Some of its good works might seem rather small, but I appreciate them: It’s good to be able to enjoy a meal of locally grown produce in a restaurant that, despite its casual status, still uses ceramic or cardboard plates and cups and metal forks, knives, and spoons, avoiding dumping plastic in the landfill or the environment.

That’s not all. This gets even more serious when Locals lists its three main goals:

• Increase community access to locally produced, nutrient-rich, delicious food
• Create a consistent and viable market for local farmers.
• Create a gathering space where the community and visitors can come together around local food

“All of our products are sourced from local farmers, food makers, and small producers,” the restaurant’s website declares. “We prioritize seasonal, Kentucky-grown produce and artisan goods that reflect the best of our region’s agriculture and food scene.” Since opening in 2021, according to a chalkboard sign over the kitchen, Locals has spent $2,020,004 with 238 Kentuckiana farmers and producers.

Locals’ Smoketown location is no accident: While open and inviting to all, the food hub consciously fills a gap in one of the city’s food deserts. As Michael L. Jones reported in the Feb. 7, 2025 edition of Louisville Business First, the Smoketown neighborhood “bears the marks of decades of economic redlining. It is a designated food desert due to the lack of nearby grocery stores, and about 60% of the population lived below the federal poverty line in 2017, according to U.S. Census data.”

Accordingly, Locals emphasizes with prominent signage that it proudly accepts SNAP/EBT, and is part of the Kentucky Double Dollars program coordinated by Community Farm Alliance. When a person spends $20 using SNAP, they get a $20 match to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables. On top of that, thanks to generous local sponsors, Locals offers $20 more through its in-house Triple Dollar Program. This combination brings the SNAP/EBT shopper’s total grocery buying power to $60 based on just $20 out-of-pocket. This program is available while monthly funds last, management emphasizes, so guests are advised to shop early in the month!

Want to make a direct impact on food desert hunger and poverty? Donate to Locals’ Triple Dollar Program. Gifts will stretch SNAP benefits for hungry families while at the same time putting more money into the hands of local farmers.

That all sounds great. So, how’s the food? I’m happy to report that the bill of fare is impressive, too. Several vegetarian and vegan options are available, and they’ll work with you to remove meat from other dishes where feasible.

Pizza, as the name implies, is front-and-center, with 13 specialty pizzas built on a wood-fired, 12-inch sourdough base (or optional gluten-free cauliflower), ranging in price from $15 (for a cheese pie) to $22 (for several options). You can also build your own, starting with the $15 cheese pie and adding your choice of $1, $2, or $3 add-ons and extras.

Five appetizers and six salads offer a range of delights and are priced from $12 to $17 (or $22 for a full pound of fire-roasted, pasture-raised chicken wings; a half-pound is $12). Two tasty soups – kale and local Italian sausage or tomato bisque – are $8 for a cup, $12 for a bowl, with $2 off for a soup-and-salad combo.

Everything we tried was outstanding. Mary declared the kale and sausage soup one of the best ever, well worth going back for. Rough chunks of sausage – locally made, of course – swam in a rich, savory, creamy broth with long-simmered chopped kale, white beans, and potato dice, all finished with a little cream. A crisp toasted slice of good sourdough bread came alongside.

A bowl of Thai Dye salad came along as the other half of a $19 combo. A large white bowl bore a generous pile of mixed greens that included lettuces, parsley, endive, and arugula, all fresh and carefully cleaned, tossed with fresh pineapple cubes, thin=sliced banana pepper rounds, carrot shreds, green onion slices, and pickled red onion, with a tub of gently spicy Thai peanut dressing alongside.

Pizza? Yes, please! I had heard glowing reports of the Mighty Mushroom pizza ($22), which features thin-sliced seasonal mushrooms along with caramelized onion, house-pickled chile slices, mozzarella, and Parmesan on an oil-and-garlic base (no tomato sauce), with an artful concentric swirl of garlic aioli as a decorative and tasty finish. The pizza was very thin at the center, with fat, crisp, and chewy browned edges reminiscent of good garlic bread.

Desserts aren’t listed on the menu, but two flavors of cheesecake from Backwoods Bakery in Fayette County ($9) were available. A “turtle” cheesecake topped with caramel and pecans, and chocolate was dense, sweet, and a fine ending to an excellent meal.

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[b]Locals Food Hub & Pizza Pub [/b]
822 E. Broadway
537-7300
https://localsfoodhub.com
https://facebook.com/localslouisville

Another location: 863 Wilkinson Blvd., Frankfort, Ky. (502) 682-7332

Noise Level: The room was about half full during a weekday lunch, but conversation was never difficult with sound levels averaging just over 70dB.

Accessibility: The restaurant and grocery appear to have been thoughtfully made accessible to wheelchair users at the entrances and through both facilities.

The post Doing good by eating well at Locals appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

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Serai will focus on Malaysian and Thai spices, herbs, and techniques, together with local seasonal ingredients and a touch of Chinese wok stir fry.

“Serai” means lemongrass in his home country, Malaysia, Moh says, and the restaurant’s logo will be a hibiscus flower, the national flower of Malaysia.

Serai plans to open for dinner only, closed Sundays and Mondays.

One of the city’s oldest buildings built nearly 200 years ago, the smallish brick structure was originally a toll house along the old Frankfort Pike.

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But within those 63-year-old walls reside a few highly regarded shops. Would the demise of the mall spell an end to popular institutions like the Highlands-Shelby Park Library, Valu Market, and Baxter Avenue Theatres? That realization can trigger the sounds of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Much is still up in the air. Has the mall been sold yet? Has a redeveloper been chosen or a plan revealed? Not yet. We don’t know the fate of the shops, although the library’s lease extends through June 2026, and there’s been talk of a redevelopment including a large grocery space. There’s been no public word on the theaters, though Louisville Redditors are up in arms. The Nearly New Shop, a much-loved vintage and resale clothing shop run by the National Council of Jewish Women’s local branch since 1956, shut its doors after a closing sale in September.

The mall’s restaurants certainly aren’t exempt. Hamra Halal Mediterranean Buffet, located on the Bardstown Road side of Mid City’s facade, shut its doors early in 2023, an apparent victim of the pandemic and, perhaps, variable quality.

But here’s the good news: Ramen House, which had earned popularity for quality ramen and other Japanese and Korean dishes in the mall since 2019 (following a brief prior Highlands incarnation), got out ahead of the redevelopment rumors. After closing its mall location on August 30, longtime Ramen House owner Jonathan Ham promptly moved to well-renovated quarters at 204 S. Spring St. in Irish Hill.

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Ramen House
204 S. Spring St.
facebook.com/RamenHouseLouisville
instagram.com/ramenhouselouisville

Noise Level: The crowd grew during our weekday lunch visit, but conversation was never difficult, with average sound levels around 71dB and only occasional peaks past a noisy 80dB.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users, but not that it’s some distance from parking at the rear to the restaurant’s entrance on the side of the building.

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Now, to clarify, pastured hens’ eggs stuffed into hefty burritos are a standard feature at the St. Matthews Farmers Market and many more of the metro’s two dozen-plus farmers’ markets. 

But a vegan fried egg, sunnyside up with a bright yellow yolk looking up at us from its shiny white nest, all of it based entirely on plants without an animal-sourced molecule in sight? How can such a thing even be? 

Scrambled vegan eggs are pretty simple, from home-built tofu scramble to the widely available brand Just Egg. But it turns out that vegan fried eggs really are a thing, too.

They’re available in pre-made form from companies with names like Be Leaf and Yo Egg.  There are also lots of do-it-yourself recipes that, if not quick and easy, are at least doable by home cooks and restaurant chefs.

Methods vary, but they typically start with a protein source like silken tofu, chickpea aquafaba, or pea protein to create the white; put together a mix of texture and color ingredients like turmeric, cornstarch, plant milk or vegan yogurt, and other creative options to add a “yolk” on top; and finish with a Himalayan black salt called Kala Namak that adds a sulfury, eggy flavor.

It should come as no surprise to discover that this farmers’ market effort comes from Chef Kristina Addington, longtime plant-based chef and owner of V-Grits, the beloved vegan food truck-turned-restaurant that sadly closed its last incarnation at Logan Street Market last year.

Addington is now executive director of VegKentucky, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to inspiring and empowering individuals to embrace the benefits of plant-based living.” 

VegKentucky’s website adds, “As a nonprofit organization, our mission is to promote personal wellness, environmental sustainability, and compassion for animals by making plant-based options accessible and appealing to everyone in Kentucky.”

To learn more about VegKentucky, its purpose and goals, and programs like workshops and ready-to-eat meals, visit the organization’s website at https://vegkentucky.org/

One very good way to achieve that goal, it seems, is to go to farmers’ markets and other public events offering tasty plant-based treats that look a lot like hot, juicy, drippy egg, cheese, and sausage muffins and tasty burritos (both $9), made without any animals being harmed.

But one question has to be asked: How does it taste?

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VegKentucky
https://vegkentucky.org/
https://www.facebook.com/vegkentucky
https://www.instagram.com/vegkentucky/

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So spare me your corporate chain breakfast spreads, please. Even after a lingering glance at some of the more familiar local buffet feasts, I’ll usually turn and order from the menu.

But Indian buffet? That’s a whole ‘nother story. I’ve been enjoying Indian cuisine ever since I discovered it in curry houses around London’s Victoria Station while discovering England on $5 A Day back in the ’70s, and I still feel that I know all there is to know about this colorful, flavorful, and oh-so-diverse culinary treat.

It’s so much easier, more affordable – and yes, fun – to discover Indian food in all its variety by taking little bites of a dozen dishes from a well-kept buffet than returning many times to experience them all, one dish at a time.

So this is why I let out a yip of delight when I saw this post on Taj India’s Facebook and Instagram pages last week:

LUNCH BUFFET IS HERE! Starting July 15, join us every day from 11 AM to 2 PM for our all-you-can-eat lunch buffet featuring your favorite dishes! Dine-in only Limited-time offer – We’re testing this out, and if you love it, we may make it permanent! Come hungry and spread the word—we can’t wait to see you!

It’s available seven days a week, priced at $18 Monday through Friday and $20 on Saturdays and Sundays; Four- to nine-year-olds can fill their plates for $9.

Woohoo! It didn’t take long to get over there and try it out, and a noisy, happy crowd clearly had the same idea: The white building on Goose Creek Road just north of Westport Road was hopping by noon. Clearly a lot of people have pent-up Indian-buffet enthusiasm.

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Taj Palace Indian Restaurant
2929 Goose Creek Road
423-9692
https://tajpalacelouisville.com
https://facebook.com/tajpalacelouisville
https://www.instagram.com/tajpalace/

Noise Level: The newly resurrected buffet appears popular, and the buzz of noise from a full house was loud enough to make quiet conversation difficult at times. Average sound level: 76.7dB.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users, with the note that buffet trays may be difficult to reach from a seated position.

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Le Relais, Louisville’s beloved French restaurant, has been a staple in the community for more than three decades. Recently it was sold to Amy Zinner, a longtime member of the team and partner of the former owner, Anthony Dike.

In this interview, Amy and Anthony talk about the restaurant’s history, the challenges of ownership, and what’s next for Le Relais.

A Legacy of Great Chefs and Challenging Times

When Amy Zinner reflects on Le Relais’ history, she credits the great chefs who have helped shape the restaurant. “We had some amazing chefs in the early years who created a strong foundation for us—people like Daniel Stage and Roberta Cattan. They were a perfect fit for the times,” she explains.

However, she said, there were some challenging periods when the restaurant faced a series of difficult transitions. “We went through a rough patch with chefs who, while talented, didn’t always mesh with the direction we wanted to go in. It’s tough to find the right balance.”

But there were good times, too. She said Le Relais rebounded with fresh energy when former Chef Alex Delaney, who had left to start is own restaurant, La Chasse, rejoined the team in 2024. “When Alex came on board It was a good time for us, but like any business, we’ve had our ups and downs.”

Up or down, Amy says, one key to Le Relais’ enduring success has been its loyal customer base. While the restaurant has a reputation for attracting an older clientele, she notes that younger generations are now coming in droves. They’re seeing a new generation coming in, too: “people in their 20s to 50s, who are really excited to try something new, but also appreciate the traditions Le Relais offers.” …

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The post  Landmark Le Relais stays in the family appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

“My cap is frozen to my head
My heart is like a lump of lead
My shoes are frozen to my feet
With standing at your window.”

It’s been that kind of winter, all right. The traditional Irish ballad “Cold Blow and the Rainy Night” captures well the feeling of snow and ice and bone-chilling temperatures that freeze our caps to our heads and our shoes to our feet. 

We’re finally enjoying a little break this week. But no one believes winter is over, or that we’ll even be out of the chill by St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. So when I’m looking for a warm, cozy place to grab a meal or a comforting drink, there’s a good chance I’ll find my way to one of Louisville’s favorite authentic Irish restaurants: Molly Malone’s in the Highlands or The Irish Rover in Clifton.

Whether you’re in the mood for a filling Irish repast, a warming glass of Irish whiskey, or a restorative pint of dark, bittersweet, well-drawn Guinness, you can’t go wrong at either of these establishments. Each, however, brings a distinctly different mood to the table.

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Also a semifinalist in Best Chef: Southeast is Chef Sara Bradley at Freight House in Paducah.

Two other Kentucky entries were announced as semifinalists today: Holly Hill Inn, Midway for Outstanding Hospitality, and The Bar at Willett in Bardstown for Outstanding Bar.

Here’s a link to all the national James Beard 2025 semifinalists:

Pictured above: Salatim at Meesh Meesh from our 2023 review.

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Not that many years ago, we didn’t have many Hispanic neighbors around Louisville, and the puny quality of our Mexican restaurant scene reflected that deficit. But times have surely changed! 

Nowadays, more than 30,000 Louisville Metro residents boast Hispanic ancestry, according to the U.S. Census and the Statistical Atlas of the United States. More than 40% of those list Mexican ancestry, and another 30% trace their birth or their roots to Cuba, making Louisville one of the nation’s top ten Cuban cities. 

Where’s Peru? The ancient home of the Incas, tourist destination for Machu Picchu, the Amazon, and the Andes, Peru ranks well down the local list. But more than 500 of our neighbors list Peruvian birth or ancestry, and that’s enough to hold a heck of a party … and to support a few really good restaurants.

I’ve got a couple of new Peruvian eateries on my to-do list. This week, let’s celebrate Friend’s Fusion, a Peruvian dining room that opened just last month in a short strip center across Westport Road from the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant.

That location is no coincidence: For three years or more, owners Saul Terry and Yolanda Barahona have operated their business as a food truck, offering lunch-break Peruvian specialties along with Mexican-flavored tacos, burritos, and more to hungry Ford-plant workers. 

The restaurant represents the culmination of their dream, and it’s a winner: bright and cheerful, with white walls and red accents evoking the colors of the Peruvian flag, and a colorful wall mural depicting ancient rock carvings, farms and forests, and historic Spanish colonial cathedrals.

The potato may have originated in Peru, and corn too. With its long Pacific coastline providing a world of seafood and fish, Peru stakes its claim as the originator of ceviche, although that gets plenty of pushback from Ecuador, Chile, and Mexico.

What’s more, Peru is home to a large Chinese and Japanese community that dates back to 19th century immigration. Over the years, fried rice, stir-frying (“saltado”), and the flavors of soy sauce, ginger, and garlic have become integral to Peruvian cuisine.

Friend’s Fusion draws its name from this historic fusion, and its menu reflects all that. Fifteen appetizers, ceviches, and soups range in price from $7 (for tamales with Peruvian aji amarillo spice and pork belly) to $20 (for Tallarines a la Huancaína con Lomo, a pasta dish with steak and cheesy Huancaína sauce).

Twenty Peruvian and Peruvian-Asian fusion dishes – four of them available only on weekends – are priced from $4.75 (for one steak lomo saltado taco, but we’ll bet you can’t eat just one) to $25 (for bisteck a lo pobre, a classic Peruvian dish of steak, eggs, and rice).

The room is set with undraped tables and simple chairs, but table service boasts good stoneware plates and heavy stainless flatware. Small paper napkins are more basic, but they’re plentiful and get the job done. Service by the host was helpful and friendly,  and I was delighted that she eagerly welcomed my awkward attempts to converse with her in Spanish.

Even the complementary chips and salsa get a Peruvian spin, with a bowl of bite-size, thick but crunchy, and intensely corn-flavor chips served with a small dish of gently spicy pink salsa that carried a mild Peruvian aji amarillo flavor.

The food was uniformly delicious without a perceptible flaw. 

An appetizer, Papa a La Huancaína ($8), traces its roots to the Huancayo region high in Peru’s central Andes. Beautifully arranged on a white oval plate, this preparation started with thick slices of perfectly textured, pure white waxy potatoes, neatly arranged atop fresh, dark green romaine leaves,  topped with hard-boiled egg slices, pitted Kalamata olives, and snipped scallions, then slathered in Huancaína sauce, a bright-yellow, creamy mix of Peruvian aji amarillo, dairy, and queso fresco.

A ceviche choice, Leche de Tigre ($13), means “tiger’s milk” in Spanish, and it’s easy to imagine a baby tiger growing strong on this aromatic concoction. A smooth blend of lemon juice, finely chopped onion and celery, yellow Peruvian aji amarillo peppers, and spices, this potent potion is used to “cook” pieces of mah-mahi fish. The mild, firm fish, the gently spicy tiger’s milk, and two kinds of corn kernels to add texture all fill a tall glass-handled goblet that’s garnished with a large cooked shrimp and two crispy strips of cooked plantain.

A Peruvian-Chinese fusion dish, Arroz Chaufa (pictured at the top of this page), is available with seafood ($18), beef ($16), chicken ($14), a combination ($19.50), or a meatless veggie mix ($11.99). It was colorful and attractive, and it tasted as good as it looked. Perfectly prepared short-grain rice was tinted orange with mild yellow aji amarillo and spicy red rocotto peppers, scented with ginger and soy, and was mixed in a resounding flavor symphony with red, orange, and green peppers, perfectly diced carrots, onions, and fresh spinach leaves. 

An excellent lunch for two totaled $34.97, plus an $8.25 tip. The friendly Spanish lessons were free.

Friend’s Fusion
4111 Murphy Lane
384-3925
friendsfusionfood.com
Facebook: bit.ly/FriendsFusion
instagram.com/friend_fusion2022

Noise Level: Happy South-of-the-Border music on the sound system boosts the fun quotient without hampering conversation. Average sound level was 5dB. 

Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users, but the front door is heavy, and we couldn’t spot a curb ramp nearby.

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Just about every successful restaurateur worked hard to achieve that dream, but for some of our immigrant neighbors, that’s only half of the story.

Consider, if you will, an Iranian-born chef who learned Italian cooking at Vincenzo’s, then with his Afghanistan-migrant wife bounced from the upscale Italian eatery to a popular Italian food truck and restaurant that has now expanded into Louisville’s first Afghan eatery: Bellissimo.

Bellissimo – Italian for “very beautiful” – rolled around the metro, attracting a growing following for its upscale Italian fare for six years before it grew into the Buechel space vacated by Dasha Barbour’s Southern Bistro, which moved downtown. That was about a year and a half ago, and almost from the start, Chef Abbas Jamshidi and his wife Mahboba Rasoli and their three grown children added an Afghan menu to the familiar Italian delights.

“Discover Louisville’s newest culinary gem,” the owners exhort social-media followers: “Bellissimo serves up authentic Italian favorites AND is proud to be the city’s first-ever Afghan restaurant!”

We took a quick look at the Italian menu during a recent visit, but it didn’t take long to zero in on the less familiar (to us) Afghan dishes. Nine main dishes are offered, each with a clear description of its ingredients and form. 

(Please note that the costly looking full-color, laminated menus have not been updated since a price change. I get that, given rising food costs, but I would have appreciated knowing that before we ordered. Our server, Fahwad, one of the family’s younger generation, was kind and helpful, so I’m not having a tantrum over this. But take note of the discrepancy if you go … as you should.

The Afghan dishes range in price from $12 (listed as $8) for Banjan Borani, an eggplant-based entree, to $19.99 (listed as $16.99) for Qabili Palow, an impressive lamb and rice dish.

The Italian menu, if you insist, comprises a dozen familiar options listed at prices from $9 to $17. 

Coffee and standard sodas are available, but I opted for the experience of Afghan-style chai ($2.25), which was a happy choice. A tall, handled glass teacup bore an aromatic serving of hot, clear bronze-color tea with a distinct scent of cardamom to give it a lift. It was a welcome quaff on a brisk afternoon.

The dining room is simple and bright, decorated with a mix of Central Asian decor and a colorful vertical mural depicting an Italian village. Table settings, however, may signal the owner’s heritage at Vincenzo’s: Quality, heavy silverware was set on the tables, and dishes came out on good china plates; on the more casual side, tables go undraped, and paper napkins are provided. 

But service, as noted, was attentive and kind, and the food – which is what we come for, after all – was consistently exceptional.

Qabili Palow ($19.99, pictured at the top of this page), for example, was built around a large lamb shank. Like all the Afghan meat dishes, the lamb was halal: Raised, butchered, and prepared according to Islamic requirements. In my experience, this procedure all but guarantees a natural, flavorful product, and this was no exception.

If you don’t love lamb, avert your eyes, but this long-braised shank had a distinct gamey character that I associate with free-range lamb. The meat was tender and pulled easily off the bone. It was rich with fat and collagen that made it juicy and even more flavorful, and all those juices dripped unctuously into the Afghan-style spiced basmati rice on the plate. It came with a spicy cilantro, jalapeño, and vinegar Afghan green sauce so would optionally kick up the flavor one more notch.

This dish, also known as Kabuli Palow, is often billed as “Afghanistan’s National Dish” thanks to its popularity. But our other entree, Borani Banjan ($12) also earns that frequent accolade. 

It achieved similar delights to the lamb and rice dish but with a plant-based approach. Cut-up chunks of cooked eggplant were simmered with tomatoes and onions until completely tender. Then it was formed into a neat round, topped with a thick slice of cooked tomato, plated on a creamy yogurt sauce and artfully drizzled with more of the same, and finished with snipped cilantro and mint. All that brought a lot of flavors to the culinary concert, and they came together in resounding harmony.

Baklava may strike us as a traditional Greek dish, but the fame of this intensely sweet dessert pastry has carried it across the Levant and Central Asia all the way to Afghanistan. A generous slice of dense, honey-sweet Afghan-style baklava ($3), big enough to share, was built on many layers of flaky phyllo pastry enveloping finely chopped walnuts and hard-to-pin-down spices that inspired memories of orange, cardamom, honey, and roses. It was on the dense side, almost tough, but once broken down with knife and fork, it made a splendid ending.

Our meal for two came to $39.74, with all the remaining cash we could find in our pockets and purse thrown in as tip for Fawad’s friendly and helpful service.

Bellissimo
2217 Steier Lane
690-2040
facebook.com/bellissimo.lou
instagram.com/bellissimoisbeautiful
threads.net/@bellissimoisbeautiful

Noise Level: A friendly group talking at a neighboring table and quiet music in the distant background did not hamper conversation, with noise levels hovering around a moderate 65dB.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Bellissimo brings Afghan pride to the table appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Hey, everyone! I’ve got to tell you about this really good new Thai place. Open only since early in August, Amazing Thai is living up to its name with fare that’s earning rave reviews from happy diners.

But wait, you say: Didn’t you just review a new Thai eatery last time? Well, yeah! Take Thai on Factory Lane deserved some props too.  

But I’ll tell you now what I told you then: Thai cuisine is really good. I’ll dig into a plate full of that any chance I get, and if a third new one opens before the next issue, I’ll probably go there too.

For now, though, I highly recommend a trip to this stylish shopping center dining room on Shelbyville Road just west of Juneau Drive in Middletown. It’s spacious and comfortable, and just about everything on the menu is priced between $10 and $20. Three large screens offer up a variety of Thai cooking videos to keep you occupied, and the food will light up your taste buds. 

(For the fearful: Don’t worry if you can’t handle fiery fare. Amazing Thai offers a range of five spice levels, from zero to Thai hot, and in our experience, they’re good at preparing your dish as you like it. They’ll also bring out a handy carrier bearing jars of chile oil, fish sauce and garlic, chopped peanuts, and sugar so you can tweak your dish to your liking.)

And then there’s this: Amazing Thai is one of the few Thai eateries I’ve found around town that will fashion you a bowl of Thai boat noodles. This traditional Thai noodle dish is named after the fleets of boats that line Bangkok’s beloved canals serving street food delights to passersby. 

Boat noodles look a bit like Vietnamese pho, and we could place them in the same category as spicy Southeast Asian noodle-and-meat bowls. But boat noodles are pho’s country cousin, full and hearty with rustic broths and, usually, a variety of meat.

Of course we had to try them. Thai boat noodles ($14.99), identified on the menu as item NS-1, come in a big, round, cone-shaped red and black bowl. A mount of translucent skinny rice noodles were surrounded with a rich, dark, and beefy broth laced with ginger (or the similar Southeast Asian galangal), garlic, the gentle scent of star anise, soy sauce. Beef fat is definitely present but the dish is not at all greasy, the gift of fatty beef cubes, thin slices of well cooked beaf, and a couple of dense, grape-size meatballs. 

Green garnishes included cilantro, chopped green onion, and a wilted green that might have been Chinese water spinach. It was a spectacular noodle bowl, and came with an unexpected side, a couple of what appeared to be good old pork rinds but were actually Thai-style pork cracklings – fatty pork skin and meat fried crisp – lighter and more airy than the rural Kentucky roadside treat.

If you come between 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Friday, it’s worth taking a look at the 20 lunch specials, which mirror larger dinner items but still come in generous portions and pack in an extra egg roll and small bowl of tom yum chicken soup. All that comes for a thrifty $11.95 if you get it with chicken, tofu, or veggies, $13.95 for the beef choice, and $15.95 for the seafood option, a $3 saving from the dinner price.

We tried this deal with Panang curry ($11.95 on the lunch menu) and were glad we did. A flavorful variation on Thai red curry, it’s a rich hot-and-sour treat with your choice of tofu, chicken, beef. shrimp, fish, or seafood with crisp-tender, bite-size bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, and basil in a thick, soupy coconut cream. We ordered it at a controlled 3-level heat and they hit a good balance with pleasant but not painful heat. A scoop of perfect rice sat alongside.

The lunch special came with a single egg roll about the size of a breakfast sausage It arrived sizzling hot, stuffed with finely shredded cabbage, packed in ultra-thin pastry fried dark golden brown, grease free, and shattering crisp.

It also came with a small bowl of chicken tom yum soup, served before the meal as an appetizer at our request. It was truly delicious. testifying to the worldwide popularity of chicken soup in all its international forms.  The clear broth carried a rich chicken flavor, loaded with umami and complex with garlic and ginger flavors. Tiny red flecks dotted the top, indicating a chile pepper presence, but the heat was muted. Bits of chopped scallion added color to an otherwise simple broth bathing a single, good-size chunk of flattened boneless chicken white meat. 

That is a minor complaint within an excellent meal, though. With a tall glass of Thai iced coffee ($4.99), our meal for two came to $33.85, plus a $10 tip.

Amazing Thai
12336 Shelbyville Road,
384-1914
amazingthai.toast.site
Facebook: bit.ly/AmazingThai502
instagram.com/amazingthai502

Noise Level: With the room only partly full, conversation was easy in spite of voices from guests at nearby tables. Average sound level was 69.3dB with only occasional higher peaks.

Accessibility: The restaurant and all seating except for some booths appear to be accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Don’t miss the boat (noodles) at Amazing Thai appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I love food from around the world, and I intend to try as much it as I can, within reason. With a possible exception for aged, fermented Greenlandic shark. But ask me to name a favorite, and I’d be hard-pressed to single out just one.

That being said, Thai cuisine clicks off quite a few boxes for me. It’s colorful, aromatic, full of flavors that sing together in at least four-part harmony. Specifically, I’m thinking about the four flavors that Thai cooks seek to hold in balance in every dish: salty, sweet, sour and spicy. 

Thanks to its location on the western side of Asia’s southeastern flank, Thailand’s many regional cuisines draw influences from India’s many spices and peppery fire. In kinship with China, its cuisine musters an array of stir-fries, rice, and noodle dishes … and Thais share the Chinese custom of greeting others with a friendly “Have you eaten yet?” And it mirrors neighboring Indonesia’s love of coconut milk and the attention-getting flavors of lemongrass, ginger-adjacent galangal, and more.  

But be assured that Thai fare is in no way derivative. Thai cooks assimilate all these influences into an ancient tradition that’s all its own, including the happy Southeast Asian custom of turning hearty soup or salad dishes into a filling main course.

There! Now can you see why I get excited to hear the news whenever a new Thai place opens up around town? One of the most recent arrivals, Take Thai, is a good one too. It’s a shopping center spot on Factory Lane in the far East End with an assortment of standards and a competent kitchen that offers what strikes me as comforting Thai home cooking.

The growing commercial district surrounding the Gene Snyder Freeway’s intersection with LaGrange Road looks new and suburban neutral, the kind of shopping center where you’d expect to find corporate chain dining. Indeed, there’s a Subway, a McDonald’s, and a KFC nearby, if that’s your style.

But in addition to Take Thai you’ll find Old School N.Y. Pizza just around the corner, as well as new eateries including White Buddha Japanese, Oishii Ramen, Mariscos Los Plebes Mexican seafood, Brix Wine Bar, and a branch of El Nopal; plus Load It, a baked potato bar, coming along soon.  I might have to wander back that way to check out some of those places; and a trip to Middletown for another new spot, Amazing Thai, is definitely in the cards.

Right now, though, I’m still savoring the tasty memory of a good meal at Take Thai.

Take Thai’s menu features nine appetizers, two soups, and five salads, plus 20 main dishes divided among noodles, fried rice, curry, and stir-fried dishes. Pricing depends on your choice of base protein – chicken, por, tofu, mixed veggies, beef, shrimp, or mixed seafood – and mostly range from the middle to upper teens.

Nearly half of the dishes are marked with a red chile-pepper icon, indicating that they start out with a mild kick; additional heat levels can be adjusted at your request from zero up to four (Thai hot, approach with caution).

A pair of Thai fresh rolls in rice paper ($6.75) came out loosely wrapped requiring a tight grip to keep them together from plate to mouth. The filling ingredients were fresh and flavorful, though: rice noodles, tofu dice; a crunchy cucumber slice, and Asian cilantro, all rolled in tender lettuce and nestled in the edible paper. A bowl of hot-sweet sauce topped with chopped peanuts and a pile of fine carrot shreds came alongside.

