails, fried fish, braised turkey necks, curry goat, oyster mushrooms, etc.

Sides wise, their mac and cheese is right on. Nifty, melty balance of real cheddar cheese and macaroni elbows. Normally, collard greens are too swampy for me, but Tamarind’s isn’t like that. It’s more like the island side-dish callaloo. Shredded, fresher and lighter and flash cooked in spiced water.

Tamarind’s is also veg-head-friendly. Stuff like vegetarian meatloaf, fried cauliflower, vegan jerk wings and vegan curry chicken regularly appears on the menu board.

In summer 2020, Herbet told me of her homeland, “Guyana is hot. Hot like it is right now or even hotter, but we have a nice breeze from the Atlantic Ocean. We’re the only English-speaking country in South America. Our food, our makeup of people, is just like the Caribbean. We have East Indian. African, Portuguese, Chinese. It all goes into the food.”

THAI GARDEN

800 Wellman Ave., facebook.com/ILoveThaiGarden

A culinary anchor of Five Points since the mid ‘90s, Thai Garden is in a space formerly home to a Blimpie’s sandwich franchise. Before that, Thai Garden built a following at their original northeast Madison County digs.

I’m a devotee of their Pad Gra Tiam Prig Thai, their lunch special known numerically on the menu as SL-11. Your choice of chicken, beef or pork stir-fried in a soul-warming garlic sauce with broccoli. Good health on a fork.

The lunch specials come with salad or soup – as well as a spring roll and wonton (or two of either, roll or wonton). They also do a solid Asian spin on chicken wings.

Thai Garden’s décor’s tranquil in an unfussy way and their front-of-house staff exudes family-like friendliness. Makes the food taste even better.

DJs PIZZA KITCHEN

DJs Pizza (no apostrophe after “DJ”) opened in 2012 and is housed in a humble but clean rectangular, beige cinder block building off Hwy. 72 East. It’s right by a post office. DJs was founded by former ‘60s and ‘70s crew of Terry’s Pizza’s, the locally iconic Huntsville pizzeria that rebooted 2018 in south Huntsville. If you love vintage style pies like Terry’s, you’ll likely be into DJs’, too. They even serve their own delectable version of the Terry’s signature Sticky Fingers (sausage, pepperoni, shrooms, extra cheese) here.

VIET HOUSE

975 Airport Road S.W., viethousehuntsville.com

In 2021, Viet House opened at Westbury Square, a venerable, perfectly nice and completely unsexy Huntsville strip mall on Airport Road anchored by a T.J. Maxx. Viet House doesn’t benefit from a trendy location, wacky concept, corporate push or social media razzle-dazzle. What they do have is awesome, affordable food.

Even in a to-go Styrofoam clamshell the pork clay pot entrée looks amazing. Tastes that way, too. The titular protein, tender and ample. The savory and slightly sweet sauce enhances and unifies the ingredients, while allowing natural flavors of the pork and plant-based sidekicks to shine through. Tuneful mix of sliced carrot, broccoli, green bell pepper and pineapple.

It’s table service at Viet House, and the staff is efficient. As far as app go, I’m into their shrimp and pork spring rolls Vietnamese spring rolls are wrapped in rice paper instead of fried pastry and served cold instead of warm, and with peanut sauce. Nice balance of herbs and fresh greenery in there with the sea and farm creatures. A non-fried way to stave off hunger until the entrée.

Pho – a soup typically comprised of broth, protein, noodles and herbs - is a signature Vietnamese dish.

Viet House’s large pho is served in a bowl roughly the circumference of a soccer ball. I recommend their tenderloin steak version. The broth, clean and focused, savory and subtly complex. A generous serving of tender and exquisitely thin tenderloin. And there are enough soft, slim and opaque noodles to weave a yeti costume from.