Tom Kha Thai chicken soup ($8.75, pictured at the top of the page) came in an attractive brown earthenware bowl. Its coconut-milk-based broth was intensely aromatic, with the lemony character of lemongrass and galangal blending into a pleasing, complex flavor with the coconut that made it fiercely appetizing. Tender bits of boneless chicken breast meat and quartered button mushrooms added to its delicious complexity, and tiny dots of chile oil added mild heat and flavor. This fine dish signals the quality of work going on in the kitchen here. Beyond its impressive flavor, all the ingredients were impeccably prepared, nothing wilted, everything cooked through but not overcooked. 

Gaeng Keow Wan green curry made with tofu ($15.75) was coconut milk-based too, resulting in two dishes a little more alike than we had intended, but they were both so good that I’m not complaining. This broth was lifted with the fragrant, citrusy scent of Thai green curry and, like the soup, bore a generous cargo of crisp, fresh, carefully prepared veggies – green beans, red and orange bell peppers, bamboo shoots, and Thai basil, plus chewy cubes of marinated and baked tofu. I ordered it at heat level two (medium) so fire-averse Mary could share, but it came out pushing the limits of a higher number. Not to be selfish but … more for me! 

With a tall glass of spice-scented, condensed milk-laced Thai iced tea, our meal for two came to $38.17, plus a 22 percent tip calculated by the point of sale machine.

Take Thai
12908 Factory Lane
365-3791
takethaiky.com
facebook.com/TakeThaiKY
instagram.com/takethaiky

Noise Level: Conversation was no problem during a lunch hour with a few tables occupied and sound levels in the 65dB range.

Accessibility: The new shopping center space appears accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Take Thai’s fine fare lands in the East End appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I confess to being a little surprised at first when Mary came home from lunch with a friend the other day raving about how good the food at Los Aztecas had been.

Why the surprise? To be honest, I rarely think much about the Mexican-run local chains like Los Aztecas and El Nopal anymore, and I realized with a jolt that there might be a hint of food snobbery about that.

After all, when I reviewed the first Los Aztecas on Herr Lane in 1997, eleven years before it would be surrounded by Westport Village, I was pretty excited. “Authentic Mexican cuisine has become a viable option in Louisville these days,” I wrote in a review around that time. 

Immigrant restaurateurs Saúl García, who died in 2021, and his brother Manuel, who remains at the helm of the family business, were first among a corps of new neighbors from South of the Border who began offering an alternative to the bland Americanized grub (and bathtub-size margaritas) that had previously been Louisville’s only option in this world-food niche. 

“Los Aztecas is far from the only excellent example,” I wrote in that late ‘90s review, perhaps conscious that Bruce Úcan’s blue food truck that would eventually evolve into Mayan Cafe was rolling around the same time. “But it’s a good one, with tasty Mexican fare good enough to lure us back again and again.” 

I kept that promise to come back too, at least for a while, as did a lot of people drawn by the mini-chain’s quality Mexican fare made easy with bilingual menus and service staff. 

But then – here comes the snob bit – as immigrant communities grew and serious, Spanish-speaking taquerias popped up to serve them, excited foodies followed along, eager to try the latest new thing. 

 Before long the earlier mini-chains became under-valued because, well, they look Mexican-American, have multiple locations, and have been around for years. 

But it’s a wise partner who pays attention to his spouse, and Mary seemed really impressed by her $9.99 arroz con pollo lunch special. “The very simple combination of the nacho sauce on the chicken, then mixing with the rice, was sort of addictive. Such wonderful flavors. You got the smoky grilled taste on the chicken bits and the nacho sauce. I’d order this again,” she said, also praising the sparkling clean dining room and very fresh food.

Sold! Off we went, and if it didn’t feel quite as adventurous as the tinest taqueria – when I tried out my Spanish on our server, they responded in excellent English – everything was good, and a hearty meal for two was admirably affordable.

Los Aztecas’ Westport Village and Prospect locations share the same menu, which may be in the midst of an upgrade, as we were charged a nominal buck or two more for a couple of items than the online menu indicated. As listed, more than 75 dishes are almost all priced below $15, with only a couple of fancy steak dishes bouncing to $19.99.   Two dozen lunch plates, available 11 a.m.-3 p.m., are priced from $7.79 to $10.99. 

The Nulu location has a similar-only-different menu that’s a bit more pricey, with most dinners in the upper teens and a couple of steak or shrimp meals in the middle $20s.

Meals at Los Aztecas naturally begin with a big basket of fresh, warm tortilla chips and two mini-pitchers of salsa, a smooth, mild version that sings the song of the fresh tomato, and a textured spicy option that adds a kiss of fire.

Our fare, like the chicken-and-rice plate that beckoned us in, were simple but well prepared and flavorful. 

Despite its status as a value-priced lunch plate, carnitas ($10.99, pictured at the top of the page) came in a large portion. Chunks of pork were roasted crisp and crunchy on the exterior,, pull-apart-into-strings tender within, ranging in size from small crispy bits with fatty edges to hefty chunks the size of a walnut. They were piled on yellow Mexican rice with a pool of frijoles refritos alongside – pureed beans topped with mild melted cheese. Three fresh, warm tortillas wrapped in foil, a small dish of truly fiery red-chile sauce, and two fresh lime wedges completed the plate.

“Relleno” is Spanish for “stuffed” or “filled,” and that’s a good basic description of chile relleno, the star of a $13.99 vegetarian plate. A mild, dark-green roasted poblano pepper was filled with mild, stretchy Oaxaca-style cheese, cloaked in a soft, not crunchy breading that’s traditionally made with whisked egg whites, and served snug under a blanket of tomato- and chile-based ranchero salsa. Alongside came a simple burrito, frijoles refritos and cheese rolled in a flour tortilla and topped with cheese; and a mound of that excellent yellow rice.

With a tamarind-flavor Jarritos Mexican soft drink ($3.29), our filling and delicious meal for two came to a thrifty $29.97, plus a 25% tip.

Los Aztecas
1107 Herr Lane
Westport Village
426-3994
losaztecas.net
facebook.com/losaztecasrestaurant
instagram.com/losaztecas.restaurant
Other locations: 
445 E. Market St., 561-8535, and 9207 U.S. Highway 42, 228-2450.

Noise Level: There was a definite buzz on a busy Saturday, but conversation was never difficult with sound levels around 72dB, particularly in the confines of a comfortable booth.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears to be accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Los Aztecas is just as good as ever appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

There’s a lot to love about the spicy, aromatic wonders of Ethiopian food, and I’ll tell you right now that I love it. But Ethiopian cuisine makes some folks nervous.

Why is that? Here’s why: Walk in to an excellent Ethiopian restaurant like Louisville’s Queen of Sheba without a prior introduction to this ancient East African cuisine, and you’ll see surprising things.

First, everything has an unfamiliar name: What is kik wot? What is atakilt? Who ever heard of fossolia? A covert peek at another diner’s plate won’t reassure you: The entire dish is covered with an odd, thin, brownish substance full of tiny holes, topped with mysterious mounds of colorful stuff that looks as softas a spoonful of mashed potatoes or grits.

And then you realize that people are tearing off bits of that spongy brown stuff and using it to pick up and eat bites with their fingers! 

I get the concern, but I’m here to invite you to relax, close your eyes, take a long, deep, relaxing breath, and inhale the delicious aromas of this lovable cuisine.

And here’s the best news for the wary: At Queen of Sheba, you are welcome to have it your way.

The menu explains: “All entrées are served with Injera, a traditional Ethiopian flat sour bread. Traditionally, Ethiopian food is eaten with your fingers by tearing off a piece of Injera and using it to scoop your food.”

But just because you can doesn’t mean you must. Forks are available upon request. You may substitute rice for injera. You can even ask to have your items plated separately. 

Not us! We were ready to wield our freshly washed hands and dive in. Injera is an interesting alternative. It’s made with teff, an ancient Ethiopian cereal grain, blended with both wheat and corn flours; and its bubbles and pleasant sourdough tang are the result of healthy fermentation.

Plus, I don’t know about you, but my inner five-year-old loves an opportunity to dig in with my fingers every now and then.

Pricing is reasonable, with a half-dozen appetizers and salads on the lunch menu listed under $5, and about two dozen lunch entrees all priced at $10.95 to $15.50, including four combination plates. Dinner prices are only a dollar or two more. 

We took advantage of two combo plates and, even with a couple of duplicated items, were able to sample eight different items. They all come in smallish portions, which is what happens which six goodies on a plate make up one meal.

A tips and vegetable combination ($15.50) features a dish more commonly known as tibs, a gently spicy East African stew of meat, fish or poultry. Queen of Sheba offers a choice of beef, chicken, or lamb, and we chose the lamb option. It was a simple dish, an aromatic mix of mild lamb chunks stewed with chopped onions and green peppers and a subtle whiff of traditional berbere, a complex reddish seasoning that brings citrusy lemon and deep red-pepper flavors to the table. 

Its other meat component was alicha sega wot, a combination of beef cubes simmered with finely chopped onion, chunks of tender potato, and, again, a lemon-scented, not-so-spicy hint of berbere and earthy, muaky turmeric.

This dish also included samples of three veggie dishes: Atakilt was a mild mix of cabbage with bits of carrot and onion in a scant tomato sauce. Fossolia featured long-simmered green beans with carrots, onions, tomatoes and Ethiopian spices. Kik wot, which comes with all combination plates, was one of my favorites: Tender red lentils in a garlicky, gingery mix, with onion and just enough berbere to make this the spiciest dish on the plate. 

Combo platters also come with extra injera in neat rolls and a small, simple American-style side salad that treated our taste buds with a lovely, lemony citrus-and-oil dressing over crisp and fresh iceberg lettuce and a few tomato dice.

A vegetable combination plate ($11.95, pictured at the top of this page) duplicated the atakilt plus the kik wot and salad, and added two more tasty plant-based items: Misir wot, a pretty bright-yellow item, consists of yellow lentils seasoned with onion, garlic and ginger with turmeric and mild spice, making it a hot or not-hot counterpoint with the kik wot.

Dark-green gomen wot wrapped up the combination with fresh collards cooked just to tenderness with potato chunks, onions, ginger, and garlic with mild citrus-scented seasoning.

A satisfying Ethiopian meal came to $35.35, plus an $8.34 tip. I didn’t notice until the next day that we had been charged $5.90 for two orders of Ethiopian hot tea that we had not requested and did not receive. Life lesson: Read the tab before paying. I’m not going to go back later to complain about a single-digit error, though.

Queen of Sheba
2804 Taylorsville Road
459-6301
queenofshebalouisville.com
Social media pages have not been recently updated:
bit.ly/QueenOSheba
instagram.com/queenofsheba_ky

Noise Level: The dining room was almost empty during a lunch hour early during the week, but quiet instrumental music and distant talk at other tables kept the mood pleasant and easy for conversation.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users, although two entrance doors are fairly heavy.

The post Have it your way at Queen of Sheba appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Food-loving Louisville folks often complain that our city just can’t get a genuine, New York Jewish deli like Shapiro’s in Indianapolis, or for that matter like Katz’s or Sarge’s or the late, touristy Carnegie Deli in actual New York.

I have never quite gotten this. We have excellent Louisville-style delis here where you can get a pastrami or corned beef on rye that gives New York a run for its money. 

But nope, that doesn’t seem to satisfy the deli-hungry crowd. “That’s not autheeeennnntic, they cry. 

Now let’s hail last year’s arrival of Good Belly in the Douglass Loop, a popular food truck landed in the bricks-and-mortar space that formerly housed Silly Axe Cafe. Good Belly’s web page describes this happy place as a “chef-driven, NY deli-inspired sandwich shop. … a scratch kitchen where the ingredients between the bread are made in house – including our corned beef and pastrami!”

That’s a lot to like. I like it! I just hope it’s, well, authentic enough to satisfy the long-suffering deli dreamers. I think I’ve figured out what the authenticity seekers are looking for: Visit Shapiro’s or one of the tourist-beloved Jewish-style delis in New York City and you’ll find gigantic pastrami or corned beef sandwiches literally bigger than your head.

Our sandwiches at Good Belly weren’t that lavish. A hefty corned-beef and pastrami combo stood maybe half that height, but it still supplied two days’ worth of leftovers, and it cost $15, just about half of the $28.90 toll for the mountainous pile of meat at Katz’s. 

Good Belly’s menu is posted on large chalkboards, featuring a dozen sandwiches numbered for easy ordering. Traditional Jewish deli sandwiches featuring combinations of corned beef, pastrami, or both on rye with mustard are priced at $15 or $16. Most of the rest (priced from $12 to $16.25) are New York deli style but not kosher style, bringing together meat and cheese in a blend that’s tasty but frowned on in Leviticus. 

For the record, Good Belly does not claim to be certified kosher. For that matter, neither do Shapiro’s, Katz’s, Sarge’s, or many other famous New York delis.

Good Belly’s sides also bridge the gap between deli-style (matzoh, latkes) and chef creative (watermelon gazpacho and beef tortilla). Specials show off the chef’s imagination, too, currently a choice of Harlem bodega-born chopped cheese and beef ($14); fried mortadella ($13.50), and a Swiss-filled knish ($6.50).

We tried matzo ball soup ($6.25) and potato latkes ($6.50) and were delighted with both. The soup came, like all of Good Belly’s dishes, in a quality white stoneware bowl. It contained only a single matzo ball, but it was the size of a tennis ball, a dense and smooth dumpling with a distinct crumb thanks to its ground matzah meal base. It was surrounded by a remarkably complex clear burnt-orange chicken broth that spoke quietly of onions, carrots, and other good things that might have gone into its construction.

Three sizzling-hot latkes were stunningly good. Thin and flat, finely grated potato and onion retained good texture within a shattering-crisp golden fried exterior. They come with choice of sour cream, apple butter, or both; I had sour cream for tradition’s sake and did not regret it. 

Speaking of skill at frying, fresh-made potato chips that came with both sandwiches are outstanding: Very thin, shattering-crisp, grease-free, with a distinct hint of garlic for our pleasure. 

Torn between pastrami or corned beef, we went with a combination of both (#6, $15). Both are made with beef brisket in a process that reportedly takes 30 days to complete. Pastrami is long-smoked in a procedure that could be likened to Jewish-style barbecued brisket. Corned beef is brined and boiled in salt and pickling spices, then finished with smoke. Slice both meats thin and pile the result a good inch high between rye toast slices smeared with hot mustard on a single sandwich with a tasty house-made dill pickle slice on the side and a pile of those fantastic chips: I challenge you to declare one better than the other.

You might not expect deep thought would be involved in inventing a veggie sandwich (#11, $12), but Good Belly’s creativity shines in the current version. Two thick slices of quality multigrain toast frame layers of soft, earthy edamame hummus; spicy Japanese shiso leaves; crisp, shredded napa cabbage and red pepper fashioned into a piquant slaw, and thick slices of peppery daikon radish. Every bite brings all those disparate textures and flavors together in symphonic excitement. Can you tell that I loved it?

The veggie sandwich changes every month or two, so check in fast if you like this idea. Or come back later and see what the chef can imagine next.

A filling and very well made lunch for two came to $40.01, plus a $10 tip.

Good Belly Sandwich Shop
2216 Dundee Road, Unit 7
322-0300
goodbellylouisville.com
facebook.com/goodbellyky
instagram.com/goodbelly_ky

Noise Level: This is a busy dining room with a lot of hard surfaces that can amplify noise, but an average sound level at 72.7dB was not a conversation killer.

Accessibility: Two steps inside a common hallway bar access to the main level. A rear entrance from a parking area in the back may allow wheelchair access to an upper room.

The post Good Belly brings us good deli, and we’re glad appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Even in this age of bourbonism and pricy trophy labels, Louisville still loves Old Forester, the locally made, affordable Bourbon with its signature caramel and brown sugar flavors. 

Or at least we used to love it. But then we got big mad last week after news broke that OldFo’s creator, Brown-Forman Corp., the lovable, liberal old local firm had suddenly abandoned its long-term commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and its support for the LGBTQ+ community.

The news hit heavily in drinks-industry publications and right-wing journals. “Brown-Forman drops diversity and inclusion programmes, leaves LGBTQ equity index,” the British publication JustDrinks reported August 23. “The web pages on Brown-Forman’s site that listed its diversity and inclusion policies have been removed.”

What the holy hell? That was easy to check, and sure enough, Brown-Forman’s supplier diversity statement had disappeared from the corporate website, leaving behind a nicely styled yet untidy 404 error.

Naturally local social media blew right up with threats of angry letters to management, boycotts, maybe even parades and other forms of peaceful demonstration.  

I’m not ashamed to admit that I was among them. “Well, hell, now I have to stop drinking Old Forester,” I wrote on Facebook. This was not an easy threat, as like many of our Louisville neighbors, Old Fo had been my standard bar bourbon choice and a family tradition at least as far back as my grandfather and probably before.

I wasn’t kidding, either. I soon followed with a crowd-sourcing plea: “All right, let’s get serious. What bourbon should I choose in place of Old Forester 86? Similar price and flavor profile preferred.” That thread soon had 180 comments, many of them offering good advice, much of it useful and some, of course, suggesting pricey options like gin, tequila, or even cannabis-based alternatives.

By the time I got back from the liquor store with a modestly priced bottle of Evan Williams Kentucky Straight Bourbon, another corn-forward, 86-proof bourbon from another old Louisville firm, Heaven Hill, I was already starting to calm down a little. (The Evan Williams was good, though, even if I did feel a little unfaithful sipping it.)

There had to be some reason for this startling reversal, but what was it? Nobody at Brown-Forman was talking, but a deeper dive into media, then and over the next few days, started to sketch a picture … and it was not a pretty one.

Brown-Forman, it seemed, had been targeted by a right-wing attack on its Jack Daniel’s property in Tennessee  that had previously excised DEI commitments from other corporations: Harley-Davidson, John Deere, and Tractor Supply Co. 

Let me think. What do Jack Daniel’s and those three businesses have in common? Oh, yeah: They are all beloved by rural, conservative audiences in bright-red, GOP-led Southern states where opposition to DEI and fear of “woke corporations” makes it easy for bad actors to mobilize them into an anti-corporate army.

And that, apparently, is just what had happened , as a bragging post on X by a pudgy podcaster, right-wing extremist, and failed congressional candidate from Nashville named Robby Starbuck made clear. 

Posting an apparently leaked letter to employees from Brown-Forman’s executive leadership team, Starbuck wrote, “Big news: The next company we were set to expose was @JackDaniels_US. … They just preemptively announced that they’ll be making these changes.”

“The world has evolved, our business has changed, and the legal and external landscape has shifted dramatically, particularly within the United States,” Brown-Forman’s executive team wrote in the leaked memo. “With these new dynamics at play, we must adjust our work to ensure it continues to drive business results while appropriately recognizing the current environment in which we find ourselves.”

Specifically, the firm pledged to discontinue linking exexutive bonuses and pay to DEI progress. It agreed to stop taking part in an annual ranking of companies on the basis of their LGBTQ-friendly environment. And it canceled plans to push for a more diverse group of suppliers.

Most of us would view this as a terrible loss, but Starbuck, needless to say, was quick to take a victory lap. “We’re now forcing multi-billion dollar organizations to change their policies without even posting just from fear they have of being the next company that we expose,” he wrote in the X post. “We are winning and one by one we will bring sanity back to corporate America.”

Why did Brown-Forman, along with Harley, Deere, Tractor Supply, and as of yesterday, Lowe’s, give up so easily in the face of a wingnut podcaster who looks like a 15-year-old version of JD Vance without the face foliage? 

As best I can determine in the absence of explanations from the corporations, the MBAs in expensive suits in the corporate suites are unused to the kind of below-the-belt attack that the MAGA hordes like to deliver.  Lawsuits and news releases are easy. The potential of doxxing, leaked reports on youthful indiscretions,  and, even worse, threats against executives and their families from arms-bearing yokels represents a concern that’s most simply addressed by giving in and waiting it out.

No one is happy about this, certainly not me. I feel a pang at the possible loss of an old family friend, and I wonder if giving up is really the right thing to do.

In this politically charged era when an old friend has been injured by “anti-woke” forces blowing this racist dog whistle, perhaps it’s better to stand with this old Louisville firm and shout back, hoping that eventually the voices at Brown-Forman will join this chorus again.

Let’s remember that “woke” has deep roots in the black community, and expresses its understanding of racism and its long-term impact in good African-American vernacular English. When people use it as an insulting term and fight against it, they’re exposing their racism as clearly as Birmingham sheriff “Bull” Connors did with his police dogs. We don’t need that. We don’t have to stand for that.

The post We love Old Forester, but it made us big mad appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

You wouldn’t expect Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood to have a deep resonance with Louisville, but that erroneous conclusion overlooks the importance of Harold Henry “Pee Wee” Reese. 

Reese, a native of Meade County, Ky., who grew up in Louisville, played shortstop for the old, beloved Brooklyn Dodgers, who played at the storied Ebbets Field in Flatbush. Reese may be most remembered for the public and supportive hug he gave Jackie Robinson, rejecting racist jeers at Major League’s first Black player at a game in Cincinnati in 1947.  

Reese was also an excellent shortstop, earning his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1948. And he made a generation of Kentuckians into Dodgers fans, or so my parents told me.

That was our Flatbush connection then. Now we have another, with the arrival of Hall of Fame level pizza at Wheated Louisville in the Highlands, the second and only branch of Wheated Brooklyn, a pizzeria that has risen to the top of New York City’s fabled pizza scene in just over a decade. Founded in 2013, it quickly earned critical acclaim amid comparisons to local pizza icons like Tottono’s, Grimaldi’s, and Di Farra. 

Why would a popular Brooklyn pizzeria spend major bucks to do a gut rehab on an old Bardstown Road bungalow and turn it into their only other location? It’s beyond me, unless it has something to do with Pee Wee Reese … or maybe it’s our bourbon.

Wheated has been a while coming. Sharp eyes at the LouisvilleHotBytes Forum spotted its a building permit in August 2021. It took nearly two years to convert the little building that had housed a skate shop into a stylish, homey pizzeria. It finally opened at the end of June.

We dropped in on a busy Thursday night and did not have a single disappoinment in food, mood, or service. Every component was just right: Stainless silverware, sharp knives with serrated blades, even oversize and strong paper napkins, sturdy reusable takeaway containers, and of course, all of the food.

The Louisville and Brooklyn menus appear similar. Kentuckians get a condensed form with 11 pizzas seemingly identical to the Brooklyn options. Flatbush diners have 18 to choose from. They’re all generous 16-inch pies, and good news: ours are priced $2 to $5 less than our Brooklyn counterparts. They’re all named after Brooklyn neighborhoods, and range in price (in Louisville) from $21 (for the Ditmas Park, a simple tomato-and-cheese pie with basil) to $31 (for the fennel-sausage Canarsie or the meat-and-cheese lovers’ Supreme).  Sides here are limited to a handful of  salads and a side of meatballs.

The cocktail menu is built on a wide range of liquors and flavors, mostly riffs on standards like the Negroni, old fashioned, and horse’s neck. They’re all $14 except the $15 espresso martini.

Excellent salads just about filled us up before the pizza came. They are oversized, even the purportedly “small” Caesar ($12), and well made with quality ingredients.  The Caesar filled a large white bowl with crisp, fresh, green romaine lettuce lightly coated with a tangy, garlicky dressing, topped with clouds of finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and surmounted with five large, fresh salted anchovies. (Anchovy-haters may opt out, but these are the real deal.)

Watermelon salad ($12), a seasonal special, started with a structure of large, bright-red, juicy and super-sweet watermelon cubes mixed with thin-sliced English cucumbers, basil chiffonade, crumbled queso fresco, sea salt, and tangy lime juice that enhanced the salad’s refreshing vibe while highlighting the melon’s sweetness in contrast.

A pair of hefty meatballs ($12) the size of tennis balls made a side dish that was filling and complex in flavor. Light and fluffy and herby inside as New York Italian-style meatballs should be, they were coated with melted cheese and the thick tomato sauce that they had apparently been baked with. Billows of Parmigiano put a tasty snow cap on top.

I wanted all the pizzas but started with a simple option, my usual strategy for evaluating a new spot. The NY slice style pizza ($23, pictured at the top of the page) may not remind you of Manhattan street-corner slices, but it’s a fine representation of the work of Brooklyn’s beloved neighborhood sit-down joints. 

The sourdough crust is thin across the base, swelling to puffy edges charred dark brown to charcoal and, tasted on their own, reminiscent of good, crusty Italian bread. Tangy low-moisture mozzarella, a slightly aged, drier version, is laid down first, forming a barrier to keep the crust dry and crisp. A simple, thick tomato sauce, a sweet yet tart puree, was spread lightly over the cheese, turning the pie into a Jackson Pollock work of artfully abstract yellow and red and brown. It was outstanding, and a protective sheet of textured paper beneath kept the leftovers from sticking to the cardboard box on the way home.

A memorable pizza dinner for two came to $62.54, plus a $14 tip.

Wheated Louisville
1553 Bardstown Road
No listed phone
Facebook: bit.ly/WheatedLou
instagram.com/wheatedlouisville

Noise Level: This popular place is usually jammed, and it’s not quiet. We were able to carry on a conversation, though, with noise levels running around 78dB.

Accessibility: Multiple steps bar wheelchair access to the front of the building, but a well-built ramp provides convenient access from the large parking lot in the rear.

The post Wheated brings great pizza and a taste of Flatbush appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Generally speaking, I’m no fan of restaurant buffets. I didn’t complain much when the Covid-19 pandemic banished the buffet.

But I hear a lot of people complaining about the near-demise of the Indian buffet. 

Why the difference? I wonder if it’s about unfamiliarity with Indian cuisine, coupled with just a touch of fear that you’re going to get something unfaniliar and possibly as hot as the hinges of Hades.

Indian food is exciting and interesting, but Indian menus can feel scary. They usually offer hundreds of choices, in categories that aren’t entirely clear to the uninitiated. What’s a dal? A biryani? A chaat? A naan? 

It takes a while to learn all this, but an attractive Indian buffet full of fascinating things makes it easy to try a lot of small bites.

We’re here to help!  Today let’s talk about a virtual buffet of Indian dishes I’ve enjoyed at popular local eateries. Try ‘em! I think you’ll like ‘em!

You could start your meal with a bowl of steaming tomato soup at Clay Oven Indian Restaurant. This warming potion was  bright red, relatively thin and brothy, studded with bits of onion. Moderately spicy with a palate-tingling sour note, its tasty combination of hot and sour flavors really woke up my taste buds.

Clay Oven Indian Restaurant, 12567 Shelbyville Road, 254-4363. clayovenlouisville.com

Kathmandu Kitchen is Nepalese, but I’ll call that Indian-adjacent because it’s right next door to India, and its cuisine shares a delicious kinship.  I recommend daal jhanneko, a Nepalese cousin of the Northern Indian lentil dish dal tadka. This thick, savory lentil soup comes with yellow or black lentils simmered to a thick, savory porridge, then kicked up with a complex, piquant tadka spice mix of cumin seeds, onion, tomato, cilantro, ginger, and garlic … plus three tiny but dangerous looking chile peppers to create that desirable hot-stuff endorphin rush.

Kathmandu Kitchen, 3825 Bardstown Road, 202-1481. kathmandukitchenandbar.com

I’m delighted that Indian chaat dishes are widespread these days. Somewhat akin to tapas or dim sum, chaat comes in bewildering variety. They’re affordable, and well suited as appetizers or small plates. Shreeji Indian Vegetarian Street Food offers about two dozen chaats. They’re just as varied as you might expect, but most of them check off the familiar chaat boxes of crisp, spicy, tart, fruity, and sweet. Dabeli chaat offered a characteristic mix of flavors and textures. It starts with balls of dabeli – a sweet and spicy potato mix – combined with garlic and sweet chutneys and tangy-sweet tamarind to make a spicy, fruity, and filling potato snack. For still more crunch, it’s topped with peanuts, chopped cilantro, beet strips, and crisp sev (tiny turmeric-laced dried noodles).

Shreeji Indian Vegetarian Street Food, 1987 S. Hurstbourne Pkwy., 890-4000. shreejiindianrestaurant.com

Think Indian, think of curry, and also of dal, a comforting, spicy lentil stew. Creamy coconut daal curry at Hyderabad House combines both! It consisted of tender yellow lentils bathed in a simmering bright-yellow curry-scented soup studded with a few bright cubes of tomato. Its mild lentil flavor blended with coconut and turmeric scents with haunting back notes of mysterious, delicious Indian flavors. Ordered mild, it presented a gentle heat imparted by a single small charred chile pepper. 

Hyderabad House Louisville, 12412 Shelbyville Road, 405-8788. hhlouisville.com

Eggholic, as the name implies, is a growing Chicago-based chain that features delicious egg dishes in the style of the Gujurat region of Northwestern India, where eggs are a serious business. We asked for the spicy option for toofani curry, and it was hot enough to light me up. At least three hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters came in a shallow bowl, covered with a thick, textured reddish-brown soup that the menu describes as “a spicy gravy,” garnished with chopped cilantro. This dish was so fiery that it was hard to discern individual flavors, but the combination was seductive, and definitely got the endorphins working.

Eggholic, 1947 S. Hurstbourne Parkway, 690-2116. theeggholic.com

Both lamb and goat meat frequently appear on Indian menus. Goat kheema biryani at Tandoori Fusion made a good introduction to goat meat, and it was a huge portion. Biryani, a rice dish that’s a cousin to pilaf, was made with long-grain basmati rice flavored with an aromatic mix of Indian spices and fat that unctuously coated every grain and each bit of crisply fried minced goat meat. Spicing was incendiary … and delicious. It was topped with a sliced hard-boiled egg, a thick round of red onion, two lime wedges, and chopped cilantro.

Tandoori Fusion, 4600 Chamberlain Lane, 255-2590. thetandoorifusion.com

Chana masala ($10.95), one of my favorite Indian entrees, is an iconic chickpea-based dish from Northern India. Shalimar’s version, pictured at the top of the page, was a bowl of long-simmered, soft chickpeas in a thick sauce infused with garlic and ginger flavors and Indian spices. The medium-hot option wasn’t as spicy as I might have liked, but it was warm enough to keep me happy. Chana masala traditionally comes with puri (puffy pillows of deep-fried wheatbread), but here I had to order it a la carte.

Shalimar Restaurant, 1850 S. Hurstbourne Parkway, 493-8899. louisvilleshalimar.com

Speaking of goat, Bombay Grill’s goat dish in the style of Chettinad from Southern India was memorable. You need to know this: Goat is usually gamey and strong, full of gristle and tiny bones. It won raves in this dish nevertheless. Long-simmered, falling off the bone, it was intensely flavored with a blend of spices so complex that it was almost impossible to name them out. Spicing toward the lower end of a 1 to 6 scale, it was pleasantly warm with little burn.

Bombay Grill, 216 N. Hurstbourne Parkway, 425-8892. bombaygrillky.com

Don’t overlook Indian flatbreads alongside your meal. Tikka House has an excellent, well-made selection, including crisp, thin papad wafers made from lentil flour; puffy, tender white-flour naan; whole-wheat roti, and thin, ghee-slathered whole-wheat chapati.

Tikka House, 3930 Chenoweth Square, 749-4535.  tikkahouselouisville.com

The post Irresistible Indian food favorites appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I really like little Namnam Cafe in St. Matthews, but to be honest, the last time I was there it wasn’t easy to concentrate my full attention on the fare.

What was the problem? That was in mid-March of 2020, just days before Gov. Andy Beshear ordered Kentucky restaurants and bars closed to indoor dining. 

When we arrived just a few days before that, everyone was well aware of the coming pandemic, and not entirely sure if everyone was going to survive. I’m generally mellow, but just about everyone tenses up a bit when confronted with our own mortality.

So, although I enjoyed the experience and wrote about it fondly, it crossed my mind the other day that it wouldn’t hurt to take a fresh look without a flight-or-fight response going on in my head.

Namnam Cafe is comfort Vietnamese food for me. It has operated since 2011 in the tiny St. Matthews building that the original Simply Thai occupied for five years before moving to larger quarters across Wallace Avenue.

Namnam’s owners, Chef David Truong and family, have expanded the space by enclosing a roofed patio on the side to create a weatherproof back room. The result is, let’s say, lovably disheveled, with comfortable if saggy booth seats and portable air conditioners that struggle and hum on sultry days. I like to imagine Namnam as a tiny eatery in a rural Vietnamese town, in contrast with the more urban Ho Chi Minh City vibe of Vietnam Kitchen, District 6, and other local Vietnamese favorites.  

The menu is extensive, and it’s published almost entirely in English, without some of the Vietnamese names that we’ve learned over the years since our Vietnamese neighbors arrived.  Pho is listed as soup, banh xeo as a crepe, and so on. Everything is excellent, though, and easy to figure out, so no harm done.

Eight appetizer rolls – two fried and six wrapped in rice paper – are priced from $6.75 (for crab rangoon) to $9 (for a beef summer roll stuffed with grass-fed locally raised tenderloin). Four variations on pho are $14.50 (for veggie pho) to $16.75 (for bone-broth pho with Stone Cross Farm beef tenderloin). 

A dozen entrees including noodle dishes, curries, stir-fries, fried rice, and a Vietnamese crepe, are almost all priced in the $14 to $16 range, with charges varying depending on your choice of chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, tofu, or veggies. A single outlier, shaking beef made with Stone Cross Farm grass-fed meat, is $22.75 plus a $2 surcharge if you wish a drizzle of duck fat.

Beverages include U.S. soft drinks, teas, fruit teas, bubble teas, and Vietnamese coffee drinks, plus a changing selection of beers.

We started with a shared order of Buddha rolls ($7.50). Two very large rice paper-wrapped rolls were split into four chunks and plated on ridged green square plates that resembled banana leaves. They were loaded with cold rice noodles, slices of chewy grilled tofu, a few bean sprouts and bright carrot shreds, and crisp leaf lettuce. Each plate came with a small tub of tangy-sweet peanut butter and hoisin sauce topped with chopped peanuts. I’m pretty sure I could see the Buddha smiling as we mindfully enjoyed this simple treat. 

Virtually all of our dishes were served in large, bright-red bowls. Pho with brisket ($14.75) was a delight, simply made and flawless. Crystal-clear beef bone broth boasted a deep beefy flavor heightened by subtle hints of anise. It cradled a bed of tender rice noodles, thin-sliced onions and snipped scallions, and about eight rectangular slices of flavorful  Stone Cross Farm grass-fed brisket, cut crosswise and very tender.  The traditional.pile of greens and herbs to be added as you like it came alongside: bean sprouts, Thai basil leaves, a slice of fresh jalapeño, and a lime wedge.

Pho with vegetables ($14.50) made a fascinating plant-based flip side to the beefy, meaty brisket pho. A nest of springy white rice noodles made a base for a produce stand’s assortment of veggies cooked crisp-tender, including snow peas, tiny carrots, thick mushroom slices, onions, and small squares of tofu. It all swam in a simple, savory broth that showed off enticing aroma notes akin to garlic and ginger.

Saigon noodle tofu ($14.25) started with a ration of stir-fried rice noodles dosed with the bright yellow turmeric color and piquant bite of Southeast Asian yellow curry sauce, then added long carrot and onion shreds cut to match the noodles, bean sprouts, bite-size cabbage leaves, green onions, and chewy rectangles of pressed and baked tofu. Thanks to the curry, it’s not available with less than medium spice, and that was fine with me.

Lunch for three came to $54.06 plus a $15 tip. The share for two would have been $36 plus tip.

NamNam Cafe
318 Wallace Ave.
891-8859
namnamcafe.com
facebook.com/namnamcafe
instagram.com/namnam_cafe

Noise Level: Despite parties at several tables and an air conditioner laboring next to our seats, noise levels remained in the 65dB range, posing no barrier to conversation.

Accessibility: Part of the restaurant is accessible to wheelchair users, but the entrance door is heavy, much of the dining area is down a short step, and a narrow hall back to the unisex restroom would be hard to negotiate in a wheelchair.

The post It’s hard to go wrong at Namnam Cafe appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

It’s your anniversary! You want to treat your sweetie to a fancy dinner out, but your budget says “Mickey D’s.” What can you do?

It’s true. Dining out at an expensive restaurant can be a memorable experience, but it’s easy to run up your tab. 

But there is a way, and it does not involve dine and dash or any other action that could get you in trouble.

As several of you pointed out in response to our recent column on controlling our weight while dining out, some of those approaches – sharing plates, making a meal of appetizers and more, are just as effective at saving bucks as they are at shaving calories. 

But wait, I can hear you saying. Aren’t you going to irritate the management by pinching pennies? In my experience, that’s not a huge issue. The customer may not always be right, but a savvy restaurateur is generally willing to go along with most reasonable requests.

To get a reality check, I asked my friend Will Crawford, who operated the delightful Westport General Store a few years back, how he felt when a couple wanted to split an entree to save bucks?”

His response was reassuring, mostly. “From the owner/manager point of view, sure, I would have rather had two entrees. But usually the couple is drinking adult beverages, and if you make them feel welcome, they come back. … I think most owners just want buns in the seat.”

So there we have it. Next time you want to eat fancy but abstemiously at the same time, just do it. A tuned-down celebration is a lot better than no celebration at all. 

The good news is that you can make quite a few simple decisions that can help you enjoy a fancy evening an expensive restaurant without breaking the bank.

To start with, we should probably define what we mean by “expensive restaurant.” To some extent, you know it when you see it: White tablecloths, tuxedo-clad servers, a hushed atmosphere. Upscale signals like this suggest that the eventual bill is going to be a heavy lift. 

But it’s probably more accurate to look at the total tab. If menu prices suggest the toll for two is going to move toward $80 or even the three-figure range,  I start looking for ways to diminish the pain. Here are a few.

Enjoy a lunch … or Happy Hour

Many quality restaurants offer a lighter lunch menu. Check the restaurant’s website or social media page to find out what’s available. This only works if the restaurant offers lunch, so check before you go.

I had put off a visit to Paseo on Baxter last year, intrigued but stymied by a $56 seafood paella and moarentrees in the $28-$48 range. When they launched a weekend brunch menu, though, I was there, indulging on entrees reduced to $14 to $22.

Share a plate

The entrees menu at a fancier spot can impart sticker shock right at the start of your meal. This is when I think about splitting a sizable main dish, backing it up with a couple of small-plate appetizers and a dessert.

Alternatively, you can splurge on two entrees, perhaps mining the lower end of the main-dish range, then share an appetizer or dessert. Or both!

I used to put off visits to longtime favorite like Anoosh Bistro (now replaced by Äta) because its entree pricing from $38 to $62 was just beyond my budget. Even appetizers were mostly over $20.  But when we went for a birthday celebration and coped by choosing a beef lomo saltado starter plate (pictured at the top of the page) for $22 in preference to a main-course steak dish. Then we shared a single $38 entree, an amazing veggie bolognese on spaghetti squash, and got out with a hefty but doable tab.

When I surveyed social-media friends, plate-sharing came back as the most widely used strategy, along with a couple of concerns:

• Does the restaurant object? Will a chef come out of the kitchen brandishing a cleaver and chase you out? Well, no. Restaurateur Will Crawford cleared that up for us, and I’ve never had pushback about plate-sharing. 
• What about splitting fees? Some restaurants charge extra for sharing.  That’s true, but the fee is minor compared with the charge for a second entree, and it’s not unreasonable if the kitchen carefully separates and plates your dishes. And here’s a hint: You needn’t disclose what you’re doing. You order a small plate. Your pal orders an entree. No one is going to yell at you for nabbing a few bits off her plate. Except maybe her, but that’s a personal problem.

But wait, there’s more!

Those top approaches – going for lunch, and sharing – can nudge your dinner into budget territory. Other tactics can save still more.

• Alcohol can blow up your bill. It’s an open secret that high-end restaurants make a big share of their profit from fine wines and cocktails. Wine by the bottle may go at triple the wholesale price, double what you pay at the liquor store. Cocktails build in a similar upcharge over the actual cost of your shot. No, you don’t have to go teetotal, but making a less fancy choice, stopping at just one drink, or even going with Louisville Tap can shift that booze dividend from the restaurant to you. 
• Watch for special deals. From the frequently advertised Burger Weeks, Taco Weeks, You Name It Weeks to coupons and social media promotions, it’s possible to jump on a bargain and gain a real cost advantage.
• Look for a prix fixe menu. I recently raved about Perso in Shelby Park, where you can choose a three-course prix fixe menu Sundays through Wednesdays at a flat $29. We took advantage of that plus a couple of a la carte items, and enjoyed one of the best dinners I’ve enjoyed lately for a more than fair charge.

The post Eating fancy without paying fancy appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

When a rising young chef at a popular new restaurant earns a James Beard Award nomination as an “emerging chef,” then steps up to serve as executive chef at another exciting new eatery, what would you expect?

When we’re talking about Chef Lawrence Weeks, who garnered the Beard nomination at North of Bourbon in Germantown, and spread his wings to hold down the same role at Enso in Clifton, I would expect great things.

Indeed, after oohing and aahing through a memorable meal at Enso, I’d basically just gasp in awestruck delight. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that both restaurants share the same ownership team as well as Weeks’s leadership in the kitchen.

“Enso is a Southern restaurant using Japanese technique and style to connect the parallels in culture between Japan and the American South,” Enso declares in its social media.

Enso’s decor is simple and spare, with a Zen-like Japanese vibe in its white and glass, mostly unadorned simplicity, blonde wooden tables and comfortable padded chairs, attractive dishes and glassware, quality cotton napkins, and hot white oshibori hand towels offered as you begin your meal. Only wooden chopsticks are provided, although I don’t doubt that forks are available on request.

Enso’s menu expresses Zenlike enlightenment in its sweet and gentle reassurances: “All house-made noodles use Anson Mills flour (Columbia, SC), all proteins are local, all beef is dry-aged in house, all vegetables are sourced regionally and local when applicable, all seafood is sourced responsibly as possible, and everything is brought to you with love.”

The dinner-only bill of fare is concise but offers plenty of variety, with a dozen small plates subdivided into “cold” and “hot,” priced from $8 (for Japanese potato salad or sesame turnip greens) to $28 (for Japanese Country Captain, a Carolina Low Country-Japanese treatment of chicken thighs). Seven charcoal-grilled skewers range in price from $9 (for okra) to $16 (for Hokkaido scallops); a sampler with one of each item is $44. Three main-course noodle dishes are $26 (for mushroom yakisoba) to $32 (for citrus niboshi ramen).

A couple of desserts and a fancy tea service complete the menu, plus an option to “show the kitchen some love” with a $10 contribution to the folks in the back of the house. The full bar offers well chosen selections of sake, whiskey, beer and wine and craft cocktails.

We started with cocktails that brought Japanese flavors to the table: An Enso old fashioned ($14) made with salted sweet-potato infused toki (a blended Japanese whisky from Beam Suntory) and a porch spritz ($14) fashioned from the bitter Italaian aperetif Aperol, rice-based saki-adjacent awamori from Okinawa, watermelon and bubbles, garnished with a big sprig of the minty Japanese leafy herb shiso.

We also were offered a lagniappe, a small cup of quaffable cold blackberry ginger and corn tea with candied ginger.

Miso cucumber salad (($10) from the cold small plates menu was a delightful surprise. Unpeeled, crisp thick cucumber slices were coated with a soft miso sauce that added a salty, savory flavor to the mix. Tiny strips cut from black nori seaweed and a sprinkle of benne sesame seeds all came together in a lovely chorus.

Our server recommended a dry-aged beef skewer ($17) made from local beef, and we’re glad she did. Six tender, heavily marbled bigger-than-bite-size beef cubes were lined up on two bamboo skewers and char-grilled to perfection, then drizzled with a mushroom-butter glaze almost as thick as pudding that added a earthy flavor to every bite. A bowl of bourbon salt and a wedge of lime came alongside to offer extra flavor pops.

A simple okra skewer ($9) alongside might have seemed simple in comparison, but it can be a gift to be simple, and these were very good. Five long, think okra pods had been grilled just to al dente crispness, striped with a thick garlic-ginger glaze, and sprinkled with toasted rice salt and benne sesame seeds.

Yakisoba is a traditional and beloved Japanese street-food noodle dish, and Enso’s mushroom yakisoba ($26, pictured at the top of this page) represents. House-made white yakisoba wheat noodles, roughly the shape of linguine, are tender and soft, similar in texture to ramen noodles. They’re dressed with a mix of seasonal veggies – julienned zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, and chewy shiitake mushrooms and squares of cabbage during the season of summer bounty, small cubes of firm tofu, and I could swear I saw a couple of avocado slices in there. It all comes together with a thin, savory, umami-loaded brown sauce that makes the dish almost too good to resist.

A simple yet complex egg custard dessert ($10) kept up the same high pace. A tiny jar bore layers of blueberries, rich custard, and crunchy benne seed granola brought together with the brown-sugar flavor of local maple syrup.

A truly exceptional dinner totaled $106. plus a $25 tip for flawless attention from our server, Gabriella.

Enso
1758 Frankfort Ave.
ensolouisville.com
facebook.com/ensolouisville
instagram.com/ensolouisville

Noise Level: The room filled up fast on a Friday night, making for an undeniably noisy scene. But conversation remained possible with average decibel levels at a buzzy but bearable 75.8dB with only occasional peaks into the 80dB range.

Accessibility: The entrance and restrooms and tables in the main floor, bar area, and patio appear accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Our critic oohs and aahs over Enso appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

The news that Pete Wells got from his doctor was too alarming to ignore: “My scores were bad across the board,” the physician told the 60-something New York Times restaurant critic.

“My cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I’d expected even in my doomiest moments,” Wells wrote in his Critic’s Notebook column on July 15. “The terms pre-diabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around. I was technically obese. OK, not just technically. I knew I needed to change my life.”

So Wells made a decision that shook restaurant kitchens and food lovers across Gotham and beyond: “After 12 Years of Reviewing Restaurants, I’m Leaving the Table.” (Gift link, no paywall.)

Yes, The Times’ restaurant critic, arguably the nation’s most powerful food influencer, was stepping down, brought up short by a health report too alarming to ignore.

I hear you, Pete. Been there, done that – well, except for the stepping down part or the trying 36 dishes before writing a review – as have a good share of the food writers I’ve known or heard about. When I took the critic’s fork at The Louisville Times back in the ‘80s, I was lean and mean and fit, weighing in at a slim 145 pounds and fitting easily into a 30-inch belt. I could eat a large pizza at a single bound without suffering any consequences. I was young. I was strong. Hear me roar.

But I should have paid attention to a predecessor at The Times’ critics’ table, who went from a relatively skinny frame to being nicknamed “The Blob” within two years.

I loved writing about restaurants and about expressing my first-person opinions, a thing I would never do on my day job as a Times city-desk reporter. I ate, I noshed, and before I knew it I had added 30 pounds and counting. I developed the beginnings of a serious belly, and my doctor started muttering about blood pressure and cholesterol. This is how I learned that metabolism catches up with you in your 30s.

I’ve continued writing about food and wine as a side gig over all the years since, and maintaining a healthy weight has been a pardon-the-expression up-and-down challenge, increasingly so as the passing years take their toll. But I still love this work and intend to keep on doing it. To accomplish that, I’ve learned to take steps that some might consider tough but that I’ve made habitual, and ultimately got my weight and waist size back within reasonable range of that slender young reporter back in 1984.

Now, let me clarify: I’m not just bragging. I’m doing what food writers do: Recognizing that a lot of you probably fight this battle, too, I decided to devote this column to sharing a few tips based on my experience. The more we love to pull up to the table at our favorite eateries and enjoy an indulgent meal, the more we have to pay our money and make our choice … a choice between hulking out or learning to focus seriously on portion control, diet, and exercise.

In other words, the challenges that face the restaurant critic are also challenges, at least to some degree, for everyone who loves to dine out regularly.

So what can we do? Let’s talk about some simple strategies that can balance indulgence with moderation.

Don’t eat all the food!

This one is obvious: Restaurant portions tend to be sizable, and many of us like to sample more than one course. When I’m reviewing, trying several dishes is mandatory. But I don’t need to eat it all, and neither do you. You can request a takeout box at the end of the meal or, as some of my friends do, get the box up front and transfer half of your entree into it before you start to eat. This has the double advantage of taking temptation out of your way and keeping your leftovers presentable for lunch another day. What’s more, this approach gets you two meals for the price of one.

Sharing is caring

Whether I’m reviewing with spouse or friends, sharing is mandatory, so I can sample and report on as many dishes as possible. Sharing appetizers or even an entree can hold down your consumption and your costs too. A couple can even order one entree and an appetizers or two rather than two large entrees, thus getting away with a lighter meal and smaller tab.

Smart ordering

Check menus on the restaurant’s web page or social media (hoping, of course, that they’re up to date) and check a few dishes you’d like. Unless you’re just aching for a steak, consider an interesting dish featuring poultry or fish. Or as I usually do in reviews, explore the unexpected pleasures of a creative plant-based dish. Think about ingredients when you’re making decisions: Is one dish heavy on carbs, another dripping with succulent, delicious, and oh-so-calorific fat? Crunchy fried noms or healthy broiled or grilled items? You certainly don’t have to skip the tasty fatty delights, but it makes sense to balance a heavier dish with a healthier one.

Etc.

Lots of small decisions can add up: A cocktail with a sugary mix or a glass of wine? Or a zero-calorie glass of Louisville Tap? No one is forcing you to finish that bread basket or oversized bowl of chips with salsa (although it’s true, it’s hard to resist). That salad looks healthy, but you don’t have to choose the one with a half-pound of bacon. You can request that rich and creamy dressing on the side. Slow down, savor every bite, and sip plenty of water as you go. And maybe even skip dessert.
Finally, exercise is your friend. Work out seriously if that’s your style, but even a daily walk just brisk enough to get your heart working is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

The post Say it ain’t so, Pete appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Every now and then I’ll see an email or social-media ad that inspires immediate action. The new iPhone is available! Two-for-one sale on Häagen-Dazs! And, just the other day, “Tomato season has returned, and so has the beloved Haymarket BLT!”

I had been meaning to get to Haymarket for a while. This fancy new farm-to-table market and eatery, open since June 2023, is by Ashbourne Farms of Oldham County, a multigenerational operation founded by bourbon industry patriarch W.L. Lyons Brown Sr. and his wife Sally in the 1930s.

Haymarket stems from Ashbourne’s vision to open a small farm store in La Grange, which turned into a larger plan to make their farm and its ethos of connection to what we eat to the greater Louisville community.

“We are beyond proud to bring farm-fresh foods, convenience, and warm hospitality together under one roof,” the operators said in a June 14, 2023 Facebook post announcing Haymarket’s opening.

Haymarket is named after the old Louisville Haymarket, an open-air marketplace in the downtown block surrounded by Jefferson, Liberty, Brook and Floyd streets where regional farmers brought fresh produce for sale in a very early version of the farmers’ market. The old Haymarket opened in the 1880s and ran until urban renewal displaced it in the 1960s.

Like the old Haymarket but with more intentionality, Ashbourne’s Haymarket, according to its social media, reflects the seasons and the bounty from its local farming partners: “Our culinary program is defined by embracing the finest ingredients nature has to offer, creating an experience that celebrates the richness and vibrancy of each season.”

Located at the corner of River Road and Mockingbird Valley Road, Haymarket’s large building incorporates a farm-to-table grocery and specialty store and high-tech casual eatery that reminds me of the offspring of a union between an upscale Paul’s Fruit Market on steroids and a polished Logan Street Market.

The large, open, high-ceilinged building contains several stations including all manner or packaged and prepared food, many of them behind glass doors in lighted refrigerated shelves; a bakery section offering breads in bins and tempting pastries and cookies; stands filled with ceramics for sale.

Outside, along with rows of tables under shady umbrellas lined up on well manicured lawns, you’ll find plants for sale and shelves of flower pots and other garden accessories, all surrounded by native and prairie plants.

Before you dive into the food side, it might be a good idea to take a breath, look around, and maybe prep with a visit to Haymarket’s website before you go. There are several ways to get fed: You can place your order in advance or walk up, motor through a drive-through window; go inside and select your pick of ready-to-eat items and drinks; or,  as we did, go inside and enjoy a high-tech ordering experience by checking the menu on a large screen, then turning to a terminal to select your order by clicking the dishes you prefer and flashing your card or device … no cash, please!

Of course we got the BLT ($15, pictured at the too of this page), and it was very much as advertised, served wrapped in deli paper with a couple of chef-style touches that departed from tradition but added a flavor boost. It was built on slices of tangy house-made sourdough bread, grilled to a light crunch and generously filled with a half-dozen large slices of locally raised bacon just cooked through; thin-sliced, bright red and juicy tomato slices; fresh leaf lettuce, and the surprise ingredient, what appeared to be a thin spread of basil pesto.

Tomato made another appearance in tomato bisque ($8), an elegant dark-red puree, warm, thick and rich with a hint of cream. It was lightly sprinkled with chopped parsley or basil and bore just a hint of piquant spice.

Polenta fritters ($14) made a hearty plant-based entree. Several large, thin rounds of polenta fried crunchy dark brown formed the base for a bowl full of tender steamed seasonal veggies cut in large dice, drizzled with bright tomato sauce and decorated with edible flowers.

A side order or sesame tofu ($5) was simple and tasty: A chunk of soft baked tofu had been dusted with black and white sesame seeds and cut into think slices to make a fascinating combination of subtle flavors and textures.

We waited to be called and picked up our lunch, neatly packed in biodegradable paper bags and cardboard bowls and tubs. Knives, forks and spoons and drinking cups, though, available on request, appeared to be non-recyclable plastic.)

Haymarket’s coffee shop looked tempting, but we were lured by the pricey appeal of bottled house-made cold-pressed turmeric ginger lemonade ($8) and a bright orange can of De La Calle Tepache mango chili picante ($4).

An abundant weekend midday meal came to $44.52 and the two fancy non-alcoholic drinks, purchased at a separate station, totaled $12.72. The digital ordering and point-of-sale system didn’t seem to be set up for tipping.

Haymarket by Ashbourne Farms
3020 River Road
576-5760
haymkt.com
facebook.com/haymarketlou
instagram.com/haymarket_lou

Noise Level: Although the place was crowded for lunch on a Saturday, the large space seems to seek up noise. Decibel levels hovered in the relatively quiet 60dB range, and conversation was not a problem.

Accessibility: The entire facility appears to be fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Haymarket lures us with farm-to-table BLT appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I’m still hearing from readers about my comments in last week’s review about the quality furnishings and spotless, seemingly hand-polished silverware at Perso restaurant in Shelby Park: “Those seemingly smaller signals of attentiveness and care from the moment we sat down signaled management that cares.”

In a way, we could liken dining out to a theater performance: Good food might be the lead actor, a player who struts and frets their hour upon the stage. But from decor and drinks to service and even the restrooms, it takes a quality supporting cast to turn a meal into an unforgettable show.

Dining out is not just about  filling our bellies. It’s an overall experience that tantalizes our senses and leaves us with memories. This week let’s dig a little deeper into all this, examining some of the many factors beyond food that can make or break our dining experience.

Ambience and Decor

“Ambience.” There’s a word that often gets overused and incorrectly used. It’s a fancy word that even has a twin: You can spell it “ambiance,” and that’s all right too. A little fuzzy in meaning, it defines the defining character or mood of a place, its atmosphere. 

I liked Perso’s ambience not because it has the hushed, upscale mood of an old-school gentlemen’s club. (Hint, it doesn’t.) Rather, as I wrote in its praise, it shows a unified aesthetic that extends from its 19th century red-brick building to its simple style, decor, that shiny tableware, its convivial, welcoming mood, and, of course, its cuisine.

What makes ambience work on a restaurant’s behalf? Honesty, sincerity, and a look and feel that fits the mood. Just about every place you go has ambience, although there’s no guarantee it will suit your personal tastes. A stylish, upscale place like 211 Clover or Buck’s will own a ton of it, but bear in mind that a fried-fish house like The Fishery or The Fish House will too, with a nautical look and feel in a more downscale setting. 

Check’s Cafe and Vietnam Kitchen each boast a ton of ambience with their neighborhood feel and a look that fits their heritage. Jack Fry’s wins with its comfortable old-school mood and historic photos, and Vincenzo’s scores with quiet, upscale elegance. Every place brings its own mood, and that’s as it should be.

Sound level and noise

As I discussed in a recent article (What Kind of Noise Annoys a Diner, June 12, 2024) ear-shattering noise can be one of the most annoying elements of a dining experience. If you can’t hear your companion, can’t carry on a conversation, or even, in the worst case, can’t hear yourself think, you’re not having a good experience. 

But a restaurant so hushed that you feel awkward about speaking to your neighbor feels creepy, too. The pleasant but not deafening buzz of happy diners around the room is generally ideal, and again, what’s right for one eatery may be all wrong for another. Drop in on a sports bar with a major game on the screens, and I’m pretty sure no one expects silence, particularly after a key three-pointer or exciting soccer goal.

Service 

Good service can make a dining experience, and poor service can most assuredly break it. In a social-media conversation about the small things other than food that can make a dining experience exceptionally good or exceptionally bad, service drew by far the majority of comments.  A server who wants to help is good, many pointed out. One who wants to flirt or just be too cute, not so much. Eye contact and sincerity get plus marks, as do good timing. It can be challenging for a server to strike a balance between being attentive and being a hovering pest, but it’s worth the effort.

Owners, managers, or chefs who take time to come around and speak to diners at every table come in for applause.  Edward Lee at Nami, Vincenzo Gabriele at Vincenzo’s, and the recently retired Anoosh Shariat at Shariat’s (now Äta) came in for special praise for their regular commitment to checking in with diners.

But wait! There’s more!

Briefly told, we’ve still just scratched the surface of non-food issues that can improve or spoil our dinner out.

• Price and Value: No matter what we think about it, some restaurant meals are going to command higher prices than others.  It’s not as simple as the basic difference between, say, a $150 cut of wagyu beef and a $10 diner burger, although food costs are clearly a big factor.  Real estate and lease prices, paying big-name chefs and purchasing quality ingredients,, investing in fancy furniture and elegant decor,  and many other variables all contribute to the difference in cost between a neighborhood joint and a four-star, white-tablecloth eatery. For most of us, though, the issue isn’t as much the total of the tab as whether we feel we got our money’s worth.

• Menu variety and options: Go to a steak house, expect a steak. Go to a fish house, get seafood. That seems logical enough, but in modern society there’s value in being attentive to the family with a carnivorous wife, vegan husband, and the kids who needs something gluten- or lactose-free.  Going the extra mile suggests offering a couple of different vegan and other options that are just as creative and interesting as the rest of the menu. A platter of three side dishes may be technically vegetarian, but it’s not particularly interesting. 

• Cleanliness: Do I even need to mention this? If the dining room smells funny or looks dirty, your table mat bears a smear of something unidentifiable, or the server comes out with their thumb in your soup, you’ll be mad. And so, eventually, will the health inspector. 

“Don’t sweat the small stuff?” That’s very bad advice if you run a restaurant.

The post Do sweat the small stuff: It matters appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

One of the first things I noticed when I took my seat at a table in Perso was the high quality of the table itself: Burnished wood, smooth as silk, it reminded me of the work of Shaker artisans.

Then I unrolled the black cloth napkin and noticed something unusual about the quality stainless flatware: Every surface was mirror-shiny, without a single dishwasher spot in sight, almost as if each piece had been wiped clean by hand before service.

And speaking of service, that was great too: Friendly but not smarmy, attentive but not bothersome, there when we needed them, good with eye contact and a smile.

So what, you say? How about the food?

Chef-owner Emil David’s creative, chef-driven, Italian-accented cuisine is remarkably good. We’ll get to that. But seeing those other, seemingly smaller signals of attentiveness and care from the moment we sat down signaled management that cares, a level of care that permeates the entire Perso dining experience.

A relatively new addition, Perso got its start in the pandemic autumn if 2021 as Square Cut, a pizzeria with a Roman twist that landed in Shelby Park after two years as a popular food truck. Its Roman-style pies were popular with their squarish hand-formed construction, thin but relatively crisp, loaded with toppings and cheese. Then Chef David started featuring special dishes with farm-to-table ingredients and chef-driven flourishes. By early in 2023 the evolution from Square Cut to Perso was complete.

There is a unified aesthetic to Perso’s space in this attractive two-story 19th century red-brick building: The style, the decor, the attractive tableware, the mood, and the cuisine are classically simple yet highlighted with unexpected flourishes; all of very good quality.

The menu continues its farm-to-table ethos with a bill of fare that changes with the seasons but always includes house-made charcuterie and breads, craft cocktails and a thoughtful bar program, and, of course, Roman-style pizza.

This is not cheap eats, but pricing is reasonable and fair. Charcuterie boards sufficient for three or four are priced from $9 to $18. Dishes billed as “mostly vegetables” include six starters from $12 to $17 and three entrees from $21 to $25. “Land and Sea” dishes feature four starters from $12 to $23 and nine entrees from $24 to $42, plus a single $75 outlier, a 16-ounce 30-day aged rib eye. Included in those categories are four Roman-style pizzas priced from $23 to $29. A three-course prix fixe menu is available Sundays through Wednesdays at a flat $29; and a family-style three-course chef’s dinner for your table is $55 per person.

We combined a prix fixe selection and several a la carte items to make an abundant meal without a flaw.

A grilled artichoke dip starter ($15) began with a pool of thick, creamy and gently smoky artichoke puree drizzled with a pool of black tahini and garnished with a garden of pea tendrils and garlicky snipped ramps. It was served with a round of spectacularly good house-made bread the size of a baseball, crisp on the outside and fluffy within, dotted with a peppery spice mix on top.

Cauliflower three ways ($21) was impressive in presentation and taste. A whole head of cauliflower, roasted to tender perfection, was dusted with a subtly peppery and aromatic spice mix. It sat atop a thick pool of pureed cauliflower and was flanked by tiny, crunchy and tangy quick-pickled cauliflower florets.

The three-course prix fixe ($29), available dine-in only, offers a choice among four starters, four entrees, and two desserts. A portion of all Prix Fixe sales is given to Blessings in a Backpack, a worthy organization that helps feed local school children who suffer from food insecurity.

A hearty pasta e fagioli starter mixed plump cranberry beans and fresh campanelle pasta in a thick tomato sauce, topped with grated mild pecorino toscano cheese and snipped basil leaves.

Osso buco (pictured at the top of the page) was built on a grass-fed beef shank braised to full doneness, yielding a dark, intensely flavorful chunk of beef. An intense stock reduction was poured over the meat and pooled on the plate, with thick, al dente asparagus spears and a pea tendril garnish. It’s a gift to be simple, as the Shakers sang, and this approach through simplicity yielded a dish with real class.

The “chef’s choice” prix fixe dessert was a “candy scone,” fresh-baked and filled with tiny bits of Reese Cups, Twix, and other candies, served with blobs of sweet mascarpone cheese and a caramel drizzle.

An exceptionally good dinner was $68.90 plus a $20 tip. We couldn’t resist paying homage to Perso’s heritage with a formaggio pizza ($23) to go. A blend of mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, garlic cream, and herbs on a hand-thrown, artisanal-bread base, it was as memorable as everything else about Perso.

Perso
741 E. Oak St.
290-5721
persorestaurant.com
facebook.com/persorestaurant
instagram.com/persorestaurant

Noise Level: When this modest-size room is full, the sound definitely rises, with average sound levels ranging from 74.2dB to 77.2dB on repeated checks; but the high ceiling and an acoustically helpful wall of wooden slats seemed to help. Conversation was always possible.

Accessibility: The restaurant and restrooms appear accessible to unassisted wheelchair users. Tables are fairly closely spaced, but easily moved, and a wide walkway through the room was available.

The post Perso gets the small things and the big things right appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Just about everyone loves ice cream, and that goes double when a heat dome drops over the country like a gigantic warm blanket that nobody requested.

But that rich scoop of cold, sweet delight becomes a lot less unanimous when it comes to the details: Favorite flavor? Traditional hard frozen and scoopable, soft serve, gelato, frozen custard, sherbet, sorbet, froyo, or something else? Cup or cone or take-home pint? And perhaps the most controversial question, which local shop is No. 1 for you?

Questions like these have been going on for a very long time. How long? Depending on how you define it, humankind has been enjoying something akin to ice cream for a couple of millennia or longer.

Ice cream’s origins are known to reach back as far as the second century BCE, according to The International Dairy Foods Association, which may or may not be entirely disinterested. But, the organization admits, “no specific date of origin nor inventor has been undisputably credited with its discovery.”

Historians record early examples of famous ancient figures enjoying cold sweet treats: Alexander the Great purportedly enjoyed snow flavored with honey and nectar. The ancient Romans picked up on that, as the infamous Emperor Nero sent runners up to the nearby Apennines to bring back snow for his chefs to lace with fruits and juices.

Even the bible gets into the act, according to the Book of Proverbs, which declares, “Like a snow-cooled drink at harvest time is a trustworthy messenger to the one who sends him; he refreshes the spirit of his master.”

Okay, that’s pardon-the-expression cool. But it would be more than a few centuries before anything like ice cream as we know it would come about; and just as long before anyone who wasn’t an emperor or similar bigwig could enjoy some.

The story of ice cream is surrounded by a lot of tasty mythology. “Legend has all sorts of fanciful stories about Marco Polo bringing ice cream from China and Catherine de’ Medici introducing it to France and King Charles I having his own personal ice cream maker,” says The Ice Cream Alliance, the British trade association for ice cream makers and sellers.

But with stiff upper lip and admirable honesty, the organization goes for candor: “All wonderful stories, but sadly there is not a scrap of historic evidence to back up any of these legends. Marco Polo didn’t introduce either ice cream or pasta to Europe and worse still, he probably never even went to China. Most of these myths seem to have been introduced by the Victorians.”

So there we have it. Something like the real thing may in fact have been known in parts of Asia while Europe was laboring in the Dark Ages, even if Marco Polo never knew it. The breakthrough discovery was the fun fact that mixing salt into ice could reduce its freezing point from 32ºF to a chilly 7º, which is more than enough to churn cream and flavorings into a delicious summer treat.

It would be the 16th century, though, before this tasty parlor trick came to Europe, evolving across the continent from early adopters in royal courts in France and Italy.

And finally, in 1660, according to the international dairy foods group, ice cream finally came to the rest of us. This revelation boasted a French and Italian connection, as it was Procopio, a Sicilian in Paris, who introduced a frozen blend of milk, cream, butter and eggs at his Café Procope, the first Parisian café.

Soon it was everywhere, including, eventually, the U.S. That noted Francophile and notorious enslaver Thomas Jefferson famously served ice cream at the then-new White House. It’s not known whether he allowed his enslaved laborers a scoop of the cold stuff during breaks in the fields at Monticello, but we doubt it.

Soob ice cream became widespread, cooled by blocks of ice and, eventually, mechanical refrigeration. Around the turn of the 20th century, inventors in New York City and at the St. Louis World’s Fair invented the cone, making ice cream a portable treat. The rest, of course, is history, right down through Howard Johnson’s 28 flavors, Baskin-Robbins’ 31 and more, to today’s wealth of artisanal and industrial brands.

Nowadays there’s such a galaxy of styles and flavors that you can find a match for just about every taste. According to the global industry research firm IBISWorld, there were 17,059 ice-cream store businesses in the U.S. in 2023, an increase of 1.6% from 2022 despite the intervening pandemic. That includes at least 24 in Louisville, according to LEO Weekly’s recent overview, The 24 Best Local Louisville Ice-Cream Shops.

LEO’s list included some popular soft-serve vendors, and while I won’t argue that soft-serve isn’t real ice cream, I’ll stand firm on my personal preference for the traditional scoopable style. Another day I might take a look at Dairy Del, Dairy Kastle, Polly’s Freeze and other local soft-serve destinations, but for now, let’s applaud five local traditional scoop vendors and one espresso shop that make us happy.

Listed alphabetically, they are:

Comfy Cow: 1301 Herr Lane in Westport Village (425-4979, thecomfycow.com), and other locations in Middletown and the Paddock Shops.

Ehrler’s Ice Cream: 201 E. Main St., 749-2236, and 2500 Bardstown Road, ehrlers.com)

Gelato Gilberto: 9434 Norton Commons Blvd., 423-7751, and 2240 Frankfort Ave. (422-0908, gelatogilberto.com)

Graeter’s: This regional chain bosts 56 locations including six in the Louisville area. You’ll usually find us at the St. Matthews shop. (140 Breckenridge Lane, 896-9952, graeters.com)

Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen: This local chain has about eight shops in Kentucky and Indiana. I’m still fond of the original venue: (2525 Bardstown Road, 459-8184, piekitchen.com)

Louisville Cream: You’ll find this premium small-batch shop’s artisinal goodies by the point at local gourmet shops and its scoop shop in Nulu: (632 E Market St., 882-1516, louisvillecream.com)

The post There’s always room for ice cream appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Louisville seems to be having a ramen renaissance right now, and I am here for it.

Yes. we’ve had access to genuine ramen that didn’t come from a cheap supermarket packet for a while. Of course you can still get your ramen fix at full-service Japanese and other Asian restaurants. And we’re not even talking about all the tasty Vietnamese pho and Thai yum, which are delicious soups-as-a-meal too but entirely different.

But there’s no substitute for those memorable places where the chefs treat ramen as a calling, a spiritual experience that must be done properly and consumed with respect but quickly, before the broth cools.

“Spicy, steaming, slurpy ramen might be everyone’s favorite Japanese food,” Yuri Kageyama wrote in an Associated Press World News report. “In Tokyo, long lines circle around blocks, and waiting an hour for your ramen is normal. What awaits might be just a dive, but a hot bowl of ramen rarely fails to hit the spot.”

That’s ramen. It does hit the spot, and as Marie Kondo might say, it sparks joy. Ramen is about joy, and we’re starting to see a little burst of ramen houses popping up all over.

Joining Ramen House, in place since 2019 adjacent to Baxter Avenue Theaters. Hokkaido Ramen is new in Colonial Gardens. Renshoku Ramen was building a sterling reputation in Old Louisville until it was forced to close last after a car smashed into a tree out front, starting a fire that killed the driver and badly damaged Renshoku’s building. Repairs are under way, and if you’d like to help, they’re inviting friends to support the cause by purchasing digital gift cards.

And now there’s Kiwami Ramen, recently arrived in the Highlands space that housed Wild Ginger and, before that, Cafe Metro. Kiwami means “ultimate” or “extreme” in Japanese, and after inhaling a couple of outstanding ramens and compelling apps, I’ll go along with that.

We went by for lunch on a Saturday, figuring we’d enjoy a quiet scene. Does the Highlands even wake up that early on the weekend?

Ha! Yes, the Highlands does. The large, L-shaped venue was just about full. With its high ceilings and hard surfaces, it was one of the loudest lunches I’ve had lately.

Kiwami is a new entry in a tiny but growing chain under Master Chef Tani-san, who, its website assures us, “is bringing the essence of genuine Japanese soul food to the neighborhood community.”

With shops in Tucson, Arizona, and Laredo, Texas, and another coming soon in McAllen, Texas, the Louisville branch earns the unexpected status of being Kiwami’s only location not on the U.S.-Mexico border. Go figure.

The menu, printed on a shiny black two-sided card, offers nine ramen options priced from $12.95 to $16.95, plus a variety of optional extra toppings. Nine bowls, including poke bowls, curries, and other goodies, range in price from $9.95 to $21.95. You may also choose from a dozen Japanese appetizers from $5.95 to $15.95.

We started with a bowl of edamame ($5.95) and chose the spicy option ($1). I’m glad I did. Edamame makes a pleasant bar snack, but this spicy version adds serious fire – a dollop of chili crisp, I believe – that makes it really hard to resist.

A half-dozen potsticker-style gyoza ($9.45 for either pork- or veggie-stuffed) made another tempting appetizer. Wrapped in pale-green kale-pastry wrappers and grilled crispy brown on one side, they were sizzling hot and filled with cooked and mashed puree of mixed veggies, with a sweet-hot dipping sauce on the side.

Then came the ramen. Most of Kiwami’s offerings are built on long-simmered pork shio or shiro broth, a traditional Japanese style that’s light in color, in contrast with soy-dark shoyu ramen.

Kiwami shiro ($15.95, pictured at the top of the page), a signature dish, came out steaming hot, almost filling a large black bowl. It lofted up an intriguing, appetizing scent that was hard to describe. Meaty and umami come to mind, and something earthy that reminded us of black truffle. A mass of ramen noodles was piled like an island in a brothy ocean, only its top poking up. Around this perched half of a soft-boiled shoyu egg, a row of thin-sliced grilled chashu pork, kikurage mushroom slivers, bamboo shoots and ground pork, Thin-sliced scallion threads made a pretty garnish.

The only meatless ramen option, vegetable ramen ($14.95), looked surprising at first: Fresh and very fine mixed lettuces had been piled on top, making the dish look like a big dinner salad with a lemon wedge tucked on the side. It was the real thing, though: Stir the lettuce into the rich, lightly salty veggie broth so it wilts down, and you find plenty of avocado and a few broccoli florets nestled in soft, flavorful kale noodles. It felt healthy, and it was very good.

Our meal for two was flawless, and service was quick and friendly. Our tab came to $47.30, plus a 22 percent tip entered on the card reader.

Kiwami Ramen
1700 Bardstown Road
384-6412
kiwami-ramenbar.com
facebook.com/KiwamiRamenLouisville
instagram.com/kiwamiramenbar

Noise Level: A happy near-capacity crowd elevated the sound level to a conversation-crushing roar, with average levels at 78.4 dB and peaks to a near-painful 92.2 dB.

Accessibility: The restaurant and restrooms appear accessible to unassisted wheelchair users, with the exception of seats at the bar.

The post Kiwami brings the ultimate ramen appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

What is the advantage to a restaurant so loud that you can’t easily chat with your partner or maybe even hear yourself think? Maybe someone out there finds this exciting and attractive, but I haven’t found anyone yet who’s a fan.

And yet, based on my own experience, talks with food-loving friends, and queries from readers, ear-shattering background noise is a near-constant element in dining out.

It’s not happening only in Louisville, either. Visitors returning from New York City speak of restaurants so thunderous that they make Louisville at Derby time seem tame. The Washington Post got a lot of attention in a June 2 article, why restaurants are so loud, and what science says we can do about it, delving deeply into the art and science of restaurant noise. To discover more, you can read the article at this paywall-free gift link.

Diners here need no instruction from elsewhere to push back. In a quick social-media crowd-sourcing survey, about 50 responses unanimously responded with varying degrees of anger and disappointment. Amid talk of negative reviews and talks with management, many said they refuse to ever return to a too-noisy eatery. A handful spoke of boxing their uneaten meal and departing the premises.

Restaurant noise has been a source of complaints for a long time, although when we think back to the bygone days of memorable local spots like Hasenour’s, the Old House, Casa Grisanti, and many more, we remember them as buzzy but not deafening.

Thinking back, it seems to me that noise inflation got serious in trendy Louisville eateries within the past 10 or 12 years. In 2012 I was startled when the roar at then-new Silver Dollar prompted a friend and me to text across the table because we could not hear each other.

A couple of years later, in a review headlined What? I can’t heeeaaarrr you! I dinged the otherwise excellent new LouVino on Bardstown Road for near-unbearable noise:

“Okay, I know that noise is in. If you’re looking for a quiet, romantic dinner venue in Louisville’s trendy dining scene, I can point you to maybe three or four places where you’ll probably be able to hear yourself think, provided you don’t draw a set of neighbors who forgot to bring their indoor voices.

But hard edges and a happy crowd that packs the place nightly kicks LouVino up another volume notch, cranking it even beyond its Bardstown Road and NuLu neighbors. I whipped out my iThing’s “dBMeter” app and took a quick reading: 92, peaking to 98.

Whoa! In other words, LouVino’s ahm-bee-ahnce roars at the approximate level of a subway train, or a motorcycle revving up nearby.

Yes, it was that loud. It took a while, but as complaints grew I calibrated that iPhone app against a more serious scientific device, than began including a “Noise Level” report at the end of my reviews. A lot of you have thanked me for that.

And yet … where’s the fun in an eatery so silent that it feels like a tomb? Who wants a venue so quiet that everyone nearby can listen in on your private conversation with your date?

You would think that there’d be a ton of popular restaurants in the Goldilocks zone, a desirable setting where the scene is never too loud or too silent but always, like Baby Bear’s porridge, just right.

In the meantime, we try to cope. Ask for a table in a quiet corner or, weather permitting, dine outdoors. Look for a smaller room in a larger venue, or duck into a booth with a high back. Hit a busy place for lunch, not dinner, or even at an off hour. Text your friends, learn to lip read, focus on your food, and bring your sense of humor.

Just for fun, I went back through my records since I started recording noise levels to assemble this list of the loudest dining experiences I’ve noted since 2018, matched against standard sound comparisons for peak dB levels in the upper 70s, 80s and 90s.

90dB and over – Likely hearing damage at 8-hour exposure.

Power mower (96dB)

House of Marigold, summer 2023
Noise levels averaged a 79.7 roar, with an ear-shattering 92.2dB peak.

Kiwami Ramen, spring 2024
Average levels at 78.4dB and peaks to a near-painful 92.2dB.

Motorcycle at 25 ft (90dB)

Steak & Bourbon, summer 2019
Average sound level 82dB, the sound of loud singing, with peaks to 90dB, the sound of a motorcycle.

District 6 Gastropub, autumn 2019
Average 72dB, the level of normal conversation, with occasional brief, shrieking peaks to 90dB.

80dB and over – Possible hearing damage at 8-hour exposure.

Garbage disposal, dishwasher, average factory, freight train 50 feet away or a car wash at 20 feet (89dB)

Grassa Gramma, spring 2019
Average sound level over 79dB, on the border between a moving car and loud singing, with peaks barely under 90dB.

Propeller plane flyover at 1000 feet or a food blender up close (88dB)

Anoosh Bistro, spring 2023
Averate 76.2dB, peaks to 88.5dB.

The Pine Room, autumn 2018
Average 84dB, maximum 88.3dB

Barn 8, summer 2022
Average 78.7dB with peaks to 87.4dB

Mesh, winter 2019
Average 80dB with peaks to 87dB

Chik’n & Mi, spring 2022
Peaks to 85dB

Diesel truck going 40 mph at 50 feet (84dB)

La Cocina de Mamá, spring 2022
Average 77dBwith peaks to 84dB

District 6 Gastropub, winter 2023
Average 75.1dB with peaks to 83.6dB.

Diesel train at 45 mph at 100 feet (83dB)

Agave & Rye, winter 2021
Average 77dB with peaks to 83dB.

Noosh Nosh, summer 2021
Average 74dB, peaks at 82dB

Irish Rover, spring 2023
Average 72dB with peaks to 82dB.

Joe’s Older than Dirt, winter 2019
Average 75dB, peaks 81dB

North of Bourbon, winter 2022
Average 74.4dB, peaks 80.6dB.

Nami Korean Steakhouse, autumn 2023
Average 79dB. peaks 80.3

70dB – Upper 70s are annoyingly loud to some people.

Le Moo, autumn 2018
Average a moderate 65-71dB, but peaks to 79dB.

Uptown Cafe, summer 2023
Average 69dB with peaks to 78.8dB.

The post What kind of noise annoys a diner? appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I have this funny reaction to Indian food: The minute I start thinking about it, I want to go get some.

The only issue is where to go! Louisville is currently blessed with enough good Indian eateries that I’d be hard pressed to declare one of them the local G.O.A.T. It would be like trying to pick this year’s Derby winner without a photo!

But I’ll say this for sure: Clay Oven in Middletown is a strong contender for the prize.

Clay Oven has been a favorite for me since its arrival more than a decade ago, a place with such allure that I’ll go there even when I’m not reviewing.

Not only is the Indian food seemingly authentic, with a tilt toward the flavors of Northern India, but the large dining room in Middletown’s Eastgate Shopping Center, adjacent to Kroger, is attractive and comfortable. No complaints about service, either, which has been uniformly courteous and cordial.

What’s more, the menu is extensive even by Indian-restaurant standards. You’ve got about 120 items to choose among, divided into appetizers, soups, salads, clay oven (tandoor) specialties, chicken, lamg, seafood, and vegetarian options, Indian-Chinese dishes, rice-based dishes including biryani and pilaf, an array of Indian breads, Indian desserts, chutneys and other accompaniments, and Indian and American beverages.

Whew! Better still, pricing remains comfortably affordable especially in the current economy, with virtually all entrees priced in the lower to middle teens, and nothing that I could see costing more than $17.99.

I started my recent visit with a bowl of steaming tomato soup ($4.99). If you think that doesn’t sound Indian, hang on: This is not what you get from the familiar red-and-white can but something a lot more tasty and interesting. It’s red, all right, but relatively thin and brothy, studded with bits of onion. It’s moderately spicy with a palate-tingling sour note, a hot-sour combination that wakes up your taste buds.

Knowing that more spice was coming, we summoned a pair of salty lassis ($3.99 each), another Indian standard that Clay Oven does particularly well. Lassi is a simple blend of full-fat yogurt, a little water, cumin and cilantro leaves and salt, buzzed into a foamy, frothy mix that’s cool and refreshing on its own and a great coolant for peppery fire. Lassi is often made with mango or other fruit and sugar for a dessert-like treat, but make mine unsweet and salty, please!

A filling main course, fish palak ($16.99), illustrated the complexity of North Indian cuising. A large portion filled an Indian-style metal serving bowl with a handle on each side. A rich, thick sauce cloaked finely chopped spinach plus onions and a chorus of herbs and spices. Mixed in were at least a dozen 3/4-inch cubes of salmon that had been seared in the tandoor and a few tomato chunks. This was ordered, and delivered, with mild spice on Clay Oven’s four-level heat scale: Mild, medium, hot, and Indian hot.

I almost invariably order dal at Clay Oven. This simple yet fascinating Indian comfort food is a porridge-like treat based on lentils, so healthful and good, then kicked up with a bewildering variety of hot or mild spices, herbs, coconut milk or cream or a little brown sugar, yielding dozens of variations that are bound to include one to your liking.

This time my liking was for dal tadka ($11.99, pictured at the top of this page), a classic version that’s made in two stages: First yellow lentils are cooked with onions, tomatoes, and spices until they’re tender and comforting. Then comes the tadka, an extra flavor blast imparted by spices bloomed in hot oil or ghee and stirred into the lentils just before serving. I ordered this thick, golden lentil stew prepared hot, and it came out spicy enough to make he happy without inflicting actual pain.

I ordered another favorite, dal makhani ($11.99), to take home, and feasted on its rich, creamy decadence for days.

Perfectly prepared basmati rice came alongside in a large oval dish. Its exceptionally long white grains were fluffy, each separate, and prettily decorated with carrot shreds and peas

Tandoori roti ($2.99), a subtly flavored, ghee-anointed whole-wheat flatbread cooked in the tandoor until it was leopard-spotted with sweet spots of char, hit the spot as a side dish.

Our meal came to about $48 plus tip. The takeout box dal makhani ($11.99) to go, which came with more good rice, increased the tab to $60.35 plus a $15 tip.

Clay Oven Indian Restaurant
Eastgate Shopping Center
12567 Shelbyville Road
254-4363
clayovenlouisville.com
facebook.com/clayovenlouisville

Noise Level: The dining room was only partially full, and conversation was never a problem, with an average sound level at a gentle 52.7 dB.

Accessibility: The shopping-center space appears accessible to unassisted wheelchair users.

The post Clay Oven inspires an Indian food crave appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Who doesn’t love dessert? It’s a perfect ending to a wonderful meal, especially when you’re enjoying a chef-created wonder in a favorite restaurant.

Unfortunately, quite a few of us fear that we love dessert but dessert doesn’t love us. So many calories! So much addictive sugar! So much seductive dairy! Take a bite of that attractive treat and feel the fat piling on our waiting flesh. What’s more, it’s delicious, but it adds to the cost of the meal.

Dessert. It’s a blessing, and it’s a curse. Can’t live with it, but for most of us, we definitely can’t live without it … at least as a special treat. And sometimes the crave is so strong that you’ve just got to eat dessert first.

Let’s take a deeper dive this week into this treat that sometimes worries us. Where did our ancestors get the not exactly logical idea of finishing a luxurious meal with something rich and sweet? What does the name “dessert” even mean? What are some of the reasons we muster to make the “yes, please,” or “sorry, no” decision.

And then we’ll take a quick, tempting look at a number of desserts at local restaurants that have pleased my critical palate – and the palates of friends – over recent years.

So where did this idea of dessert come from, anyway? It goes back a very long way. The ancient Greeks and Romans served nuts, fruit, and honey at the end of banquets, perhaps to save the luxurious tastes for last.

Our word “dessert” in English traces back to 1600, the magisterial Oxford English Dictionary tells us, when William Vaughan, a writer and promoter of colonization in Newfoundland, described it as “a service of fruits and sweets at the close of a meal.” He took the word from the older French word “dessert”which mashed together the words “des-“ (removal) and “servir” (to serve),” to get across the idea of clearing the table to make way for a final course: literally, “removal of what has been served.”

Aren’t words fun? And dessert, too. Dessert is fun. Many of us – including me – skip it sometimes, either for fear of overconsumption or concern about the price of our meal. In my quick social-media poll with 36 responses, exactly half said the get dessert only sometimes while dining out, and another 14 claimed that they never or almost never finish with a sweet treat. That left just four happy diners who said they usually or always order dessert to conclude their meal.

If you’re going for dessert on your next dinner out, you might want to consider the tarte Tropèzienne (currently $14) at Brasserie Provence. (It’s pictured at the top of the page, )The restaurant menu describes it laconically as “brioche bun and cream,” but this trademark dish of Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera is so much more. I described the Brasserie Provence version in glowing terms after a 2018 visit:

“Tarte Tropèzienne, a classic, rich dessert of the French Riviera, made a decadent finish that was impossible to pass up. A round of sugar brioche was split and filled with a sweet. creamy butter-and-sugar filling, topped with powdered sugar and served with raspberries. What’s the French word for ‘yum?”

Meesh Meesh, Chef Noam Bilitzer’s fancy Levantine spot in Nulu, is justly popular, and the seductive chocolate babka ($9, shipped in from Brooklyn’s famous Greens Bakery) ended our meal on a high note. Babka, an Eastern European pastry that’s hugely popular in Israel, showed a pretty striped pattern from its many thin layers of rich brioche-type pastry and dark chocolate. It was served with tangy, vanilla-scented whipped labneh, a mild Levantine yogurt cheese.

Con Huevos is not only my favorite Mexican spot for breakfast, it may be one of my favorite spots to get breakfast, period. You could enjoy their sweet, fluffy, and feather-light cornmeal-scented Tres Leches pancakes ($11.99) as brunch or as dessert, or better. yet, both!

I don’t see chocolate lazy cake ($5) on the menu at Aladdin’s in New Albany any more, and that’s a shame. This Jordanian specialty made a memorable finish to an excellent meal there in 2018. It was a thick slice from a simple refrigerator cookie made of chocolate morsels, Marie cookies or tea biscuits, and milk, and I’d like to have another one right now.

I haven’t been to the comfortably upscale Blackstone Grille in Prospect for a while, and thinking about the molten chocolate bombe that wrapped up our 2017 visit, I’d like to go back right now. A luscious dome of mini chocolate cake filled with warm melted chocolate contrasted beautifully with an ice-cold scoop of vanilla ice cream alongside. It’s currently $8, or you can add a buck to get it “loaded” with peanut butter, whipped cream, and, um, bacon.

Wrapping up this sweet journey, I’ve got to emote about two desserts at memorable restaurants that sadly aren’t with us any more, but the memories linger.

Pastry Chef Emie Dunnagan’s cookies and ice cream ($6) made an amazing finish to a splendid 2019 meal at Chef Ming Hsuan Pu’s sadly closed 502 Bar & Bistro in Norton Commons. The name might not sound enticing, but this was an amazing, palate-teasing construction of two crisp, not-too-sweet cornmeal cookies topped with a lavender scoop of blueberry-maple ice cream, surrounded by salted corn nuts and fresh blueberries.

Finally, I still think about a pair of delicious desserts from a 2019 visit to the no longer extant Las Margaritas in Middletown: Corn flan ($5.99) added yellow niblets to the traditional creamy Mexican custard, and their subtle flavor addition made a great Mexican dessert even better. Chocolate tres leches cake ($5.99), light but rich, was an airy, subtly cocoa-flavored treat topped with whipped cream.

I don’t know about you, but after all that, tonight I am definitely having dessert first.

The post Eat dessert first? Maybe appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I really wanted to enjoy an al fresco lunch last Saturday. Conditions were perfect. Spring’s green had grown into a summery green canopy, and mild weather had finally shown up after a long, cool spring.

Then I heard an annoyed yell from the other room. Mary had just checked the weather forecast! Midday temperatures in the upper 50s, partly cloudy, with steady north winds and gusts to 24 mph?

“You can eat outside,” she said. “I’m eating indoors where it’s warm.”

Well, we could wait until tomorrow when it’s supposed to be warmer. No, wait! Mother’s Day? Busiest, wackiest day of the restaurant year after Valentine’s? Nope nope nope!

Obviously, our range of options was narrowing. Look for a place that was still using heaters? Possible, but not too likely in mid-May. Ditto for a place with an enclosed patio, which by literal definition is not al fresco, Italian for “in the fresh air.”

This was frustrating, and that was before I even thought about all the other negative aspects of outdoor dining, like bugs, noise, traffic fumes, breezes and, oh, geez, cigarette smoke.

Maybe we should call the whole thing off. But then I remembered that Naive Kitchen + Bar in Butchertown – one of my favorite places for eating indoors – has a really delightful patio hidden away behind the building. It offers plenty of open sunny space for a chilly day (and shady nooks too, for warmer times). It’s surrounded by wood slatted fences and dotted with trees and fences to break the wind, and there’s even a fire pit. This might work!

So off we went, dressed in layers, and had a really good time. Indeed, the sun came out and as the temperature rose to a breezy 67º by lunch time, I actually shed my jacket and asked a server to fetch a patio umbrella to shade my side of the table so I wouldn’t melt.

The food is really good, too. Naive describes itself as “a west coast, vegetable centric restaurant with meat options, and some healthy indulgences, too, striving to be local and organic with dishes that focus on “a vegetarian lifestyle with options to include carnivores, vegans, and all diets in between.”

The brunch menu features seven small plates, which range in price from $10 (for a whipped farmers cheese plate) to four $13 picks. Seven large plates aren’t much more pricey than the small items: Five choices are $14 or $15, and only the $20 lamb burger and a $26 steak-and-eggs rise above that range. Four sweet plates are $4 (for a fat cinnamon roll) to $12 or $13 (for maple toast pancakes, or bread pudding). Sides of eggs or bacon can be added to any dish for modest $1 to $3 upcharges. Mimosas ($7) and bloody marys ($10) are billed as brunch quaffs, and there’s a variety of coffee drinks and teas. Full bar service is also available.

All the dishes we tried appeared to be made with quality ingredients, from beautiful, textured wild mushrooms to fresh, crisp corn niblets. As with the dishes I’ve enjoyed in Naive’s dining room, everything appeared to be carefully structured, put together and plated with a chef’s eye.

A pair of corn cakes ($12) made an impressive appetizer. Two thick, chewy, pancake-like corn-based cakes were griddled crisp and brown, then plated with an assortment of ingredients in a whirl of contrasting yet compatible colors, textures, and flavors: Earthy, tender fluted wild mushrooms, corn kernels, and gently piquant slices of bright red pepper, atop a modern-art swirl of tangy green chimichurri.

A crispy rice main dish ($14) was intriguing and delicious too. It was a pancake-style item formed from what seemed to be risotto, grilled to a crisp, brown exterior surrounding tender short-grain rice. It, too, was plated on tasty chimichurri and dressed with corn kernels and red-pepper slices, plus tasty little crisp-fried pearl onions and, oddly, avocado slices in place of the roasted mushrooms that the menu promised.

The lamb burger ($20) had a lot going for it and one real problem: Although ordered medium rare it came out almost completely raw and cold, a step to far even for us. The burger was large, apparently hand-formed, browned around the edges, and was perfectly good after a trip home in a box for a little more heat. It was topped with Spanish manchego cheese and nestled in a quality grilled seeded bun with tasty poblano aioli and a pale leaf of romaine lettuce, plus a side of short-cut crispy fries.

A delicious brunch for two, in a setting that proved to be completely comfortable, came to $48.76 plus a $12 tip.

Naive Kitchen + Bar – brunch on the patio
1001 E. Washington St.
749-7856
eatnaive.com
facebook.com/eatnaive
instagram.com/eatnaive

Noise Level: Music on the sound system, nearby conversations, and the pleasant undercurrent of birdsong and breezes generate a hum, but conversation is never a problem. Average sound level was a moderate 70.1dB.

Accessibility: Wheelchair access is available through a side entrance from Wenzel Street, but a stretch of fine gravel might be difficult for some to traverse. The indoor dining area and unisex restroom are accessible from the patio but not the front of the building on Washington Street, where a step bars the way.

The post Naive’s patio offers comfort on a chilly day appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Every year at Derby time, restaurant nostalgia sets in. Along with all the chatter about horses, track conditions, and betting odds, food-loving locals can’t resist reminiscing about all the beloved restaurants that aren’t around any more.

The specifics, of course, depend on your age and disposable income. Depending on your generation, for example, you might fondly recall the pleasures of Bauer’s 1870, La Paloma, Azalea, … and all of those were in the same historic building that, demolished and replaced with a large cubical structure, now houses Mesh.

It’s hard to imagine one of those conversations without invoking the names of Hasenour’s, Casa Grisanti, The Old House, Deitrich’s. We mourn Lilly’s, Cafe Metro, Gasthaus, Decca and Rye and many more of more recent passing; maybe even Leo’s Hideaway or Stebbins Cafe if you’re hanging on from the Greatest Generation.

I confess. I’m as guilty as everyone else. I fall victim to the nostalgia bug and write some variation of this evergreen story just about every year after Derby.

But here’s a wrinkle for 2024: This time around, aided by the usual throng of social media crowd-sourcers, let’s talk about some of the places we liked a lot but are mostly forgotten now, loved in their time but gone without leaving much of a trace.

Now I’m peering into a time-machine telescope to spot memories of some of my best food memories of Louisville in the ‘60s. So many of them are Italian: Imorde’s, a classic Italian deli on Third near Ormsby. The original Calandrino’s in the Highlands, where Mom got us our first pizza and introduced it as “a new kind of food.” Highland Italian, a short-lived place that preceded Lentini’s on Bardstown Road. They made a captivating shallow-dish Sicilian pie, loaded with fennel and oregano and other flavors that were unknown to anyone in Louisville at the time who didn’t have at least a little Italian in the family tree.

I remember the fun of being a young adult when the Louisville dining renaissance really started in the ‘70s. Bim Deitrich and Tim Barnes turned the popular Cherokee Triangle diner Myra’s into fancy Formally Myra’s. Then came the Bristol. The old, long-shuttered Jack Fry’s saloon (pictured at the top of the page in a 1938 photo) transformed into upscale Mexican Por Que No, then later returned the Fry’s moniker as another upscale bistro.

There was Chico’s in Hikes Point, really authentic, fiery New Mexico Mexican that soon got dumbed down to meet local tastes. Ah, memories. Boston Fishmarket in St. Matthews, a great all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. Then there was the excitement that surrounded the first local regional Chinese cuisines, Sichuan and Hunan, The Empress of China, Henny Woo’s and Phoenix Dragon and more. They built on, without replacing, our love for the Cantonese-American joys of Hoe Kow, Oriental House, and Chen’s. So many more came, and many left, most notably the still mourned Red Pepper Chinese.

In the ‘80s, Sachicoma gave us our first taste of sushi and other Japanese cuisine; and in the ‘90s, Vietnam Kitchen – happily still with us – introduced us to serious Southeast Asian fare. Thai, Indian, Korean … the list goes on and on, and aren’t we glad?

It wasn’t all about restaurants either. It was exciting to see our food culture starting to grow in the ‘70s. J.B.’s Larder in St. Matthew’s, and then Lotsa Pasta’s first shop on Bardstown at Wrocklage made us happy, bringing in goodies that until then we had needed to go to NYC or Chicago or even Cincinnati to acquire. The city’s first bagels came to a shop in Hikes Point whose name I can no longer remember around that same time. Anyone?

J.B.s (backed, I believe, by Jim Booher of the Chevy dealership that bore his name) brought the revelation of our first locally fresh-baked croissants. One memorable day a kid sent out to update J.B’s movable-letter sign, having no idea what they were, had it advertising “CROSS ANTS” for a full day before somebody noticed.

We started learning about real wine, too, not Ripple or Annie Green Springs, when we traveled over the bridge to hit Cut-Rate Liquors in Jeffersonville, where they had the real deal, pricey French and Italian choices at $5 per bottle. And then we watched with joy as fine wine shops finally started opening up on the Louisville side, legally selling on Sundays, too!

All this made us happy, but as we know too well, there’s a dark side to the restaurant business too: Restaurants operate on narrow margins, and a post-pandemic time of rising food and labor costs makes it tighter than ever.

The conventional wisdom that 90% of new restaurants fail within their first year is a myth, but backing a friend’s eatery can still be a risky investment. According to BinWise, a beverage management platform for the beverage industry, approximately 60% of restaurants fail within the first year of operation and 80% fail within the first five years. “These numbers may seem off-putting,” BinWise reports. But, looking on the bright side, it adds, “but the remaining 20% of restaurants go on to find long-term growth and success.”

Oh-kay, then! Looking over my own files, that guesstimate feels pretty close. Of ten top romantic dining rooms I listed for a Valentine’s Day column in 2006, just four remain in anything like their prior form: 610 Magnolia, Le Relais, 211 Clover, and Buck’s.

The more things change, the philosopher said, the more they stay the same. Maybe. But I’d still be mighty happy to be able to drop in on Imorde’s again for a bowl of spaghetti with marinara sauce, or hit Mazzoni’s for a rolled oyster. I miss The Winery, the Blind Pig, Sixth Avenue, Steam, Fire & Ice, Club Grotto, or … well, name your own favorite. We’ve got thousands of happy memories to choose from.

The post Ah, nostalgia: Remembering the happy places that time forgot appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

One of the many memorable immigrant stories in Louisville culinary history wrapped up last month when Chef Anoosh Shariat concluded a 30-year career in local kitchens, retiring from his namesake Anoosh Bistro. Over a year earlier, Shariat had trimmed his workload by selling his other popular East End eatery, Noosh Nosh.

New management at both establishments was quick to assure a wary public that no major changes would be forthcoming at either of the restaurants, which are situated just across a parking lot from each other at Brownsboro Center.

Over at Noosh Nosh, another coincidence makes the transition an even more touching story: Shariat, who emigrated from Iran as a refugee from the Ayatollah’s revolution in the late ‘70s, has turned over the reins of this casual spot to recent immigrants from India, who say they want to carry on the dream that Shariat has set in place.

“Anoosh is a legend, and I was fortunate enough to work with him,” said Akshay (“Ak”) Kadam, Noosh Nosh’s new general manager, who came on when Shariat sold the restaurant in the autumn of 2022 and brought in his friend Arthikselvan (“Art”) Rajaiah as chef a couple of months later.

“That was a real challenge for me, as I was the face of Noosh Nosh, and working without Chef Anoosh was not easy,” he said. “But I quickly realized the core of Noosh Nosh is about hospitality and caring for people. I had faith in me and my team.”

Born in Mumbai, India, Kadam earned a degree in hospitality and catering technology at Mumbai University. then came to America in 2013 to earn his MBA in marketing and finance in California. He came to Louisville on vacation and, he says, fell in love with the vibe of the city. He got a job as a banquet bar manager at the Galt House, then managed Frankfort Avenue Beer Depot (FABD) and Hooked on Frankfort, where he met Chef Art.

After a spell at an Indian restaurant in Florida, he met Chef Anoosh through a friend. Finding much in common, he says, they connected right away. He returned to Louisville, came to work for Shariat, and eventually stepped into the management post.

Noosh Nosh’s 10-page menu offers a wide variety of choices to please just about anyone. It hasn’t changed much, and Kadam says that’s intentional, as they’ve sought to refresh the menu, incorporating seasonal ingredients and innovative dishes – a chicken tikka menu turns up as a frequent special – while maintaining the restaurant’s signature flavors.

As in the past, Noosh Nosh’s breakfast menu is served until 3 p.m. daily, and its regular menu available all day. Pricing across the menu is affordable, with most breakfast and all-day dishes in the $12 to $20 range.

Our party of three, with my sister Amy, visiting from Florida, joining us, shared three dishes and enjoyed them all.

Black bean cakes ($11) made an appetizing and healthy plant-based and vegan course. Two hefty protein-rich spheres were fashioned from black beans and spices, pleasingly crisp skin surrounding a creamy interior. They were plated on a creamy pool of rich aioli fashioned from pureed cashews and topped with spicy pink salsa roja, and a fresh, tangy pico de gallo.

A roasted half chicken ($22, pictured at the top of this page) from the “hearty plates” menu started with a halal chicken breast, boneless save for the attached wing – what used to be called an airline breast back when airlines served meals. The chicken was tender and juicy from the roasting oven, perched on a sturdy mound of veggies that had joined it in the roast: cauliflower florets, carrots sliced lengthwise, and brussels sprouts. The chicken was drizzled with a tangy citrus glaze, sprinkled with parsley and sumac to provide a scent of Southwest Asia, and garnished with lemon slices.

I’ve been somewhat obsessed with pizza lately, so it probably won’t surprise you to see me add a margherita pizza ($16) to the table. It was a pretty good pizza, too, and I’m happy to report that I could see Noosh Nosh’s trademark red-tiled gas- and wood-fired stone oven at the back of the room. ??The margherita pizza, as I’ve probably said before, is no kin to the Mexican margarita cocktail but a classic tradition of Neapolitan pizza. Purportedly created in 1889, when Italy first united as a single nation, it’s named ofter Queen Margarita and designed in the red, white, and green colors of the then-new Italian flag.

Noosh Nosh’s version tweaked that concept just slightly, with tomato slices hidden under a warm blanket of cheese, sliced basil leaves scattered on top, and a thin, tasty spread of pesto coating the thin crust beneath. The cheese was fully melted but the pale crust could have used a bit more time to brown in the oven.

A satisfying brunch for three came to $51.94, plus a $10 tip.

Noosh Nosh
4816 Brownsboro Center
205-2888
nooshnosh.com
facebook.com/NooshNoshAllDay
instagram.com/nooshnosh_official

Noise Level: Every table in the small front room was occupied during a busy Sunday lunch, and there was at least one active toddler. Nevertheless, conversation was never difficult.

Accessibility: The restaurant and restrooms appear to be accessible to wheelchair users, although it might be difficult to maneuver between some closely spaced tables.

The post Anoosh has left the building, but Noosh Nosh keeps up the pace appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Will I ever get this constant craving for pizza out of my system? I really doubt it. Why in the hell should I even want to abandon this adorable creation?In other words, here I am again, talking about pizza for the second week in a row. You got a problem widdat? What’s more, this one is for you folks: Behold, my thoughts on 10 worthy pizzas I’ve praised in recent years.

This is not my personal Best of Pizza list, nor a ranking. I’m listing them alphabetically to be fair. I’d grab a slice from any of these eateries, any day.

bar Vetti
This casually stylish Italian-theme restaurant, opened in the turquoise landmark 800 building in the autumn of 2017, and moved to its current location in Nulu’s AC Hotel by Marriott during the pandemic summer of 2020. No mere pizzeria, bar Vetti is a full Italian restaurant with serious chops. But its pizzas, even at elevated prices from $21 to $26, are worthy. Bearing the red, white, and green colors of the Italian flag, bar Vetti’s excellent Margherita pizza carries on the Neapolitan tradition.
bar Vetti
AC Hotel
727 E. Market St.
883-3331
barvetti.com

Derby City Pizza
I might not entirely approve of cracker-crusted, no-edge pizza, but I have to say this: Derby City’s pie was so good that I would not hesitate to go back for another one. Toppings went all the way to the edge of this small veggie pizza on a paper-thin, crackery crust. It was thoughtfully put together with textures and flavors that worked together like a winning team. Ten-inch specialty pies are $15.
Derby City Pizza – Clifton
2331 Brownsboro Road
290-0677
derbycitypizza.com

Coals Artisan Pizza
Innovative in its time, Coals arrived in the then freshly renovated Vogue Center in 2011, filling the old Vogue Theater space with a classy pizzeria and a fierce oven burning hard anthracite coal at a fierce 1,000º, hot enough to turn out a memorable pizza in minutes.  Boldly flying the red, green, and white colors of the Italian flag, the St. Matthew’s – Coals’ version of the pizza Margherita – is outstanding, its simple toppings providing simple elegance. Twelve-inch special pizzas are mostly priced in the mid to upper teens.
Coals Artisan Pizza
Vogue Center
3730 Frankfort Ave.
742-8200
coalsartisanpizza.com

Goodfellas Pizzeria
The first Louisville outlet of a small but growing Lexington-based chain, this corner spot in the Baxter Apartments joins sibling eateries in Indianapolis and the Cincinnati are. In proper New York City street corner pizzeria style, Goodfellas’ slices are long and flexible, allowing the bearer to fold one lengthwise and eat it while walking along. Did I mention that they are very, very good? Most of the 12-inch specialty pizzas are $18-$19.
Goodfellas Pizzeria
642 Baxter Avenue
398-5704
goodfellaspizzeria.com/louisville

Impellizzeri’s Pizza
Deeply rooted in Louisville pizza history, pizza impresario Benny Impellizzeri has been making pizza since he started cooking at the fabled old Mario’s in Hikes Point in 1968. He opened his own pizzeria in his father’s Highlands butcher shop in 1978, turning out hot pies for long lines of eager supplicants with a heavily laden style of pie that has become institutionalized as “Louisville style.” Now with three Louisville shops and one in Elizabethtown, Impellizzeri’s keeps up the tradition. A veggie pizza, listed among Bennie’s Original Specialties, piles tangy tomato sauce, melty mozzarella, and crisp, fresh veggies atop a sturdy, bready base. (It’s pictured at the top of this page.) Single-size specialty pizzas are priced from $16.49 to $21.99.
Impellizzeri’s Pizza at Holiday Manor
4933 Brownsboro Road
425-9080
impellizzeris.com

Pizza Lupo
Pizza Lupo is a top-tier pizzeria, but it’s more. It’s also a splendid Italian/international eatery with an impressive kitchen and an exceptional bar and impressive wine program. This winning combination makes Lupo one of my favorite restaurants. But we’re here to talk about pizza, and Lupo’s renditions, even at elevated pricing from $22 to $28, are among the city’s best. Pictured, “funghi,” Italian for “mushrooms,” an imposing pizza loaded with fancy specimens from local Frondosa Farms along with four Italian cheeses.
Pizza Lupo
1540 Frankfort Ave.
409-8440
pizzalupo.com

MozzaPi Pizza
One of my consistent favorites, MozzaPi builds its pizzas on outstanding fresh-milled grain bread fired with pretty browned leopard spots (and makes top-notch artisanal breads, pastries, and cookies the same way). MozzaPi has added three branches at Ten20 Craft Brewery locations around town, but a trip out to its spacious home operation in Anchorage is well worth the effort. Pizzas are attractively priced in the $12 to $14 range. Pictured: An excellent 9-inch cheese pie was topped with roasted red peppers and mushrooms.
MozzaPi Pizza
12102 La Grange Road
890-4832
mozzapi.com

Old School NY Pizza
They’re not kidding about the New York style and Brooklyn accent at this two-unit East End chain: Its thin, flavorful, foldable pies will take your imagination straight to a Gotham street corner. Buy a slice, or enjoy a 12-inch round like the delicious thin-crust veggie pie pictured. Small pies are $12.25 to $16.
Old School NY Pizza
10600 Meeting Street
Norton Commons
882-3000
oldschoolnypizza.com

Parlour on Frankfort
Grown to six locations from its original shop at the north end of the Big Four walking bridge, Parlour gains its reputation the old-fashioned way, through quality and service. The veggie pizza featured here boasted fresh, quality toppings, a good, thin, bread-like crust, and a spicy fresh tomato sauce topped with mozzarella and grated parmesan. Ten-inch individual pies are priced from $13 to $16.
oldschoolnypizza.com
2636 Frankfort Ave.
895-9400
eatparlourpizza.com

The Post
The Post, featured in our review last week, is famous for its oversize, New York City style pizza by the slice, which changes daily. Spicy sausage, banana peppers, and feta cheese did well by the tasty slab-of-the-day featured. Slices are $5, 10-inch pies are $12 to $18.
The Post
1045 Goss Ave.
635-2020
thepostlouisville.com

The post Sample 10 top local pizzas with our Pizza Guide appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I love pizza. You know that. I consider it one of nature’s most perfect foods, a balanced and nutritious blend of fat, protein, and mmm, mmm. carbs in a delicious meal on a plate that you can eat with your fingers or, if you must, knife and fork.

I’m so fond of this treat from Naples by way of New York City, widely modified across the United States and made indisputably our own, that I could review it every week if only my editors would let me.

But lately, it seems, I’ve been striking out on pizza just often enough to make me wonder if my tastes are changing or if pizza is.

I’m feeling the need to ingest some really good pizza to restore my faith in humankind. So this week we headed over to The Post in Germantown, a place widely celebrated as one of Louisville’s best.

The Post gets its name from its location in an old Germantown shotgun house that was long home to Lone Wolf Post #5636 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The vets’ heritage remains in a large 48-star American flag respectfully hung on a back wall and in a stylized wing-and-star logo that one imagines might have once adorned a World War II aircraft.

The Post’s menu puts pizza up front and center, as it should. You can buy by the oversize slice, New York City style, at $5 for a giant cheese slice, pepperoni slice, or the slice of the day.

You can make it easy with a dozen pre-designed combinations in 12-inch, 16-inch, and 20-inch sizes, priced from $10 (for a small Lone Wolf pie with pepperoni, sausage, ham, bacon, and more) to $39 (for the 20-inch, veggie-loaded Victory Garden). This selection ranges from the familiar (The Italian Campaign, a standard Margherita pizza) to the offbeat (The Chicken Dinner, with chicken, bacon, cheddar and blue cheese with buffalo or barbecue sauce). ??If none of those ring your chimes, you’re welcome to build your own, from plain cheese to your pick among 30 toppings ($12, $18, or $23 for the base pie, plus $2, $3, or $4 per topping choice).

In addition to pizza, seven hot sub sandwiches are all $10 for a half-size sandwich or $18 for the full deal on a 10-inch baguette. Calzones are $12 for mozzarella and ricotta filling plus $2 each for any of the pizza toppings. Full bar service offers liquor, wine, and an impressive list of 15 regional craft beers plus, er, Coors.

We dropped in on a Saturday and found this popular place packed. Service was quick and friendly, though, with the reasonable admonition that you should expect at least a 30-minute wait for your order, “as our pizzas are proudly bandcrafted and made to order.”

Salads here are very good, and you can make a meal with your choice of any of the five large models, which come on plates the size of hub caps and range in price from $10 to $14.

We went with the two salads available in smaller (but still generous) sizes for $7: A house salad and a caesar. The two looked so much alike that I wondered for a second if they had accidentally given us both the same salads: A pile of bright green, fresh baby spinach and field lettuces topped with shredded cheese and a few croutons, dressing in a small tub on the side.

On closer inspection, though, the caesar was loaded with a large amount of small, salty black olives that the house salad lacked, and it came with a tangy, creamy caesar-style dressing. The house salad added tomato bits and choice of dressing; the blue cheese was just right. Both salads included a few really delicious croutons, light, scented with garlicky oil, and impressively crunchy. And, happily, the greens were perfectly fresh, with none of the unappetizing blackened and slimy bits that too often creep into restaurant salads. Two thumbs up.

The slice of the day ($5) was a tasty treat, a foldable, NYC-style triangle cut from a 20-inch pie, topped with eight hefty chunks of spicy sausage, rounds of crisp pickled banana peppers, and dabs of feta on a discreet spread of tangy tomato sauce and mozzarella. The crust was thin and crisp with dark heat spots dotting the breadlike edge.

A whole 10-inch pizza, the White Flag ($17) murmured scents of the Mediterranean with spinach, roasted red pepper, and red onions on a garlic olive oil base dotted with bites of ricotta and snipped fresh basil. The crust was very thin and crackery, and the toppings extended almost all the way to the edge. It was a very good pizza, and I was able to restrain myself sufficiently to save a few slices to take home for another day.

A hearty pizza meal for two, with salads to make it healthy, came to $38.16, plus a $9.54 tip.

The Post
1045 Goss Ave.
635-2020
thepostlouisville.com
facebook.com/louisvillepost
instagram.com/thepostlouisville

Noise Level: The rooms were packed on a Saturday, but thanks perhaps to its spacious layout and high raftered ceiling, conversation was possible. Sound levels averaged 73.1dB with peaks to 79.2dB.

Accessibility: Thanks to effective and extensive ramps, the old building appears fully accessible to wheelchair users and everyone.

The post Looking for Mr. Goodpizza: The Post appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I actually like Beyond Meat, Impossible, and the rest of the growing cadre of plant-based, meat-like alternative proteins. I think they’re better for the environment than meat, better for me, certainly better for the animals sacrificed in the meat industry. And I think they taste good.

This shouldn’t be a controversial statement, and yet, like so much else in modern life, it’s possible that someone out there reading this is feeling a burning rage at the very idea of praising meat made from vegetables. That’s right. Even meat vs. not-meat can be a political wedge issue in these troubled times.

“Plant-based meat may be getting caught in the culture wars, and U.S. brands that emphasize climate and environmental concerns may be putting off conservative consumers who are reluctant to try such products,” Jennifer Yule, lecturer in marketing at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, wrote in Green Queen, an online food and climate journal. “The issue of climate change and environmental concern is politically polarizing.”

Another report indicated that more than half (53%) of U.S. consumers who have not bought or tried plant-based meat may be reluctant to buy a product they view as “woke.”

Meat vs the environment?

Still, meat’s impact is not a trivial matter. Livestock production is the agriculture sector’s largest emitter of the potent greenhouse gas methane, due to emissions from ruminants such as cattle, sheep, and goats, reported Rob Jordan with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

“It’s also the main direct cause of tropical deforestation, due to pasture expansion and feed crop production,” Jordan’s report went on. “Numerous studies have demonstrated that dietary changes hold great potential to reduce humanity’s ecological footprint, especially a reduction in red meat consumption. At the same time, Western-style meat-heavy diets are becoming more popular around the world.”

Now, before steam starts coming out of your collar, there’s plenty of evidence that red meat isn’t necessarily bad for us. “There are many healthy vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in red meat, and it can be a good source of protein, B vitamins, iron and zinc,” reports The Cleveland Clinic. 

But then Cleveland Clinic attaches a zinger: “But it also comes with some health risks, like raising your risk of certain types of cancer, increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease and contributing to obesity.”

A matter of balance

It’s all a matter of balance, according to the clinic’s registered dietitian Julia Zumpano: “There is evidence that shows that too much red meat is not good for your health. But the quality, quantity and frequency of the red meat you eat all play a big role on the health risks.”

Those sound like reasonable arguments to steer clear, or more realistically, to consider red meat as an occasional special treat. On the other hand, the current alternatives draw criticism too, for a variety of reasons that go beyond the political.

Check the nutrition and ingredients level, for instance, and you’ll find that many plant-based meats are high in sodium and loaded with chemistry-set preservatives and additives that most of us find hard to spell and impossible to pronounce. In short, they’re highly processed foods, a category that many people try to avoid in their quest for natural, whole food products.

There’s also the matter of cost. Barring great sales or discounts, Impossible and Beyond burgers aren’t cheap. A pound of Beyond Beef was recently marked at $8.99 per pound at Kroger. Shop carefully and you can generally find packaged ground beef for $4 or less at local markets. On the other hand, a a 10-pound box of ground sirloin from Foxhollow Farm was selling for $140 the other day. That’s $14 a pound, which makes Impossible look like such a deal.

Allergens may come into play, particularly with soy-based Impossible, which also inspires fears in the GMO-wary with its meat-mimicking heme, a genetically modified soybean protein called leghemoglobin that’s a laboratory-built, meat-free cousin to the hemoglobin that gives beef its characteristic taste.

All these concerns may hint at why plant-based burgers appear to have plateaued in the past few years after a spell of startling market growth. According to Food Business News, plant-based meat sales have declined since 2021, showing a 21% decrease in volume sales for the yearlong period ending July 2, 2023. Meanwhile, investments in all alternative proteins including plant-based meat, seafood, eggs and dairy fell 41% during 2022.

But how do they taste?

Finally, there’s the question of taste. I like Impossible and Beyond. Not everyone agrees. “The texture was sickening,” my friend David said. “We tried ihe beef subs and were underwhelmed,” added my friend Alyce. Their thoughts, I think, are widely held.

So what’s a food writer to do? A taste test! We picked up Impossible and Beyond burger patties at Kroger, and stopped by old favorite Shady Lane Cafe (ShadyLaneKY.com) for an estimable beef burger fashioned on a flat-top grill.

All three tasted like burgers, as you’d expect. The Beyond burger took on a delicious charred crust and darker brown color in an iron skillet, a benefit that the Impossible lacked thanks to the non-stick skillet requirement in its cooking instructions, which left it a paler shade of beige.

Both alternative burgers passed the beefy flavor test, and either would make a fine substitute if you want to avoid meat. Served on a bun with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and ketchup or mustard, it would be difficult for many people to realize that they’re not eating cow meat. If you’re consciously avoiding meat, either one would absolutely fill a burger-size space in your crave.

But this has to be said: Side by side without the distraction of other ingredients, neither alternative burger quite matched the intensely meaty meat taste of the beef burger. If that’s what you’re looking for, then it’s entirely reasonable for you to ask “where’s the beef?”

The post Beyond, Impossible, beef: Who wins? appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Here’s the thing you should probably understand about the five restaurants that line the walls of cavernous Village Market in Paristown: This is a place to have fun and grab a bite and a drink and enjoy music, and that’s a good thing.

Just don’t expect a destination dining experience. That’s my conclusion after a Saturday visit and stops for a bite at each of the five eateries and a long look at its extensive bar.

Our dishes from the side-by-side stands housing Bunz Burgers, Banditz Pizza, Noche Mexican BBQ, and Sarap Filipino Eatery rose to the level of pretty good in a local fast-food kind of way. Well, we might need to talk about that taco, Noche.

What’s more, a couple of oversize donuts from Jeff’s Donut on the other side of the hall were so good that I can’t understand why there wasn’t a squadron of LMPD cruisers lined up waiting for a stereotypical snack.

The tiny Paristown neighborhood borders Germantown and the Highlands two miles east of downtown Louisville. It got a new look in recent years as an evolving arts and culture hub anchored by historic Louisville Stoneware and the old Louisville Leather Co. Tannery building (now home to The Café) and the new Old Forester Paristown Hall, a 28,000 square foot performing arts venue.

Still in the planning stages is a $183 million proposal by Paristown Preservation Trust to convert the old Urban Government Center property nearby as apartments, offices, a boutique hotel, and more. (LEO Weekly, March 23, 2022)

The Village Market, a modern food hall and bar, joined the mix last autumn.

Bunz Burgers

Bunz, a fixture on the Baxter Avenue nightlife strip since 2009, moved over to The Village last year. Its menu features 10 burger combinations and another half-dozen sandwiches. I went with The Californian ($11), with the veggie burger upgrade (50 cents).

The hefty plant-based patty looked like the Dr. Praeger’s brand, a genuinely vegetable burger made with a dozen different veggies processed into a burger-like patty. It shared a golden, fluffy bun with a slice of swiss cheese, pale tomato, and schmears of guacamole and mayo that tasted great but made for a slippery sandwich that kept losing its parts.

Banditz Pizza

The z on the end of Banditz’ name may or may not signal a corporate connection, but this outfit and Bunz Burger appear to share the same point-of-sale system and staff. The simple menu includes five specialty pizza choices and two build-your-own options. It is the only one of Village Market’s five eateries that includes prices on the online menu: The pizzas are $14 for small, $18 for large; a dollar less for the veggie or the margherita pie.

I tried a mall Margherita pizza ($13, pictured at the top of the page) and was rewarded with a still sizable oval flatbread topped with the traditional mozzarella, snipped fresh basil, and wan winter tomato slices reflecting the white, red, and green colors of the Italian flag. The crust has already developed a cult following for its solid construction that’s lovably crisp on the surface yet light and soft within. Gently spicy tomato sauce was a plus, as were rounds of melted fresh bocconcini mozzarella.

Sarap Filipino Eatery

“Sarap” means “delicious” in Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, and Sarap Filipino Eatery’s menu holds promise. I’d like to come back and try the pancit noodle dish, chicken adobo, or even the silog brunch plate on weekends. This time, though, we went with a single lumpia ($3), the trademark Filipino egg roll.

Long and skinny, a golden-brown fried pastry tube resembling a cigar but clearly more edible, it was filled with a simple mix of crumbled ground beef and noodles.

Noche Mexican BBQ

I’ve enjoyed dinner at Noche Mexican BBQ’S sit-down eatery in the old Calvary Lutheran Church building on Bardstown Road, but our choice, from Noche’s more concise Village Market menu – a $5.99 smoked brisket taco – wasn’t up to that mark.

A large flour taco was spread on a brown-paper-lined tray, loaded with a ladle full of beef chunks and broth lifted from a simmering pot, topped with chopped tomatoes, pepppers, red onions, and cilantro, and finished with a drizzle of spicy avocado crema, and served with lime wedges and salsa verde on the side. The soupy topping made this a knife-and-fork taco. It was a generous portion, but the meat was disappointing at best. It was almost entirely chewy translucent fat, holding together just a few tiny shreds of beef.

Jeff’s Donuts

Dessert? Yes, please! Jeff’s Donuts, the sixth unit in a local chain that started in Jeffersonville, Indiana, creates donuts to compete with Louisville’s best. A chocolate-topped glazed donut and a cinnamon twist ($2.50 each) were both light, and fluffy, and huge. Not to mention perfectly fresh and just about as good as donuts get.

The Village Market Food Hall & Bar
712 Brent St.
No published phone number
villagemarketfoodhall.com
facebook.com/TheVillageMarketFoodHall
instagram.com/villagemarketfoodhall

Noise Level: The combination of loud music and a happy crowd can make this large hall difficult for conversation when the roar hits a peak.

Accessibility: A step bars independent wheelchair access to the door closest to Brent Street, but wheelchair users may navigate a longer route through an outdoor seating area to a level side door.

The post Fun, music, and five local eateries at The Village Market appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

The whole world of dining out, it sometimes seems, is divided into two kinds of people: Those who love dining alfresco, and those who don’t like it one bit.

I used to be in the latter category, preferring the creature comforts of temperature-controlled, tobacco-smoke-free and mostly bug-free dining to the patio scene. And that went double when Louisville banned indoor smoking in public bars and restaurants, so patios became the de facto smoking section.

But then came Covid, and suddenly the comparative social distancing and cleansing breezes on the patio didn’t seem nearly so annoying after all.

I get the impression that I’m not alone in this attitude shift. Even now that the pandemic is receding in our cultural rear-view mirror, dining under nature’s light in patios, grassy greenswards, even city sidewalks out front of an eatery seem more popular than ever.

What’s more, there’s outdoor dining, and then there is outdoor dining. It’s one thing to relax at a table on the ziggurat of grassy terraces along the Ohio River’s banks at Captain’s Quarters (pictured above). Occupying a tiny table on the sidewalk along busy Bardstown Road or Frankfort Avenue is quite another. There’s a place for both those extremes, though, and the broad range of expansive to minimalist options in between.

What do we love about dining au naturel? Let me rephrase that. What do we love about dining under Nature’s glorious sunlight and balmy breezes? What don’t we like so much about these things?

Let’s count the ways. First, a few reasons why we love alfresco dining:

• Depending on our specific choice, our dinner table may feature a beautiful view. This may help explain why I am more open to alfresco dining when I travel. Who wouldn’t love a shady table in a vineyard garden in Provence, a harborside table in Trieste, or a tiny table within sight of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris? I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy each of those things, and I wouldn’t mind doing it again.
• Fresh air and pleasant weather are big pluses, when we’re lucky enough to encounter them at any time of day.
• The relatively relaxed atmosphere of an outdoor setting may work better for you at any given time than the more buttoned-up experience of upscale dining indoors.
• In a mindful, serene way, proximity to nature may be a plus if the mood is right. Relax amid birdsong, the scents of spring flowers and summer leaves, the gentle touch of an evening breeze on your face.
• Where space is available, outdoor dining areas may be open and expansive, allowing space between tables for a more private and relaxing experience than you’ll get at the closely set tables indoors.
• For many of my friends, a pet-friendly dining area is the biggest selling point of all. The folks at Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness take a stern position against bringing Hamish or Manny to your indoor dining table, but most local eateries welcome your best friend to accompany you outdoors.

Naturally, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Herewith, a few reasons why people hate – or at least strongly dislike – the outdoor dining experience.

• Let’s face it, the weather doesn’t always cooperate. A heat wave with 90º-plus temperatures extending into the evening, or a sudden frog-strangling summer downpour can send outdoor diners racing for cover.
• While we may enjoy the company of our companion animal at the outdoor dining experience, other forms of animal life aren’t as welcome. Flies and mosquitoes, stink bugs and centipedes and even the occasional urban rat are rarely seen as desirable dinner companions.
• WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU! As much as we gripe, and rightly so, about loud indoor dining environments, alfresco dining can be noisy too, particularly at tables located on busy city streets or with loud music systems blaring overhead.
• If that relaxing breeze veers into a quick gust or a sustained wind, you may find your napkin blowing down the street and your pleasantly hot meal cooling down before you can enjoy it. If you’re facing the wrong direction, that pleasant afternoon sun may turn into a blinding glare or an ovenlike blast of heat.
• Thanks to the Metro Louisville Smoke-Free Ordinance of 2006 and its tougher 2017 amendments, Louisville restaurants and bars are gloriously smoke-free. Outdoor dining areas? Not so much. While patio smoking is barred within 15 feet of a restaurant entrance and any windows or air intake vents, smokers are otherwise welcome to light up, unless the restaurant decrees otherwise by establishing all or part of its outdoor dining area as smoke-free.

So there we have it. Six good reasons to turn toward the inviting patio, and another half-dozen sound reasons to choose the door into the dining room.

Still, if you haven’t enjoyed an alfresco dinner lately, give it a try! Plan ahead. Check the forecast. Pack your bug repellent and sunscreen. Dress for the weather. And before you make your final choice, be sure to check LEO Weekly’s recent helpful report, 25 Louisville Patios For Dining And Drinking This Spring.

The post We love outdoor dining, unless we don’t appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Kathmandu: Even the sound of the name of Nepal’s historic capital, gateway to the Himalayas, evokes feelings of romance and exotic travel. The bustling, noisy city of 850,000 lies in a green valley at 4,500 feet above sea level. It’s not even as high as Denver, but on a clear day you can see Mount Everest from historic Durbar Square in the old city, home to seven Unesco World Heritage sites.

Want to go? It will take you maybe 26 hours including layover time to get to Kathmandu from here. The price? Don’t even ask.

But here’s an easy workaround: Head to Kathmandu Kitchen on Old Bardstown Road in Buechel, and you can enjoy a fantastic Nepalese meal without all the hassle of international travel.

If you love Indian food – I certainly do – you won’t find Nepalese fare entirely unfamiliar. Nepal lies along the southern flank of the Himalayas sandwiched between India and Tibet, and its food and culture draw from both countries in a spicy blend.

Kathmandu Kitchen has been in business for seven years, our friendly servers told us. A smallish storefront in a strip of shops around the corner from the main drag, it’s bright and pretty, with bold colors, photos of Kathmandu and the Himalayas, and colorful Buddhist prayer flags.

The menu offers a mix of Nepalese and Northern Indian dishes, and they’ll gladly honor your level-of-spice request from mild up to blow-off-the-top-of-your-head hot. (Our helpful server did gently hint that I probably didn’t want extra-hot, and I’m sure she was right.)

The menu includes more than 100 Nepalese and Indian dishes, and it comes with a sweet promise: “You can have faith in the quality and taste to your food as it is hand-crafted everyday by two culinary experts. They have mastered their cooking skills using the ancient secret family recipes that have been created and passed on from generations before them to provide you with an authentic Nepali and Indian experience.”

I agree: Kathmandu Kitchen ranks near the top of local Indian or Nepalese eateries for food quality and taste.

Kathmandu Kitchen’s menu reflects the country’s Hindu and Buddhist traditions. There are plenty of chicken, lamb and goat options (all halal) and shrimp, plus an extensive array of vegetarian choices. Just about every main dish on the menu falls into a tight price range from $12.99 to $16.99.

Everything we tried was excellent and came out from the kitchen quickly, perhaps thanks to the fact that we were the only diners in the room for a late Saturday lunch.

Onion pakoras ($5.99). a traditional Indian appetizer that’s popular throughout South Asia, came in a generous 10-piece serving. Sliced onions are rolled into marble-size balls with spicy flour batter, deep-fried until crunchy dark brown and delicious, with subtle aromatic spices enhancing the crisp onion. They came with sweet tamarind chutney and pale-green spicy chutney on the side.

Momos – fried or steamed stuffed dumplings – are a classic Nepalese and Tibetan appetizer, and Kathmandu Kitchen does them well. Six veggie-stuffed fried momos ($7.99) made a filling starter. Thin flour pastry was folded around a mix of minced veggies, perhaps cabbage, green pepper, onion, maybe potato, formed into fat crescents and gently fried until the pastry was crisp and light brown and the interiors steaming. The menu described a pool of mild orange dipping sauce as homemade tomatoes pickle.

Another signature Himalayan dish, chicken thukpa ($12.99, pictured at the top of the page), is a rich and spicy soup, chock full of veggies and thick wheat noodles. Ordered mild, it still carried a touch of heat, but nothing fiery. Its fascinating complex spice flavors popped on the palate, fresh and distinct. Walnut-size balls of battered fried chicken had been added to the soup at the last minute so they were crunchy, not soggy. Floating on the top were very finely chopped raw cabbage, tiny squares of red onion, and fresh cilantro leaves, with a big slice of lemon floating at the center of the bowl, its tangy citrus flavor permeating the soup.

Daal jhanneko ($12.99) is a Nepalese cousin of the Northern Indian lentil dish dal tadka. This thick, savory lentil soup comes with yellow (my choice) or black lentils simmered to a thick, savory porridge, then kicked up with a complex, piquant tadka spice mix that’s poured into the lentils to flavor them. Kathmandu Kitchen’s daal jhanneko is tempered with cumin seeds, onion, tomato, cilantro, ginger, and garlic; and to kick it up to my requested “hot” spice level, three tiny but dangerous looking chile peppers to create that endorphin rush.

Perfectly prepared long-grain basmati rice came with the daal, and a bowl of soft, puffy garlic naan ($3.99) made a perfect accompaniment.

As an antidote to the spicy fire, a big dish of raita ($2.99) got the job done. Cool, thick and creamy homemade yogurt was filled with grated cucumber and sprinkled with fresh, bright green cilantro leaves and small cubes of red onion.

A memorable taste of the Himalayas for two totaled $49.76, plus a $12 tip.

Kathmandu Kitchen
3825 Bardstown Road
202-1481
kathmandukitchenandbar.com
facebook.com/LouisevilleKathmandu.Restureant
instagram.com/kathmandu_kitchen_bar

Noise Level: The restaurant wasn’t very busy on a Saturday afternoon, and conversation was never an issue.

Accessibility: The dining room and restrooms appear to be accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Kathmandu Kitchen: A taste of Nepal appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

A couple of weeks ago I devoted this space to a conversation about some of our town’s finest places to go for a special-occasion $200-plus blowout. I heard plenty of favorable comment from folks who filed the information for the next birthday or anniversary feast.

A few of you, though, appropriately cautioned me about this slide into territory usually occupied by oligarchs, day traders, and hedge-fund managers. 

“We have trouble enjoying a dinner tab (before tip) for the two of us when it tops $100ish,” said my friend Tom. “We prefer to dine a little more casually and with moderate bills.” Dining on a budget makes it possible to dine out more often, he said.

My friend Ed offered similar counsel. “I know I can throw money at things and get what I want,” he said. “But I find it way more interesting to get what I want with out throwing money at it. 

“It’s not that I can’t afford $200 for a dining experience in a renowned restaurant, it’s that I don’t want to throw $200 for it. It’s much more rewarding to find the same quality or better for much less. …  Dining is more about the people I’m with than the place. Give me an environment where I can have some great conversation, and I am happy.”

Me too, Ed and Tom. Me too. Last year I reviewed 26 local restaurants – one every other week – and, according to my tax records, spent about $1,600 for those culinary delights. That’s about a $60 average cost for a meal excluding tips, which would add another 20 to 25 percent.  Individual dinner prices for two ranged from $26.46 plus tip at El Mariachi Restaurante Mexicano (tacos featured at the top of the page) to $152.64 plus tip at Anoosh Bistro.

Whoa! That’s more than I expected, and it’s just about enough to have my expenses bumping up mighty close to my income. I had better start thinking more seriously about good cheap eats, too. 

But what constitutes cheap, much less “good and cheap? I would have said $30 for two, up from $20 just a few years ago. But those tax records tell another tale. That delicious Mexican lunch at El Mariachi was the only review meal of 2023 that cost me less than $30. Add a reasonable tip, and my list of under-$30 meals for the years falls to zero.

Relief for the thrifty isn’t likely coming soon. Although Nation’s Restaurant News reported on March 12 that restaurant price inflation showed some signs of cooling in February, it went on to glumly forecast that the improvement will likely be short-lived. 

So let’s review: When we speak of cheap eats nowadays, we’re talking about a restaurant meal for two, barring the occasional outlier, ringing up a $30 to $40 tab? Based on my experience, I’m afraid so.

But we do what we can. Here, listed alphabetically, are some specific recommendations for good local restaurants that won’t break the bank. I’m sure you’ve got more. Hit me up on social media or via email with your nominations.

Diners, drive-ins, and dives 

Check’s Cafe (1101 E. Burnett Ave., (637-9515)

Granville Pub (1601 S. Third St., 636-2748)

Hillcrest Tavern (3212 Frankfort Ave., 290-6917), and its siblings and cousins Burger Boy, Burger Girl, and Old Louisville Tavern.

Morris Deli (2228 Taylorsville Road, 458-1668)

O’Dolly’s Lounge and Restaurant (7800 3rd Street Road, 375-1690)

Ollie’s Trolley (978 S. Third St., 583-5214)

Shady Lane Café (4806 Brownsboro Center, 893-5118)

Toasty’s Tavern (1258 S. Shelby St., 614-7094)

Wagner’s Pharmacy (3113 S. 4th St., 375-3800)

World Food

District 6  Gastropub (3930 Shelbyville Road, 873-5561)

Eatz Vietnamese (2244 Frankfort Ave., 785-4450)

El Mariachi (9901 Lagrange Road, 413-5770)

El Molcajete (2932 S. 4th St., 638-0300)

Heart & Soy (1216 Bardstown Road, 452-6678)

Irish Rover (2319 Frankfort Ave., 899-3544)

Kathmandu Kitchen (3825 Bardstown Road, 202-1481)

Koreana III (5009 Preston Highway, 968-9686)

NamNam Café (318 Wallace Ave., 891-8859)

Noosh Nosh (4816 Brownsboro Center, 205-2888)

Oriental House (4302 Shelbyville Road, 897-1017)

Oskar’s Slider Bar (3799 Poplar Level Road, 395-9010)

Time 4 Thai (2206 Frankfort Ave., 996-7899)

Thai Noodles (5800 Preston Hwy., 961-9018)

Vietnam Kitchen (5339 Mitscher Ave., 363-7535)

Vin Bun Vietnamese Bistro (12422 Shelbyville Road, 708-1470)

On the Dock of the Bay

The Fish House (1310 Winter Ave., 568-2993)

The Fishery (3624 Lexington Road, 895-1188)

Pass Time Fish House (10801 Locust Road, 267-4633)

Sharks Seafood (3099 Breckenridge Lane)

 One of a Kind

The Table (1800 Portland Ave. 708-2505)

Pizza!

I’m reluctant to get into a battle over who’s best. Maybe another day. Just pick your favorite, order a slice or a whole pie and a brew, and it’s not going to break the bank. 

Cost-saving measures

Even some of the places on this list can mount up to the $50 or $60 range without much effort. Here are a few strategies I’ve found, and used shamelessly, to dine happily and not risk the mortgage.

• Split and share. No one is going to call you a cheapskate for sharing an appetizer or a dessert. Or both! Order one entree and a couple of apps rather than two pricey entrees.

• Save on drinks. I enjoy a nice wine with my meal as much as anyone, but I’m willing to go with water, or a shared bottle from the modest end of the list, in order to save.

• Take some home. To be fair, even in a time of rising prices, most restaurant dishes come in more than generous portions. It’s easy enough, and probably better for us, to eat our fill and call for a carryout box for the rest. Two meals for the price of one? Yes, please!

And finally …

Please do not forget to tip, and tip well, with 20 percent as a floor, not a ceiling. Servers work hard to please you, and even with gradually rising pay rates, they are overworked and underpaid. This is not a place for us to cut costs.

The post Cheap eats, good eats, why pay more? appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

You probably didn’t even notice that I didn’t bother to talk about fried fish for Lent this year. Everyone else was doing it, it seemed, including our pals at LEO Weekly, so why add another voice to the chorus?

Plus, to be frank, with more than one-fourth of Americans now describing their religious affiliation as “nothing in particular,” and no more than one-tenth of the remaining religiously affiliated strictly observing abstinence from meat during Lent, it felt like the pressure was off.

On the other hand …

Who doesn’t like fried fish? We’ve all heard the intriguing if difficult-to-verify assertion that Louisvillians eat more fried mild white fish than many coastal cities, and we recognize a simple truth: We can enjoy fried fish any time of year.

What’s more, I recently ran across an outstanding place for fried fish, and when I say “ran across,” I mean just about the only way you’re going to discover Sharks Seafood is if someone tells you about it or you happen to be in McMahan Plaza at Hikes Point and notice it on your way to Kroger or Feeders Supply.

Why would this clean, modern, corporate-looking storefront that’s held down a corner spot in the shopping center for seven years have no website, no social media, not even a published telephone number?

“We don’t do publicity,” said the otherwise friendly guy behind the counter. And that was all there was to say about that.

Oh-KAY then. I’ll just say I’m glad we found it, finally, and if you make your way out to Hikes Point for a memorable fried fish (or chicken) repast, you can thank me later. This fish fry doesn’t shut down when Lent ends on Easter Sunday, March 31 this year. It’s here all year!

What makes Sharks Seafood’s fare so good? Simple, well prepared food for one thing. Appealing variety, for another. The menu reminds me a bit of an Indi’s, if Indi’s flipped from mostly chicken with some appetizing fish options to mostly fish with some appetizing chicken options.

Let’s count: Among the starters, seafood dinners, sandwiches, and combo meals that can serve a family, the menu lists 30 fish and seafood options vs. exactly seven starters and one sandwich that are land-based fare. Flip to the back of the menu and you’ll find a baker’s dozen fried-chicken wings and tenders.

Pricing is more than fair, with starters priced from $4.29 to $10.99 and most seafood dinners $12.99 and under. Only the fancy grilled salmon dinner rises to $17.99. Sandwiches are $6.99-$8.99, and most of the chicken items in portions for one are under $10. This is affordable eats, and if you want to feed a crowd, you’ll find it hard to beat the oversize box of 50 whole wings for $69.99. Standard sides such as fries, hush puppies, potato salad, cole slaw and green beans are affordably priced from $1.50 for small orders and $5.99 for large.

There’s no beer, wine, or liquor; soft drinks, bottled tea and bottled water are on sale, and Louisville Water Company’s finest is free.

The cod fillet dinner ($12.99 cash, $13.51 paid by card) comes in three pieces plus your choice of three sides. We were a little surprised by their appearance at first: They were shaped as neat cylinders tinted yellow cornmeal color. They were white, wonderfully flaky, and delicious, fried crisp and not at all greasy.

A side of three hush puppies were just what hush puppies should be: Neat spheres of cornmeal, flour, and onions, deep-fried until crunchy to the bite and seared dark chocolate brown. A side of green beans came simply, just about au naturel with little sign of seasoning, simmered until very tender.

Speaking of veggies, I always try to include an attractive vegetarian or vegan main dish in every review, but that’s hard to do at a fried-fish eatery. I went for variety with a trio of fried crunchies from the starters menu: onion rings ($5.19), breaded cauliflower ($4.46), and okra ($4.46). The rings were among the best I’ve ever had: Thick-sliced and juicy within a textured breaded exterior fried light golden brown. Skill in the frying department made treats of the okra and cauliflower bites, too. I’ll bet you can’t eat just one!

More fish? Don’t mind if we do! To try another kind of fish, we asked for a whiting fillet to go. It’s $11.99 on the menu for two fillets with two sides, but they were happy to box a single fillet without sides for $4.99 cash, $5.19 with credit card.

The large, thick fillet was not batter-breaded but lightly dredged in what appeared to be a cornmeal-flour blend. It was expertly fried – no surprise there – and fresh, with a more assertive fish flavor than cod. “When you eat whiting,” my wife says, “you know you’re eating fish.”

A first-rate lunch for two was $29.28 plus a 25 percent tip. A takeout order of whiting added $5.29.

Sharks Seafood
3099 Breckenridge Lane, Suite 101
No published phone.
No website
No social media pages
Google information page: https://bit.ly/Sharksforfish

Noise Level: Decibel levels weren’t out of normal range during a Saturday lunch with several other diners in the room.

Accessibility: The shopping center space appears accessible to wheelchair users.

The post It doesn’t have to be Lent to enjoy Sharks Seafood appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

The $200 dinner for two is no longer a treat that we must travel to larger cities to enjoy.

Indeed, if you wish to treat your partner or friend to a fancy evening out in Louisville – particularly with drinks, dessert, and an appetizer or two – you’d better make sure that your credit-card limit can handle a three-figure toll.

The New York Times put it simply in a report on the soaring dinner tab in August 2022: “At restaurants around the country, staff shortages, supply-chain logjams, the Ukraine war and other forces have driven up the price of nearly everything.”

That was just over a year-and-a-half ago, and you don’t need to buy many groceries to know that food prices keep going up. Restaurant executive chefs have to buy food, too, not to mention all those other increasing financial challenges that eateries face.

When we’re craving a relaxing dinner out, what’s a hungry diner to do? Let’s set aside for the moment our wealthy neighbors who feel free to indulge that whim, or our not-so-fortunate friend who may need government assistance or the local food pantry to get by. For most of us, that fancy dining experience is a rare treat but one that we’re willing to take on once in a while.

So where do we go when we’ve decided that cost is no object, or not much of one, anyway, for that special date night? I’ve got my own picks, and just for fun, I summoned a social media horde to check my opinions and tell me more about their favorite restaurants for a celebratory high-end dinner or special night out.

A total of almost 200 responses yielded 126 recommendations spread across 28 local eateries, not counting a couple of jokers who couldn’t resist saying they’d spend the bucks to buy 10 meals at a favorite watering hole.

Curiously, although a half-dozen steak houses – the traditional high-end destination – garnered a few nominations, none made the top ten. Let’s take a look at the restaurants that received the most support in this random, non-scientific study.

Far and away the top vote-getter was Jack Fry’s (1007 Bardstown Road, 452-9244), with 21 mentions. It was no surprise to see this Highlands classic in the top spot. It has been a fine-dining destination since the 1970s and a popular local watering hole for decades before that. “It’s so full of history. It feels like a step back in time to walk into the restaurant,” said one friend of Fry’s, adding that they are lured by impeccable service and consistently fine fare. Fry’s filet, warm Brie salad, shrimp and grits, and a Basil Hayden manhattan offer unfailing delight, another fan said.

Second favorite was Clifton landmark Volare Italian Ristorante (2300 Frankfort Ave., 894-4446), with 17 mentions, where Chef Joshua Moore presides over a classy Italian restaurant that exemplifies comfortable fine dining, with a focus on locally grown meat and produce and an impressive seafood program featuring line-caught, sustainable fish.

Third up, with 10 mentions, was Seviche (1538 Bardstown Road, 473-8560), another of my personal favorites, where Chef Anthony Lamas presides over a creative pan-Latin menu also elevated by a top-rank sustainable seafood and fish program. Don’t miss the namesake seviche, but you can’t go wrong with anything on the menu … or from the bar.

Filling out the top ten were these local favorites:

Fat Lamb (2011 Grinstead Drive, 235-1903; 8 nominations): Chef Dallas McGarity is a nominee for the James Beard Foundation Best Chef Southeast this year, and it shows in this popular Highlands spot’s creative American cuisine and comfortable setting.

Anoosh Bistro (4864 Brownsboro Center, 690-6585; 7 mentions). Longtime local star chef and all-around good guy Anoosh Shariat has built a devoted following over many years in Louisville, and this comfortable East End venue shows why.

610 Magnolia (610 W. Magnolia Ave., 636-0783; 7 votes). Chef Edward Lee’s creative cookery has won him a national following, and his other local spot, the new Nami, also made this list.

bar Vetti (727 E. Market St., 883-3331; 6 nominations). Moved from the classic turquoise 800 Building to Nulu during the pandemic, this eclectic Italian-influenced spot lists among its highlights “Regional Italian pizzas, fresh pastas, seasonal small plates, dope wines.”

La Chasse (1359 Bardstown Road, 822-3963; 6 nominations). Wood-fired European-style cuisine with a distinct French accent lures diners to this established Highlands favorite.

Meesh Meesh (636 E. Market St.,589-5224; 6 votes). I introduced by review of Chef Noam Bilitzer’s new Mediterranean restaurant last autumn with this simple praise: “I’m going to come right out and say it: Meesh Meesh is one of the best new restaurants to come along in Louisville lately.” Lots of people seem to agree.

211 Clover (211 Clover Lane, 896-9570; 6 mentions). Tucked away in a tasteful little shopping center on a side street in St. Matthews, 211 Clover is easily overlooked. Don’t do that. Stylish and comfortable, it never fails to satisfy for lunch or dinner.

Finally, listed alphabetically, another 18 local favorites received enthusiastic affirmation from fans but garnered five or fewer mentions in this completely non-scientific survey: Brooklyn and the Butcher, Chik’n & Mi, Connor’s Steak & Seafood, Del Frisco’s, Grassa Gramma, Harvey’s, Le Moo, Le Relais, Mayan Cafe, Mesh, Nami, Pat’s Steakhouse, Repeal Oak-Fired Steakhouse, River House, Ruth’s Chris, Steak and Bourbon, The 1894 Lodge (New Washington, Ind.), and Vincenzo’s.

Next time you’re feeling flush and in the mood for a treat, give any of these local jewels a try!

The post Fancy dining? How much can you afford? appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Here’s a good way to start a noisy debate among Louisville food lovers: Ask for opinions on where to get the best bagel in town. Want to kick it up another notch? Ask you can even get a bialy hereabouts.

What’s a bialy? See what I mean? A lot of us have so little exposure to this rarely seen cousin to the bagel that we’re not even sure what it is.

More about that shortly. First, though, let’s put our hands together and welcome our town’s latest bagel shop: Born2Bagel, which opened last autumn in a Middletown shopping-strip storefront at the corner of Shelbyville Road and Blankenbaker Parkway.

The eatery’s claim to authenticity comes naturally through owner Bruce Rosenblatt, who told Food & Dining magazine that he grew up in Long Island enjoying bagels and lox and all the schmears every Saturday, and grew into a career in corporate restaurant management.

After he and his wife Jennifer moved to Louisville in 2014, he said, they found the region lacking in “a true New York bagel experience.” That crave, and his business experience, marked a straight line to Born2Bagel’s opening at the end of last September.

Declaring its products “authentic New York-style bagels,” the company’s website expresses its dedication to authenticity as “the cornerstone of our business. We handcraft our bagels using traditional New York-style techniques, creating that perfect balance of a crisp exterior and a soft, chewy interior.”

The restaurant, its menus and decor and the look of the website are all bright and professional, in striking colors of gold, black, and white. This gives the place the professional look of a corporate chain, but credit that to the Rosenblatts’ business experience, not bean counters at a distant corporate headquarters.

The space, which formerly housed a quick-service Chinese restaurant, is crammed full of counter space and a few tables for dining in, with bagel production apparently taking place out of sight.

The menu focuses on bagels, of course, including sixteen styles of bagel ($2.29 each a la carte, $12.99 for six, and $23.99 for 13, a baker’s dozen) and seven flavors of cream cheese, adding $1.90 as a generous schmear. Oversize bagel-based breakfasts with meat and potato pancakes are $11.99 and $13.99, and a variety of lunch sandwiches on bagel are $10.79). Strong, delicious coffee (from Louisville’s Fante’s Coffee, according to a Facebook post) comes in your choice of medium Mexican roast or strong Colombian roast and can be yours for $4.49 large, $3.16 small.

We went with bagel-shop classics for a hearty Saturday brunch, and started with an oversize open-face Bruce’s Bagel (pictured at the top of the page), a $14.29 nova lox- or whitefish-topped treat so huge that it would be difficult or impossible to eat out of hand.

A large, fat, split poppyseed bagel stretched across a lightweight paper plate, thickly spread with cream cheese and draped with several thick slices of creamy, smooth lox. Atop that perched thick slices of firm, red winter tomato, sliced red onion, and four or five thick diagonal slices of crisp cucumber, a grind of black pepper, and, available upon request, a scattering of salty capers.

It took a while to disassemble and eat it all with knife and fork, but it was well worth the effort. All the ingredients were fresh and tasty, and they made a wonderfully satisfying meal.

Even that large bagel was a bit lost amid all those culinary riches, but a simpler classic – an onion bagel generously spread with plain cream cheese ($4.19) – showed off the quality of Born2Bagel’s wares with less flavor competition. As a proper New York bagel should be, it boasted a firm, browned crust, crisp to the bite, with a lighter but still chewy interior.

Listed as potato pancakes rather than latkes ($3 as a side with a bagel sandwich), Born2Bagel’s rendition was perfect. Two good-size rounds of sizzling, onion-scented shredded potatoes within a crunchy, crispy dark brown fried interior went down fast, with tangy sour cream (or optional applesauce) alongside.

So what’s a bialy, anyway? I didn’t see them on the menu, but they’re usually available along with bagels for the same $2.29 price. It’s a similar bread in the Jewish tradition, but made with a dent in the middle to hold toppings rather than the bagel’s traditional hole. It’s cooked without the pre-boil that’s customary for traditional bagels. The result is similar to a bagel but with a softer crust and perhaps even more chewy.

“It’s like an English muffin married a bagel with onion bits baked inside and on top,” according to a December 23 post on Born2Bagel’s Facebook page. “Oh, so good!”

Our meal for two came to $26.12 plus a $6.53 tip. An additional takeout order of a plain and a chocolate-chip bagel and a bialy was $7.28.

Born2Bagel
231 Blankenbaker Pkwy
384-0619
born2bagel.com
Facebook: bit.ly/Born2Bagel
instagram.com/born_2_bagel
tiktok.com/@born2bagel

Noise Level: The small shop can get noisy when it’s crowded, with customers at the counter crowding the row of tables along the opposite wall. Conversation is possible at an average 67.0dB sound level, but less so during occasional peaks at a thunderous 87,0db.

Accessibility: The restaurant space appears accessible to wheelchair users, but the entrance door is heavy, and the nearest curb ramp is several shops away from the entrance.

The post Born2Bagel and lox and bialys, oh my! appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Your steak is too well-done for your liking. It’s dry, tough, and leathery. Your partner’s tenderloin is too rare for their liking. It’s dripping bloody juices that make them go “ick.” You find dirt in your dish. Mold in your dish. A hair, or several!

Grossed out by now? You haven’t heard anything yet. You find a dead cockroach in your potatoes. Or even a live parasite squirming in your swordfish.

And how about that time you told the server about your kid’s allergy and got a dish that triggered it anyway?

Just how bad does a problem have to be before you can reasonably ask a server to take your plate back to the kitchen for replacement or repair?

“It’s fair to want to get your money’s worth, especially since dining out feels like an investment these days,” Li Goldstein wrote in her article, How to Send a Dish Back Without Making Your Waiter Hate You, in the Feb. 2, 2024 issue of Bon Appetit.

“Whether your meal is really salty, really cold, or just really disappointing, there are right and wrong ways to send it back,” Goldstein added. “But if you, like me, consider yourself non-confrontational to a fault, sending food back can be a scary prospect.”

“I’m actually afraid to send food back”

Some frequent diners consider this fear well founded. “I’m actually afraid to send food back,” said a friend in a social media conversation, “because of the horror stories I’ve seen videos of or heard people say what they’ve done to customer’s food.”

Another friend made that fear explicit: “I’m always too afraid to [send a dish back]. Even if it tastes like garbage, I know the first meal is spit-free.”

Friends in the service industry, servers and chefs alike, say there’s little reason to fear such extreme measures. Contaminating a patron’s food would open a restaurant to litigation and a server to immediate firing. It’s just not good business.

“I will always replace something a guest doesn’t like.” said Richard Blaine Doering, the owner and chef at Legacy Pizza and Bakery in New Albany. “We are in the service industry.” But, he added, “Being a chef I do not like it when the customer knows nothing about the dish they ordered. Ask the server if you are unsure. My biggest gripe would be someone complaining about something days later on social media or giving us a review concerning something they nothing about. We fix every issue immediately.”

That’s admirable, and it helps explain why I am more than willing to cross the Mighty Ohio for a taste of Legacy’s pizza and artisanal breads.

Queasy yet? Horror stories

But it’s a wide world out there, with a lot of variety. Ask a few foodies to tell you horror stories, and you’ll get an earful, and maybe a queasy feeling.

Let’s consider a few compelling examples from my social media orbit.

“My broccoli soup came with a wad of gum stuck to the side of the bowl. The server was embarrassed when I pointed it out. Heard yelling when he took it back. I didn’t order a replacement. They took it off the check. I think my meal should have been comped since I was afraid to eat my sandwich.”

“I pulled a twist tie out of my mouth while eating pasta, and the restaurant didn’t comp my meal. It was my birthday, so the least they could have done was offer free dessert.”

“I had broken glass in risotto once from a ‘major’ local restaurant. They didn’t care. … Nothing like paying three digits for a meal for two and wondering how much broken glass you swallowed.”

In fairness, other friends, particularly those with experience in the hospitality business, tend to be more casual. “Very rarely do I ever,” one said. “Ordinarily I don’t look that closely at a plate. I’m there to eat, not complain about the presentation.”

“A roll of the dice”

Another friend with a background in the kitchen and restaurant ownership offered blunt thoughts: “I’ve never sent a dish back. For me it’s a roll of the dice. Even the best kitchens and chefs in the finest restaurants can have an off night for whatever reason. If it consistently sucks, I just won’t return. If it’s actively bad I just won’t recommend it to my friends and might make some suggestions to the owner/chef. Then again, if it’s that bad, it probably won’t be around too long anyway.”

A onetime server had plenty of stories to tell, like the time she served a baked cod dish with the fish frozen solid. “The customer was very nice,” she recalled. “I was horrified. I took it to the owner and he comped the table and fired the drunken cook.”

Another time a businessman at a working lunch “pulled a cockroach out of his mouth after taking a drink of his iced tea. They called me over and were all laughing! When they showed me the roach I almost burst into tears. One of the guys said, ‘Don’t worry, he eats roaches all the time.’ Again the owner comped the table.”

Her good advice in the aftermath of that story makes sense for us all: “It is always better to be kind than to be an asshole. And please don’t punish the server if it is obvious the mistake was not their fault.”

Richard Blaine Doering at Legacy Pizza wrapped up his thoughts with similar counsel: “As far as sending food back, I rarely do it and do not complain unless asked. I never leave bad reviews because I know how hard it is to own and operate a business. .. Mistakes cost money and we try to prevent them. Bad experiences cost money as well. Even when we go out of our way to make amends people still are unhappy. You can’t please everyone, just do all you can and move on knowing we did all we could.”

The post When bad things happen to good food appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

It’s easy to run out of superlatives when we’re talking about the barbecue at Four Pegs in Germantown.

• You’ve got those hefty, flavorful wings that come in a squadron of memorable flavors.
• You’ve got those firm, flavorful, impeccably sauced baby back ribs.
• And you’ve got that tender, mouth-watering pulled jackfruit

What?

Who knew that barbecued fruit could taste so good? In skilled hands, smoked and dry-rubbed and deliciously sauced, this stringy tropical fruit turns into a dead ringer for pulled pork.

Not only that, jackfruit is good for you. “Fruit as a meat substitute? Yep, when it’s jackfruit,” intone the gurus at The Cleveland Clinic. “So, is jackfruit good for you? Yes! Jackfruit benefits include being heart-healthy, fighting inflammation and promoting wound healing.”

More about this shortly, but first, let’s take a look at the mood and the menu. The mood is classic Germantown/Schnitzelburg blue-collar bar: A dark, crowded room with an impressive bar that looks as if it could be a century old or more. The rest of the room is packed with small black tables and wood-and-metal chairs, all of them likely to rock gently on the uneven floor.

Tables are set with cardboard containers holding extra forks and a stack of paper napkins ready to take on rib drippings. A two-page drinks menu lists cocktails and an extensive list of about 80 bourbons and a dozen ryes, all offered in 2-ounce pours or flights. QR codes afford quick smartphone access to a vast array of mostly American craft beers and the food menu, which apparently exists only online. Fine with me!

The menu is divided functionally among a half-dozen starters, eight varieties of wings with sundry toppings, a trio of mains and nine “sammies,” plus five macaroni and cheese bowls and a long list of sides. Just about everything is priced in the lower to middle teens, save for a massive $25 smokehouse sampler; baby back ribs are sold by the bone for a bargain $2.50 per. Bet you can’t eat just one!

A barbecue-centric brunch menu with 15 items in the same price range is available Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Everything we tried during our visit was uniformly very good, with not a single misstep or off note.

We started with one of the most offbeat yet seductively delicious salads I’ve ever enjoyed, the Pegs pickle and brussels sprout slaw ($4). We also summoned a whole pound of dry-rubbed, hickory-smoked chicken wings ($13.50) as a starter because why not.

Don’t yawn when you hear “slaw,” as this creation is different from any slaw you’ve tried before. Tangy pickles, sweet carrots, red cabbage, onion, and brussels sprouts are all cut into fine julienne and dressed with a tangy, creamy dressing to make a salad that’s crunchy, tart and sweet and earthy and so, so delicious.

A pound of hickory-smoked wings makes a generous portion, five overize, meaty drummies and four similarly hefty flats. They had been coated in a spicy dry rub and smoked without any frills, just light smoke and juicy chicken within a crispy skin scorched black here and there. Tart, hot-sweet and smoky barbecue sauce came in a small tub alongside. It was tasty but not really needed to improve the excellent wings.

Slow-smoked baby back ribs ($2.50 per bone, pictured at the top of this page) were cooked to perfection, juicy and firm, not falling off the bone, which serious pitmasters will tell you is not an advantage but a signal of overcooking. They had been carved uniformly into thick slices, thickly coated with spicy dry rub and slathered with smoky sweet-hot chipotle-laced sauce. The meat was deeply smoked, edged with a thin layer of fat cloaked in that crisp spicy crust.

We had to leave room for a barbecued jackfruit sandwich with pickled onion ($16), and I’m glad we did. Meaty chunks of the fruit, dry-rubbed, grill-seared and smoked and pulled like barbecued pork and slathered with sauce, could have passed for the real thing in texture and flavor. With a mix of house-pickled julienne red peppers and onions on top, overflowing a high-quality grilled bun, it was a memorable barbecue sandwich without a bit of meat in sight.

A couple of sides kept up the pace of excellence. White cheddar mac ($6) was a stovetop version, rich and tempting with a whiff of smoke over what looked like short cavatappi corkscrew pasta swimming in rich cheesy cream and topped with grated Parmesan.

A small bowl of local fresh collard greens ($6) was done just right, too. Long-simmered bits were studded with crusty shreds of smoked pork and came swimming in a hot and vinegary sauce.

A large and filling meal for two came to $47.17, and our server Sarah’s careful, friendly service earned a $15 tip.

Four Pegs Smokehouse & Bar
1053 Goss Ave.
634-1447
fourpegs.net
facebook.com/fourpegssmokehouse
instagram.com/four_pegs

Noise Level: This popular restaurant’s small space is often crowded, with a happy noise to match, so you may have to speak up when it gets loud. Still, sound readings stayed in the safe zone at a 67.9dB average and 73.6dB peak during my test.

Accessibility: Two tall steps at the front door and a shorter step at a side door pose barriers to independent access by wheelchair users.

The post Four Pegs scores with smoky wings, ribs, and … jackfruit!? appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

It was a chilly, cloudy Saturday morning in January. The temperature was hovering around 37º. Even so, the sidewalk tables in front of Frankfort Avenue’s beloved Blue Dog Bakery & Café were filling up just the same, hungry travelers clad in parkas and mittens, eagerly awaiting a steaming coffee drink and pastry treat.

Inside Blue Dog’s warm, cozy space was jammed with more eager supplicants. Counter service would begin any moment, and they were ready.

“It’s always like this,” Blue Dog’s new owner Libbie Ackerman Loeser said with a smile.

Indeed. Blue Dog celebrated its 25th anniversary as a Crescent Hill fixture last June 22, and Loeser took the reins from former owner Kit Garrett just two months later.

Who knew? Outside Blue Dog’s staff, family, and friends, hardly anyone knew, and that was intentional. “Kit and I wanted to keep it low key, not publicize it,” Loeser said during a morning interview over an oat-milk latte and a fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate croissant. “We didn’t want people to worry that a place is going to change. When you hear of a place changing. it’s like ‘oh, no’.”

Indeed, perceptions of change matter at a place with a tradition. “This is a magical place,” Loeser said. “There are so many regular customers here, and it’s good to hear how much this place means to them. It’s part of the fabric of their day-to-day lives, and it’s heavy, I see myself almost as a steward of a Louisville institution, not just an owner. We want to maintain the excellence with no obvious changes.”

She’s right about that. We’ve likely all seen a beloved spot falter after changing hands. Delaying the announcement was probably a wise move. So now, six months later, welcome to the new Blue Dog, a lot like the old Blue Dog, where much of the staff and most of the tradition remains … along with small, smart changes aimed at making this landmark even better.

Local culinary veteran

Here’s how the change happened. Loeser is a veteran of the Louisville restaurant scene whose culinary career started as an 18-year-old server at John Conte Coffee in Bashford Manor Mall. She moved on to Syd’s Bagels, Lynn’s Paradise Cafe, then Asiatique, ultimately going to Jack Fry’s where she worked in upper management during that Louisville institution’s ownership change from Susan Seiller to Stephanie Meeks.

Then she and her husband had children, and things changed. Restaurant life can be tough on a growing family, especially with night work involved. In 2010, Loeser left the restaurant business for a successful career in real estate. But she missed the restaurant world: The pace, the people, the environment.

Meanwhile, going into its third decade and with sibling Red Hog Restaurant and Butcher Shop drawing similarly faithful throngs just a few blocks down the avenue, Garrett was thinking about retirement. Divorced from Blue Dog co-founder Bob Hancock and with a quarter of a century in, she was ready for a rest if not full retirement – she remains owner and boss at Red Hog.

“I’d known Kit for a long time, and I knew she was about ready to have less on her plate,” Loeser recalled. When Loeser learned that Blue Dog was going up for sale, she said, with 15 years running her own realty business atop years of restaurant experience in both the front and back of the house, she knew she was ready.

“I would be interested.”

So, when Kit Garrett approached her to ask for help seeking a buyer, Loeser gave a quick reply: “I would be interested.” With a smile, Loeser added, “I think she was happy.”

Still, the conversation leading to the final sale took longer than a year, with time to figure out logistics, particularly since Blue Dog had closed its retail service during the pandemic and reopened with a counter service approach.

Loeser started putting in hours working at the café and bakery before the chang. “I wanted to get to know the staff on a one-to-one level,” she said, “not just show up one day saying ‘Hi, I’m the new owner.’”

Blue Dog’s staff includes up to 35 employees, including front-of-house, customer service, kitchen workers, and dedicated bread and pastry departments. Brittany Shah became head chef last autumn; Todd Hancock, co-founder Bob Hancock’s son, remains on staff as head baker, and his dad sill comes in on a night shift to bake lavash.

“Staff is the most important component of what we do,” Loeser said. “They’re dedicated. They have a real commitment to excellence.”

Ch-ch-changes?

Does she foresee any significant changes? “When any new owner comes in you’ll see some things that need fine tuning,” she said, “but this is a well oiled machine, so we’re just improving systems within the business, figuring out how to grow it responsibly. A huge place for us to grow is wholesale and retail.”

Blue Dog has largely maxed out what it can do with dining room and counter service in the small, 90-year-old building, she said, and the Spanish Llopis wood-burning oven that made the original bakery a landmark is no longer in regular use; more modern bakery ovens get the job done at high quality more efficiently.

She does see an opportunity for growth in wholesale sales out of state. They’ve already got Blue Dog breads in some fine-ding establishments in Indianapolis, and they’re working to get more: “That’s a big place for growth.”

Blue Dog has already achieved that goal in Louisville, she said. Its familiar baguettes and other loaves are available at markets and many fine-dining restaurants. “We’re fortunate,” she said, “to have a loyal and dedicated base.”

Blue Dog Bakery & Cafe
2868 Frankfort Ave.
899-9800
bluedogbakeryandcafe.com
facebook.com/bluedogbakeryandcafe
instagram.com/bluedogbakeryandcafe

The post Blue Dog’s new owner keeps on keeping on appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I felt pretty sad last month when I read El Mundo’s social-media post announcing management’s decision to “put the original, quirky, tiny Frankfort Avenue location on pause until the Spring.”

The good news was that El Mundo’s newer, larger Highlands shop, which opened during the Covid-19 pandemic, remains open. It has expanded service to seven days a week, and recently launched an impressive Saturday, Sunday, and Monday brunch.

Still, even if management says the Frankfort Avenue spot is not dead but only sleeping, undergoing restructuring toward a spring reopening, the shuttering felt like a jolt.

I had literally followed El Mundo since the very start. It opened in 1995, just a year after we had moved back to Louisville from a few years in New York City and just a few blocks from our Crescent Hill abode.

I enjoyed its funky and yes, tiny and quirky quarters, and I was impressed by its creative approach to Mexican cuisine in a bill of fare that reminded me a lot of Chef Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill in Chicago. I would get back for follow-up reviews every few years, finding its quality and style lovably consistent over time. And I rushed over, mask firmly attached, to pick up takeouts at the new Bardstown Road shop in August 2020.

So when I heard about the new weekend-plus-Monday brunch, what do you think I was going to do? Yep! We rolled up to the Highlands operation, with its convenient parking out back, just as soon as I could.

The restaurant sprawls through three floors and the basement of an old brick dairy building. Looking for warmth on one of the recent near-0º days, we found a cozy booth in a smaller room

The brunch menu is available from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. weekends and Mondays, but you’re welcome to choose from the main menu during those hours too. But we came with brunch in mind, and the special menu has plenty to offer.

Nine brunch options range in price from $9 (for avocado toast on Blue Dog baguette) to $19 (for Mexican-style steak and eggs with fries). Other options include Hatch green chili or butter swim biscuit and gravy (both $15); huevos rancheros, Mexican poutine, chilaquiles, and a breakfast burrito (all $13.50) and las frutas, a Latin-style fruit bowl ($9). Many of the dishes offer meat add-ons and vegan options with plant-based egg, cheese, and chorizo substitutes.

In addition to its usual beverages, El Mundo’s expansive bar offers brunch cocktails and an array of coffee drinks made with Red Hot Roasters coffee beans.

Red Hot Roasters? That’s about as good as it gets, so to banish the cold shivers we immediately summoned a large and refillable drip coffee ($4) in a pretty blue mug, and an eye-opening, intensely sweet Cubano ($4) frothed with sugar in a tiny espresso cup.

Steak and eggs and fries ($19, pictured at the top of the page) made a hearty midday meal. A good-size portion of butcher’s steak – also known as hanger steak, a cousin to skirt steak – was cut crosswise against the grain to make about 10 thin slices.

Ordered medium-rare and served just-so, the steak was crispy dark on the exterior, pink, juicy and flavorfully marbled within. A spicy chile rub imparted a slight, pleasant heat that married nicely with hints of smoke from the grill. it was topped with a portion of remarkably good fries. Surely house-made, they had been lightly coated with flour or cornstarch before frying to raise the crispness quotient.

A perfect, runny over-easy egg sat atop the fries, and the dish was flanked by a piquant orange-hued chipotle aioli and salsa macha, a rich condiment that originated in Veracruz, Mexico: a finely chopped blend of dried chiles, garlic, nuts and seeds.

El Mundo’s menu highlights the restaurant’s range of “amazing plant-powered vegan dishes,” so I had to try one just to see what it was about. I had absolutely no complaints about a vegan take on huevos rancheros ($13.50 in the carnivorous version, $16.50 with vegan egg and cheese analogues and soy-based vegan chorizo).

It was built on a wheat tortilla big enough to fill a large oval plate, topped with spicy, tender brothy black beans with pools of green-chile sauce, red salsa ranchero, and melted vegan cheese. The vegan egg was a chewy, savory light-orange square that simulated a hard-scrambled egg. It was different, but with a little fiery red chile sauce sprinkled on top, it was completely satisfying.

A shared ramekin of delicious Oaxacan chocolate pot de crème ($9) wrapped up a memorable bruch. Served cold, the chocolate was dense and dark, cooked with a touch of ancho chile just sufficient to leave a pleasant warm aftertaste behind. A dollop of smooth, soft whipped cream on top made a memorable finishing touch.

A flawless brunch for two was $55.12, plus a $13 tip.

Brunch at El Mundo
1767 Bardstown Road
384-5633
502elmundo.com
facebook.com/502elmundo
facebook.com/502elmundo

Noise Level: Our relatively small room, one of several in the restaurant, filled up quickly for Saturday brunch hour, but a corner booth with a high back kept us in an easy conversational bubble.

Accessibility: The renovated century-old building covers several floors linked by wheelchair-inaccessible stairs. But the entrance, bar, restroom, and main-floor tables appear accessible to wheelchair users.

The post El Mundo’s new brunch warms and satisfies appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Menus: Can’t live with ‘em. Can’t live without ‘em! You step into a restaurant, take your seat, and pick up the menu. How does this make you feel? Joy at anticipating a tasty meal, or fear that something is about to make you crabby?

Why must menus disappoint us in so many ways, from look and feel to organization and design to the way they communicate? The menu has just one job, and sadly, it doesn’t always get that job done.

Where do menus go wrong? Let us count the ways.

Too hard to see

Pale gray type on a light green background? It’s arty, but it isn’t cool. When your menu designers double down by printing that hundred shades of gray in six-point type, it almost feels as if they’re trying to punk us.

”I’m old,” one friend said. ”I need to be able to read the font size.” Another friend agreed: ”I also like print that is visible without a magnifying glass.”

Romantically dim lighting just makes matters worse. ”I want a menu that I can read without having to get my phone light out,” one friend griped, recalling a Hoosier eatery that used tan text on cream paper. ”It was probably fine in bright light to a 20-something,” they said, ”but not terribly legible in a dimly lit dining room to a 50-something’s eyes.”

Don’t touch that menu!

During the pandemic, a lot of places began using a QR code, that digital labyrinth of mysterious data squares, to whisk us to an online menu with our own smartphone.

”If this is your only menu, I’m out of here,” said one. ”I know I sound like an old lady,” another friend said, :but I hate QR menus. My 18-year-old daughter said it’s definitely not an old lady thing. She hates them too.”

Why the hate? One friend explained: ”I don’t go into a restaurant to get more screen time. I want to escape all the things I use my phone for, whether it’s work, personal business, keeping up with all the kids’ school stuff that only comes via email now. Our entire lives are on our phones. Can’t we get a small reprieve?!”

Another friend put it simply: ”A proper menu is part of the dining experience. QR codes are not.”

Okay, that makes sense to me.

What’s more

Other menu preferences go back to the pandemic, and to ongoing concerns about germs and cooties. I feel for restaurant managers, because not everyone is on the same menu page. Some like single-use paper menus that no one else has shared. Others find that too casual and want something solid, maybe even presented in leather-look covers.

I could only shake my head, befuddled, when one friend demanded laminated menu pages because they’re easy to wipe clean, while another pal doesn’t even want to touch a laminated page because yuk. You can’t please everyone, but if you’re in business serving the public, you really wish you could.

Finally, clearly note allergens and whether a dish is vegan or vegetarian. If a dish is spicy hot, say so! These things matter to people. Oh, yeah, and list your prices, for cripes’ sake!

So many choices!

”Not too many items,” one friend requested, ”It makes it hard to make up my mind if there is too much.” Others agreed. ”Restaurants should have a few items they specialize in, but don’t overcomplicate it,” added another. ”I don’t want to have to browse through 10 pages of menu.”

I agree, kind of. I like variety and I like choice. In my recent visit to Sankalp Indian, for instance, I was stunned at first by its wealth of maybe 200 choices. I love Indian food, so ultimately it made me happy. But I’m glad I thought to look at the online menu at home first, so I could narrow my choices.

What’s more, tradition matters. If I go to a quick-service style Mexican, Indian, or Chinese restaurant, I’m not surprised by a menu with more than 100 choices. I realize that they can accomplish this by having a relative few vegetable and protein choices, largely prepped and ready along with several sauces, noodles, and a giant vat of rice. Just about any of those 100 options can be quickly assembled, tossed into a screaming-hot wok, stir-fried, boxed, and rushed out to the hungry customer.

That works in those settings, but it’s less doable at your fancy dining room or trendy bistro where one expects a bit more personal attention to the dinner plate.

What’s in my dish?

Everyone wants a descriptive menu, but there’s a lot of debate over what that looks like. Don’t be snobby? ”Any mention of ‘dusting’ or ‘hints’ or ‘shadows’ or ‘nuances’ or elite genetic heritage of anything pisses me right off,” said one. ”No information. A menu should include basic description of the dish with the key ingredients,” suggested another.

I hold up the menu at Meesh Meesh in Nulu, one of my favorite new restaurants of 2023, as meeting a lot of my needs: At the time of my visit, it was short but not too short, with five main dishes, a trio or larger plates, and a variety of sides. Ingredients and descriptions were good, not great: ”Amba, jalapeño schug, and herbs” gives us a hint, but only if we know what schug and amba are.

And so …

With a little help from my friends, I could go on and on. Maybe another day I will. Today, though, let’s just leave this word of wisdom to the good folks who run restaurants and plan the bill of fare: Communication is the key. If people can read your menu, understand it, and take away what they wan’t for dinner and why, you’ve done your job. If not, you’ve got a problem, right here in River City, and it starts with M and that stands for menu.

The post Let’s improve the restaurant menu! appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I try not to miss much when it comes to developments in local restaurants. It happened this month, though, when I finally got to Sankalp Louisville for what proved to be one of the best Indian meals ever.

Where has this place been all my life? Or to be more specific, why was I so clueless about this large, stylish Indian eatery that had announced its opening in an Instagram post almost exactly 18 months ago?

“Now we are open to serve delicious food,” the restaurant posted on July 13, 2022. “Find all your favorite cuisines under one roof. Visit to experience those new restaurant vibes.”

I would have raced out there if I had only known … and I should have, as Sankalp got a couple of mentions on the HotBytes forum. But it hasn’t had any mention that I can find in traditional media (including this one); no local website except for menu distributors, and, well, if you don’t know its name in the first place, you’re not likely to spot it on social media.

Bah! No more excuses. Sankalp has apparently become popular in the local Indian-American community, which flocks in for special menu items and celebrations like Diwali, Navaratri, and the traditional undhiyu vegetable curry and jalebi sweets served during the celebration of Uttarayan this month.

Sankalp’s roots, in fact, are in Gujarat, where it started with a single restaurant in Ahmedabad in 1980 and has since grown to more than 150 properties around the world. It recently expanded to the United States, where Louisville’s shop is among a dozen recent arrivals.

Even the restaurant’s Sanskrit name, Sankalp, might be unfamiliar to many of us, but it’s an important term in Hindu culture. According to Wisdom Library online, a Wikipedia-like website covering Indian culture, sankalp is a broad term covering ideas like “determination,“ “resolve,“ “resolution,“ “will,”“ “concept,” or “idea.” In a form of Hindu ritual worship called puja, participants recite sankalp mantras to set the ceremony’s purpose and intention: “These mantras help establish a focused mindset and create a sacred atmosphere.”

This may or may not have been coincidental, but shortly after we arrived, the sound system shifted from Bollywood-style tunes to a 45-minute rendition of Om Namah Shivaya, a sankalp mantra that purportedly helps infuse positive energy in one’s everyday life while removing negative energy around you. It might have worked. I didn’t feel at all bothered by a half-hour wait for our meal.

So now you know more about Sankalp – with or without the capital “S” – than you did a few minutes ago. But if you love Indian food, you still need to hear me telling you that you need to go eat at this place as soon as you can.

It’s a good-size room in a multi-unit Stony Brook strip, with high ceilings, walled on the front by floor-to-ceiling windows, with choice of seating in comfortable booths by the windows, along a banquette, and comfortable upholstered high-back chairs set at tables in the middle of the room. A well-stocked bar fills the front of the room, apparently geared for table service; there are no bar stools.

The colorful menu is extensive, covering a dozen large pages, so check it out online before you go, or come prepared to spend a little time with it. It’s divided among soups, appetizers, sizzlers and sidekicks, chaat, pizza (with an Indian twist), sandwiches, Indan-style Chinese dishes, idlis and dosas, rava and uthappa, some 40 curries, Indian breads, lentil dal, basmati rice dishes, beverages, and accompaniments.

About half of the items are vegetarian, and the rest are described not as “meat” but “non-veg.” Pricing is fair, with most main dishes between $11 and $15, and only a few sampler plates and a whole tandoori chicken rising over $20.

Fish ajwaini tikka ($14.99, pictured at the top of the page) consisted of five big chunks of boneless white fish that had been grilled on skewers after spending time in a spicy marinade of yogurt, turmeric, and ajwain, an Indian seed-like fruit that’s related to cumin, coriander, and dill. It was plated on a sizzling hot cast-iron platter the shape of a fish, sitting on a bed of thin sliced red onions and green peppers, and topped with a slice of lime and a charred green pepper. It was served mildly spiced, as requested. A dish of sweet, creamy tartar sauce alongside seemed unnecessary.

Paneer Afghani bhurji ($14.99, pictured above), an Afghan-style recipe from Punjab in far northern India, is a vegetarian dish. Shredded bits of Indian paneer cheese (“bhurji” means “scrambled” in Hindi) were tossed in a thick, spicy tomato sauce studded with bits of peppers. It was one of those dishes that seem simple but whack you upside the head with fascinating, complex flavors the more you eat. It was perfect with bites of chewy, fluffy warm garlic naan ($3.99).

An outstanding Indian meal for two came to $36.01, plus an $8.49 tip.

Sankalp Louisville – The Taste of India
9008 Taylorsville Road
690-8355
Menu: bit.ly/Sankalp502
facebook.com/Sankalplouiseville
instagram.com/sankalp_louisville

Noise Level: Crowd noise was no issue as we had the place to ourselves during a lunch visit, although a Hindu chant on the sound system pushed the average sound level to a still reasonable 66.4dB.

Accessibility: Level entrance and restrooms allow wheelchair access throughout.

The post We love Sankalp Indian, once we found it appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Well, here we are. It’s 2024, another year has gone into the history books. We’re at that annual point when we talk about New Year’s resolutions (and how quickly we break them).

This is also when we fondly remember that jolly old Roman deity Janus. whose name gave us “January” because he bears a face on both sides of his head: One to look forward and one to look back.

So let’s Janus-ize a bit in this January column – as food writers often do at this time of year – peering briefly backward and gazing deeply forward at trends and developments on the restaurant scene.

Frankly, I said “briefly” backward because who wants to think about 2023 anymore? The pandemic sort of ended, only it didn’t. Prices went up, so did the economy, but we’re not feeling it, so we’re blaming Joe Biden even though we like his likely opponent even less. And Covid? It’s over, right? Got yer vaccinations? But the latest variant seems to be firing up again, and nobody wants that.

Louisville lost some restaurants last year. We’ll particularly miss the Nigeran delights at Funmi Cafe and the Italian-American comfort food at Come Back Inn. But the overall toll didn’t look devastating, particularly since a coupld of the closures pivoted immediately into welcome successors: Wiltshire on Market gave way to Meesh Meesh, one of the best new spots to come along for a while; and Napa River Grill essentially rebranded as Osteria Italian Seafood without an ownership change.

In addition to Meesh Meesh and Osteria, some noteworthy arrivals included Nami, a modern Korean spot in top chef Edward Lee’s portfolio; Enso in Clifton, a Japanese-influenced spot from the folks who brought us Schnitzelburg’s North of Bourbon; Nostalgic on Bardstown Road, a cousin of the popular Naive in Butchertown; also in Butchertown, Decade, whose name signals its sentimental connection with the departed Decca in Nulu; and Paseo in the new Myriad Hotel on Baxter.

Pandemic, economy, whatever: That feels like a pretty typical year, with about as many gains as losses, despite concerns about supply and labor challenges and rising costs.

So what does the coming year hold for the eats biz? A couple of weeks ago we talked about the positive effects of bourbonism, tourism, and new hotels in building activity for local restaurants and other businesses too.

For better or for worse, what other developments are we likely – or would we like – to see?

To get a handle on the local scene, I sought advice from my social media circles. As usual, I got an extensive wish list, along with a couple of wish nots.

Too many tacos. Several people expressed a desire to see tacos return to their intended status as simple, inexpensive street fare from taquerias. “I’d be happy to see less flashy Taco places,” said one. “I griped before about the tacopalooza tsunami sweeping through the area,” added another.

With a couple of local Taco Luchador shops evolving into Señora Arepa outlets, it appears the industry may be listening. What’s more, on the national level, Nation’s Restaurant News foresees an increase in Venezuelan restaurants, driven by refugees from the economically torn South American nation, among its trends to watch in 2024

Aesthetic cafe culture. After a trip to Korea, a LEO Weekly editor returned home aching to see more of this in Louisville. “working cafes, themed cafes, sleek modern cafes. good coffee and nice snacks … Even the Starbucks in Korea offered a much elevated experience and menu over any around here.”

Plant-based, cruelty free. Several friends wished there were more vegetarian, vegan, “healthy cruelty-free” options around; one even longingly hoped for the arrival of lab-grown meat. I’m seeing more creative plant-based entrees turning up on regular menus, and it’s great to see that choice developing. We’re moving past the days when the sole vegetarian option was a selection of side dishes, but there’s still room to grow.

Evergreen wishes. So many simple notions return year after year. Maybe some day they’ll resonate. A real Jewish deli! A German restaurant, now that Gasthaus has gone! A French bistro! A real Greek eatery! And, of course, more soundproofing, less noise!

Finally, to get outside our local bubble, I skimmed through some prognostication and trend forecasts from industry sources: Nation’s Restaurant News, The American Restaurant Association, Food & Wine magazine, and more. A lot of this was business- and finance-related inside baseball, but these insider views still gave us plenty to, um, chew on.

A random few:

Tomato everywhere. Trend watchers see the versatile tomato as the key ingredient for next year. Consumer and menu research firm Technomic sees 2024 as the “year of the tomato,” looking for this humble fruit to appear in unexpected places like dessert or as a meat replacement.

Cooked cheese. The National Restaurant Association;s annual What’s Hot trend forecast sees baked or similarly heated cheeses such as Swiss raclette, Greek halloumi, and Tex-Mex queso fundido as a significant trend in 2024.

Indian goes fancy. Trend watchers have been waiting for Indian cuisine to really take off in American dining for decades, Nation’s Restaurant News wrote in its 14 restaurant industry predictions for 2024, and it seems to finally be happening. Medium- to high-end independent Indian restaurants are opening across the country. It may have already arrived here in eateries like Tandoori Fusion and another new spot coming soon.

And, in a final trend that I’ll have to see to believe, Ammonium chloride. This is the chemical that imparts its distinctive licorice flavor to salmiak, a Nordic treat. Given Gen Z’s penchant for trying new things, and their pleasure in consuming energy drinks that some of their elders have described as tasting like sweetened battery acid, Nation’s Restaurant News wrote, you have the potential for a whole new polarizing flavor profile.

The post Here come 2024’s restaurant trends, like ‘em or not! appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Vietnam is a tropical country, mostly. In its southern reaches, around Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and the Mekong Delta, it’s searing hot and sopping humid virtually all year.

So how did a country so torrid give birth to pho, that aromatic, beefy soup-as-entree that’s delicious all year ‘round but lovably warming during winter’s icy blasts?

We could go all nerdy and talk about research showing that hot soups (and fiery spices, too) actually have a cooling effect on hot days. This must be true. I read it on the Internet.

But it’s not summer now. It’s cold, and I don’t need any sciencing to persuade me that a steaming bowl of hearty soup, be it senate bean or French onion or, well, pho, will impart warm comfort on a chilly day.

There’s plenty of good pho to be had among Louisville’s many fine Vietnamese eateries, but Eatz Vietnamese won the nod this time for two good reasons: First, I love its pho. Second, just as important, I haven’t checked out Eatz’s current quarters. It moved in 2022 from a tiny venue on the edge of Germantown to a larger space in Clifton, the former home of Fork & Barrel and, before that, Basa Modern Vietnamese.

The layout of the long narrow room hasn’t changed much through its iterations, and even the sturdy wood-look tables and metal chairs look familiar. Freshly painted white walls and colorful abstract art have brightened the space, though. It’s an attractive place to dine, and the food is good.

The menu is similar to that at the previous location, with reasonable inflation-based price increases since my last visit to the Germantown shop in 2021. In addition to a salad ($3 small, $6 large), a half-dozen appetizers range in price from $6.50 (for deep-fried tofu) to $9 (for flash-fried Vietnamese beef meatballs or the signature fish-sauce fried chicken wings). Four banh mi sandwiches are $9 or $11.

Nine entrees start at $10 (for basic fried rice, which goes up in price a few dollars for the optional addition of meats or tofu). Entrees, mostly priced in the teens, top out at $20 (for com dac diet, a bento box with pork, shrimp, eggs and vegetables) and $28 (for bo luc lac, Vietnamese “shaking” beef filet mignon).

A two-piece order of Vietnamese-style spring rolls wrapped in translucent rice paper ($8) was impressive in size and construction. It’s available either with stuffed with shrimp and pork or made plant-based with fried tofu.

They’re served sliced in half, cut edge upward so you can behold how carefully they are prepared. Inside there’s a plank of perfectly fried tofu, firm and browned on the outside, creamy white within. There’s also a bundle of carefully cut quick-pickled carrot julienne, tender rice noodles, crisp cucumber, and dark green lettuce spring mix. It’s plated atop more carrots and a big basil leaf and a tub of peanut sauce.

Pho ($15), described as the restaurant’s specialty, is built on a long-simmered, ginger-and-onion scented beef bone broth loaded with thin rice noodles and scallions, to which you may add beef slices, meatballs, beef tendon, beef tripe, brisket, chicken tenders, or tofu; for an upcharge you may increase those meats or add filet mignon, short ribs, or shrimp. In traditional Vietnamese fashion it’s served with a side plate full of bean sprouts, Thai basil, cilantro leaves, jalapeno slices, and lime wedges so you can add flavors to your liking

 We summoned the standard version with beef slices, which came with a generous clump of noodles submerged in the broth. Fun fact: Pho, like other similar Asian dishes, is not considered soup but a noodle dish in broth. Floating on top was a good-size stack of thin raw beef slices that gradually cook in the hot broth. The bone broth was just as delicious as ever, a true, rich bone broth a gentle anise hint of five-spice. Thin slices of green onion and tiny cilantro leaves also float on top in a pretty display.

Bun Thit Nuong ($14), a South Vietnamese pork loin noodle dish, is traditionally made with grilled pork loin, but it’s also one of Eatz’s dishes available in a vegetarian alternative. That’s accomplished by substituting chewy cubes of tofu for the pork and leaving out the house-blended fish sauce that’s customary in the carnivorous version.

A salad-like noodle dish served warm in an attractive deep black bowl, it starts with a bed of vermicelli rice noodles composed with a variety of toppings: Inch-square fried tofu cubes, pickled julienne carrot, shredded radish, crisp cucumber, and chopped peanuts, with basil leaves and fresh spring mix salad on the side. Pour on the spicy soy-based dressing that comes alongside, stir it up, and enjoy!

With hot Vietnamese coffee ($5), not dripped at the table but made in the kitchen and served in a diner-style mug, our meal for two came to $44.52, plus a $9 tip.

Eatz Vietnamese
2244 Frankfort Ave.
785-4450
eatzvietnameseky.com
facebook.com/eatzvietnamese

Noise Level: With the room about half-filled and soft music on the sound system, the average sound level was 63.9dB, no barrier to normal conversation.

Accessibility: The front door is up two tall steps, but there’s wheelchair access from the parking area behind the building. The dining area and restrooms appear fully accessible.

The post Banish the winter chill with warming pho at Eatz appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

What? another year has gone by already!? How in the heck did that even happen?

We’re another year away from the Covid-19 pandemic that came out of nowhere to scare the hell out of us, and we’ve become so blasé that only a tiny fraction of Americans have even bothered to get the updated and curated 2023-2024 vaccine. (It’s your call, but I’ve got mine.)

Moreover, a year later, the restaurant industry continues to grapple with business issues that the pandemic brought into clear sight …

Increasing food costs, rising costs of labor – a good thing, as servers and cooks begin inching gradually toward proper compensation for their work – and a newly critical dining public with not unreasonable expectations of quality food and service.

That may sound a lot like bad news, but there’s a bright side, and it starts with B and that stands for booze. Well, Bourbonism. The Louisville hotel market has seen a significant increase in leisure travel associated with bourbon tourism since 2020, hotel industry consultant HVS reported in August, and it’s thanks to “demand generators” like bourbonism that the Louisville hospitality market has been able to recover most of its Covid-19 financial losses.

That’s good news for a restaurant industry that, long reliant on local diners plus convention traffic and an annual Derby Season boost, now finds business bolstered by bourbon-thirsty visitors year-round.

It’s surely no coincidence that the arrival of new hotels in Nulu and the Highlands, and strategic placement of new restaurants are converting the city’s separate dining strips into one sprawling tourist-friendly zone. From a tourist’s standpoint (and a local’s, too), the dining and entertainment areas from downtown through Nulu and Butchertown to the Highlands, Clifton, and Crescent Hill into an almost contiguous party zone. Economically, that’s a very good thing.

We’ll continue watching these developments. For now, though, as the old year slouches into the new, let’s mark 2023’s passing with a quick look back at some of the most delicious restaurant meals I’ve enjoyed during 2023.

Ginger soup at Banh Thai & M
Served steaming and refreshingly aromatic, this was a delightful sweet, tangy, and deeply ginger-flavored broth loaded with halved white mushrooms, strips of onion and julienned ginger, scallions and baby corn. It was profoundly appetizing, and a perfect choice for a chilly winter day. (Jan. 18)
Bahn Thai & M, 2226 Holiday Manor Center, 365-2776

Carnitas taco at El Mariachi
Built on a doubled corn tortilla, this tasty taco was filled with long-cooked, subtly spicy, shredded pork carnitas, simply dressed Mexican-style with chopped onions and cilantro on top and a lime wedge on the side. Thick house-made tortillas made for a sturdy taco that didn’t fall apart. (Jan. 31)
El Mariachi Restaurante Mexicano, 9901 Lagrange Road, 413-5770

Fried fish at The Irish Rover
Irish Rover’s magisterial fish and chips consistently rank near the top among scores of worthy local fried-fish competitors. An inch-thick, rectangular slab of flaky white cod was thoroughly beer-battered, then fried until a crispy, crunchy, sizzling hot, grease-free coating formed. This is a treat during Lent or any other time of year. (March 29)
The Irish Rover, 2319 Frankfort Ave., 899-3544

Vegetable Bolognese at Anoosh Bistro
This is an exceptional meatless dish that could please even the most ardent carnivore. A portion of spaghetti squash made a crisp base for a Bolognese-style sauce built on lentils in place of chopped beef, blended with cauliflower and portobellos into a complex, filling sauce. Chopped basil and finely grated Parmesan (which may be omitted for a vegan dish) completed a resounding flavor symphony. (May 10)
Anoosh Bistro, 4864 Brownsboro Center, 690-6585

Tempura cauliflower at Naïve
This vegetarian dish was spectacularly good, a splendid example of kitchen creativity. Oversize chunks of tender but not mushy cauliflower were encased in crunchy panko tempura breading and fried just right, then topped with pickled scallions, sweet-and-spicy maple chile dressing, crisp fried kale leaves, and delectable bits of popped sorghum on top just for fun. (June 21)
Naive Kitchen + Bar, 1001 E. Washington St., 749-7856

Charcuterie plate at Harvey’s
Works of edible art, Harvey’s a la carte charcuterie selections come in a satisfying combination of colors and textures – Some crunchy, some soft, some spicy, and some sweet. Our small plate featured salami slices neatly fashioned into flower shapes, surrounded by spicy pickled brussels sprouts; creamy mustard with a dab of wasabi; tiny cornichons; mini teardrop-shape red peppers; spiced pistachios in the shell; corn nuts; marinated black olives; dried figs and apricots; toasted seeded bread triangles and a stack of tiny square mini-toasts. (July 19)
Harvey’s, 2011 Frankfort Ave., 314-0432

The Uptown Café burger
A star of Uptown Café’s menu since the Highlands fixture began its run 35 years ago, this burger (pictured at the top of this page) is an excellent hand-shaped, homemade patty. Hot-pink medium-rare, exactly as ordered, it was served open-faced on a thin English muffin, with a dollop of blue cheese dressing. (Aug. 16)
Uptown Cafe, 1624 Bardstown Road, 405-8898

Shawarma spiced chicken thighs at Meesh Meesh
This spicy chicken-thigh dish Chef Noam Bilitzer’s Meesh Meesh, one of the best new restaurants of the year, dish was so good that even the scents wafting up from the plate inspired a powerful appetite. Three deboned thighs were coated with sumac and baked very crisp and deeply flavorful. Kicked up with the Levantine curried green mango condiment amba and fiery red schug, a Yemeni chili condiment, it was garnished with cilantro and mint leaves. (Oct. 25)
Meesh Meesh, 636 E. Market St. 589-5224

The Bollywood Taco at Tikka Tacos
Louisville’s only Indian-Mexican fusion eatery puts sticky, minty, cumin-and-citrus scented chicken tikka and a scoop of rice into a puffy, flaky Indian paratha flatbreads instead of the usual tortilla. Then it goes all South-of-the-Border with sliced avocado, pico de gallo, red onions, and fresh lettuce. All the flavors were wonderful, with that fresh. complex quality that makes Indian curry flavors pop.
Tikka Tacos, 3311 Preston Highway, 918-4606

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When was the day the disco died? Surely the dance and the surrounding culture were already fading by the late 1970s. But historians trace its ultimate demise to July 12, 1979, when a wacky “Disco Demolition” night at Chicago’s Comiskey Park boiled into a riot that caused at least nine injuries, 39 arrests, and the forfeit of that night’s Major League Baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers.

It was a momentous occasion, I’m sure. But riddle me this: Why am I recalling this sad event to introduce this week’s restaurant review? Stay with me. I’ll get there as fast as I can.

This may seem counterintuitive, but Kentucky has a long and tangled history with disco, or more specifically the shiny, mirror-surfaced disco ball. According to NBC News the disco ball was invented in Kentucky in 1917, which seems odd when we consider that the disco craze itself didn’t come along for another 45 years or so.

What’s more, Louisville’s Omega National Products was one of the largest disco ball factories in the U.S., and eventually became the last one standing. We proudly claimed our status as Disco Ball City, even as production dropped with declining demand to only a few glittering balls weekly.

All this eventually had to end, and this is where we finally dance around to the point: So long, Omega National and your disco balls. Welcome, Myriad Hotel and its upscale Mediterranean restaurant, Paseo. The restaurant actually opened a month or so before the hotel did, but it’s all in operation now, including Myriad’s more casual restaurant, Switchboard; an extensive patio, meeting spaces, and even a swimming pool.

The hotel reportedly works disco balls into its decor, but I didn’t see any disco action in Paseo’s dining room, other than a pair of towering bright-orange industrial tanks that rise just outside. Built as collectors for glass dust from cutting mirrors, they now form a striking industrial-chic display.

Paseo self-describes as a “metropolitan-style restaurant bursting with Mediterranean spice and scenery,” and that seems fair, if we think of the full scope of the Med from Spain to the Levant.

I had had my eye on Paseo for a while, based on positive review from friends, but delayed while I saved up a little cash: Chef Jeremy Frederiksen’s goodies like a $56 seafood paella and many paella and pasta dishes and entrees priced in the $28-$48 range made it feel like a special-occasion kind of place.

Paseo recently launched a Saturday and Sunday brunch menu, though, and the lure of more affordable midday dishes drew me right in. The menu is less extensive, but feels more accessible with prices from $10 to $14 for a quartet of starters and – with the exception of a $48 strip steak and egg plate – $14 to $22 for the remaining seven brunch entrees.

If the idea of hummus makes you go ho, hummus, you haven’t tried Pasoe’s hummus brulée ($13). Thick and rich, it was topped with Bharat sunflower seeds, snipped chives, and embered onion jam, broiled over a wood fire just long enough to impart a tasty smoky character. Alongside came a pile of thin, very crisp toasted, seeded lavash flatbread.

The grilled lamb burger ($22, pictured at the top of the page) was generously portioned, perhaps a half-pound, so tall that it looked like a meatball. It was perfectly cooked to a dark, crunchy exterior surrounding warm pink lamb meat. It was topped with a soft sunny-side egg sprinkled with chopped chives and red-pepper flakes, and served on a quality bun.

Accompanying the burger on the plate was a football-shaped serving of creamy mahón cheese with a complex flavor. Paseo’s Mediterranean character recurred in all three of our dishes in a complex, cumin-dominated flavor, each similar but distinctly different and very good. Four gently smashed roasted new potatoes came alongside, soft and creamy within their crispy oiled skins.  The burger bun had been buttered and grilled on its open sides; the bottom half was coated with the sweet onion jam with its smoky chipotle flavoring.

Shakshuka ($20) is increasingly popular these days, and I’m glad. A popular treat around the eastern rim of the Mediterranean from Egypt through Israel to Syria and Lebanon, and in Italy where a similar dish goes by Uova In Purgatorio (Eggs in Purgatory), it’s basically a spicy tomato stew with poached eggs on top. Paseo’s version was tasty and very filling, with coarse-textured, spice-scented tomatoes topped with two pretty but problematic eggs. I like runny eggs, preferably pastured eggs from local farms, but these went beyond: The yolks were cool and portions of the whites remained uncooked, clear and glistening. I didn’t complain. In fact I ate them, grudgingly. But in retrospect I should have asked for a re-do, and in a similar case, you should, too.

With two big mugs of sustainably sourced Counter Culture brand coffee ($3 each), brunch for two came to $64.66, plus a $14 tip.

Paseo Restaurant
Myriad Hotel
900 Baxter Ave.
632-7935
paseolouisville.com
facebook.com/paseolou
instagram.com/paseolou

Noise Level: We had a room largely to ourselves for Saturday midday brunch, so conversation was easy at a moderate 64.2dB sound level.

Accessibility: The entrance and dining area appear to be accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Have a (disco) ball at Paseo appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Today: Cloudy, gradually becoming overcast, with a high near 34. Gusty and variable winds, with rain, sleet, and snow showers through the period.

That’s the kind of dismal forecast that just shouts “Louisville Winter!” Blustery weather like thismakes me crave warm, consoling comfort food … and a warm, consoling comfort restaurant to enjoy it in.

But what does a restaurant like that look like? On a frigid December day when even your eyebrows feel frosty, opening the door into a warm, cozy restaurant is like hitting the jackpot. As soon as you walk in you feel a lovely warmth that makes you forget you can’t feel your toes.

The room may be romantically dim, and yet it is lighted up like a Christmas tree, and everything smells so good that it supercharges your appetite. The buzz of a happy crowd fills your ears, but it’s such a happy sound that you don’t object. Pull up a comfortable chair and discover a menu jam-packed with things you love. Calories? Carbs? Who cares? This is a comfort feast that will warm you from the inside out.

I’ve got my thoughts, and I won’t be shy about sharing them today. As a reality check and source of additional information, I turned to the social media hive mind. “Listen up,” I posted. “Imagine a cold, blustery winter night. What local eatery do you choose for warmth and comfort? What makes a restaurant a refuge from winter’s blasts?”

Did I get answers? You bet I did. Let’s look at a few of those comfort criteria, and talk about some favorite local eateries that offer warming solace to the shivering traveler.

A warming hearth

Right off the top, a roaring fireplace says “Come in and get warm.” Just about every local eatery that boasts a warming fire came in for favorable mention, many earning multiple nominations. The old Butchertown farmhouse that once housed L&N Wine Bar, later Bistro 1860, and now Chik’n & Mi. I remember many a happy meal on a frigid day at a table nestled right up to L&N’s toasty fire, and I’m glad that possibility still exists under the current ownership.

Sadly, the welcoming fireplace that lured the frozen to the old Baxter Station was lost to the renovation that turned this establishment into Ciao, an otherwise estimable but fireplace-deprived Italian-style eatery. Still, plenty of warming fires beckon the winter-weary around town: Mesh, Brasserie Provence, Molly Malone’s, and Village Anchor all earned praise from social-media friends.

What’s more, you don’t absolutely need a fireplace to enjoy the warmth of primal fire. To test this seemingly contradictory notion, settle down in the neighborhood of the roaring wood-burning stoves in the open kitchens at Noosh Nosh, Coal’s Pizza, or Red Hog, just to name a few.

Warming atmosphere

Even in the absence of a roaring fireplace, some local destinations seem to attract winter love simply because of the warmth of their welcome, their mood, and their food. Far and away the most frequently mentioned winter destination was Irish Rover, whose historic Frankfort Avenue quarters does not include a working fireplace. :The atmosphere is so happy, and that gives me warm and cozy vibes,” a Facebook friend testified. :And of course, the delicious comfort food.”

Indeed, name an Irish pub and you’ll immediately feel a consoling warmth. Another friend celebrated most of the local options in a single breath: “Irish Rover or The Raven or Molly Malone’s, Flanagan’s, O’Shea’s … they really have it down!”

It doesn’t have to be Irish. Other pardon-the-expression warm thoughts surrounded area pubs and eateries.

Check’s Cafe? The bean soup answers all the questions, one friend suggested. “Don’t forget the chili,” said another. Buck’s, my favorite in any weather, added another. “In winter, it is even more welcoming. Warm golden glow and white flowers. Staff makes me feel like I belong!”

It’s true that lighting can make a huge difference. At North of Bourbon on a chilly December night last year, the twinkling lights overhead and warm glow behind the rows of bourbon on the back bar seemed to generate a warmth that filled the room.

Still mourning the loss of Gasthaus, a friend memorably celebrated its winter attractions: “The Gasthaus … was best enjoyed on a cold winter night in my opinion. The lighting, the abundance of German decor, the cozy nooks that the built in ‘cottages’ created, the gluhwein, potato soup, schnitzel, spaetzle, kraut, of course warm apple strudel for dessert, all made it a delightful hyggekrog.”

Warmth from within

Finally, there’s no more enduring warmth than the inner glow that accompanies the consumption of comfort food. The carnivorous comforts of Brazeiros Louisville – Brazilian Steakhouse drew one friend’s nomination. Others mentioned the warm, welcoming decor and elevated Italian fare at Volare. And many – including me – celebrate the filling heat and spicy warmth of hearty Asian soups. There’s pho at Eatz Vietnamese, District 6, Namnam Cafe, and more, Thai soups at Simply Thai, All Thai’d Up, Banh Thai & M, Time for Thai, and others, or hearty noodle or rice dishes at Lee’s, Koreana, and Nami among the city’s many Korean spots.

Much of another Louisville winter lies ahead. But when that numbing chill settles in, you know what to do.

The post C-c-c-cold? Crank up the warmth at favorite eateries appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

What is tikka? Based on a Punjabi word meaning “small pieces of meat,” it’s an Indian dish of marinated, tandoor-roasted meat. Eat them right up, or serve them in a creamy sauce as tikka masala.

Okay, then, what’s a taco? You’re kidding me, right? Everyone knows what a taco is.

But what happens if for some inexplicable reason someone decided to put these two things together? Shazam! Now we’ve got Tikka Tacos, a curiously delightful new spot on Preston Street near Audubon Park.

Opened recently in the former home of New Wave Burritos, Tikka Tacos promises us “Indo-Mexi Fusion.”

“Indo-Mexi Fusion”? This is a combination of words that one rarely hears. But they already had me at “Tikka” and “Taco.” I love Indian food, and I love Mexican food. How could I not leap in the car and head straight for this wondrous new experience?

Tikka Tacos’ narrow, windowless room receives little daylight, but walls painted adobe yellow and pale sky blue with pops of red chiles brighten the space. A small bar with a half-dozen tall seats fills one side of the room.

Our friendly server, who may also have been the owner, told us that the idea to merge Mexican and Indian fare came out of a conversation over a few drinks that paid off. An effort to train one chef in both cuisines didn’t work out, though, so, he said, a Mexican and an Indian cook work together in the kitchen.

The menu does lean more toward tikka than taco, but both cuisines are front and center, variously separate or blended. A dozen dishes billed as “specialties” include three or four seemingly Mexican tacos and a burrito; the rest appear to be standard Indian fare. These dishes are priced from $11 (for tuna tacos, lamb tacos, or the classic spicy, deep-fried South Indian dish chicken 65) to $16 (for butter chicken masala or chicken tikka masala).

Seven more dishes listed as “entrees” lean more Mexican, with taco, burrito, quesadilla, and loaded nacho plates from S$10-$12, plus a couple of down-home Norteamericano items such as Philly cheesesteaks ($10).

Right at the top of the menu stands that mysterious Bollywood taco, billed as the restaurant’s “Signature Fusion” offering. What is this intriguing thing?

First off, it’s not so much a fusion as a merger. The Bollywood taco ($9, pictured at the top of the page) places an Indian standard – spicy, minty, cumin-and-citrus-scented bits of tender chicken tikka and a scoop of rice – into a puffy, flaky Indian flatbread called paratha that fills in for the usual tortilla. But then it goes all South-of-the-Border with toppings of sliced avocado, pico de gallo, red onions, and fresh lettuce.

Like several of the other dishes, the Bollywood came with small tubs of mild avocado sauce and fiery salsa verde. Or was it green chutney? At Tikka Tacos, you can never be quite sure.

An odd combination? Well, yes. But the flavors were wonderful. It boasted that fresh. complex quality that makes Indian curry flavors pop, with haunting aromas and then, blasting in at the end, mild but perceptible chile pepper heat. It was an unexpected mix, but it was memorably good, and so were the other dishes we tried. The cooks – both of them – consistently hit the mark.

Vegetable somosas ($6) are billed as an appetizer, but came out after the Bollywood. No matter, it was worth the wait. Two hunks of crisp, golden fried pastry the size of baseballs but shaped as cones were loaded with an flavor-rich mix of soft, hot potato, finely chopped hot red and green peppers, onions, mint, and cilantro, all browned and stuffed into the sizzling pastry treats.

India is famous for its dal, a hearty, nutritious, and usually spicy lentil stew that comes in dozens of forms. Tikka Tacos’ dal tadka ($14) was an excellent example. It was prettily plated in a squarish white bowl with dal on one side and perfect basmati rice dotted with spices on the other. The dal, a comforting porridge-like mix of soft yellow lentils with tomatoes and plenty of garlic and peppery heat, was garnished with cilantro leaves and one long red chile pepper left on top as the ghee-and-spice tadka was stirred into the mix.

As an apparent apology for the Clover point-of-sale system being down, our host comped us to a slice of homemade carrot cake ($5) to go, an unnecessary but kind gesture. A generous slice of rich, textured, deeply flavored and sweet but not cloying cake was dotted with visible carrot bits and covered with a thick cream-cheese frosting.

A noteworthy meal for two came to a thrifty $32.86, and I shelled all the remaining singles out of my wallet to approximate a tip since the credit-card system wasn’t working. It probably wasn’t enough, but I’ll catch up next time.

Tikka Tacos
3311 Preston Highway
918-4606
Facebook: TIkkaTacosFB
Instagram: TikkaTacosLouisville

Noise Level: It was sporadically noisy in the crowded room, especially when Imagine Dragon’s pop rock hit Believer hit the sound system. Sound levels averaged just under 70dB, with conversation-blasting peaks to 81.9dB.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users, but rough and uneven surfaces and concrete car bumper blocks outside the front entrance can make for a treacherous trip from your car to the door.

The post Indian? Mexican? Treat yourself to both at Tikka Tacos appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Any discussion of Louisville’s oldest and most iconic restaurants can’t reasonably overlook Twig & Leaf. Founded in 1962, this Douglass Loop neighborhood landmark with its iconic leaf-shaped neon sign has been a local go-to spot for diner fare for a long, long time.

Sure, this place has had its ups and downs. Passing though many ownership hands over the years, it’s been cherished at times, avoided at others: Favored by ‘60s hippies with the late-night munchies, later hailed by the Highlands lunch set, sometimes widely ignored, the Twig endures.

In recent years, Twig & Leaf has been bouncing back under a succession of owners who’ve freshened its look, scrubbed it sparkling clean, and updated its fare while hanging on to its old-school diner vibe. No longer an all-night destination, it’s open daily except Tuesday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but closes early evenings until the next day.

But here’s the surprise that drew me back in like a moth to the flame: For the past month, after serving its traditional fresh-made, short-order diner menu from 7 a.m.-3 p.m., – including breakfast dishes served all day as a proper diner should – it now reopens at 4 p.m. with an all-Latin menu featuring Mexican and Guatemalan fare.

Say what? Twig and Leaf becomes La Ramita y la Hoja? Well, not officially, but we could just as well translate the name to Spanish. That would properly recognize the presence of Antonio Vasquez, the chef, who takes the kitchen’s helm evenings and turns out memorable, well-crafted items representing both traditional Mexican delights and the less familiar fare of Guatemala.

Vasquez told us that he and his family have been in Louisville for 10 years and are well established here; his school-age child attends local public school. In what appears to be an example of immigrant grit, he told us that English is his third language; he had to learn Spanish after growing up speaking Mam, the indigenous Mayan language of western Guatemala and Chiapas in Southern Mexico.

The Mayan menu features about a dozen items in a mix of Mexican and Guatemalan tradition. Pricing is quite reasonable, with generously portioned entrees ranging from $10.50 (for gorditas, empanadas, taquitos, or tostadas) to $13.50 (for quesadillas, burritos, tortas, or a not-so-Latino platter of chicken tenders with fries). Chicken tenders are also available as a six-piece appetizer ($8.99) or a child’s plate ($6.49).

We ordered Guatemala tacos ($11.99, pictured at the top of this page) to start, and we got mouth-watering evidence of the delights to come before the food even reached our table: The most delicious scent of quality beef on the grill came drifting out of the kitchen and whetted our appetites more than any starter could have done.

Three large, soft tacos came out on a large, oval white stoneware plate with lime wedges and a dish of house-made fiery, cilantro-laced avocado salsa verde on the side.

Each taco was wrapped in freshly made white corn tortillas about 6 inches in diameter, softer and thicker than typical Mexican tortillas. They were delicious and tender but their tenderness makes it challenging for the uninitiated to eat them out of hand without them falling apart. A fork is a perfectly acceptable alternative.

They were topped with hefty portions of that great-smelling an intensely beef. finely shredded, crowned with finely chopped white cabbage and cilantro, and drizzled with tangy citrus. All the flavors went together beautifully, and the salsa brought it together.

Pupusas ($11.99) are Central America’s answer to Mexico’s tortillas and Colombia’s and Venezuela’s arepas, or for that matter the good old Anglo white-bread sandwich. Popular, with local variations, in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. they are thick, soft, cornmeal-based, skillet-cooked flatbreads that you can stuff or top with good things to eat. They remind me of fat cornmeal pancakes, but savory with that delicious Latin cornmeal scent. They came stuffed with a thin layer of soft black beans and were topped with a crisp-textured slad mix of sliced raw onions, cabbage, and carrots with a tangy citrus dressing. A bowl of tasty, not too fiery, salsa roja on the side.

Now imagine a pupusa but make it thin, split it and fry it. This is a gordita ($10.50), a beloved Mexican street-food snack that’s also popular through Central America. Twig and Leaf’s version comes in threes and is fried deliciously crisp, then stuffed with a mix of black beans, mild cheese, lettuce, sour cream, and pico de gallo. You can get it with your choice of chicken, beef, or the beef-chorizo mix called campchano, or – as with many of these dishes – omit the meat for a vegetarian option

With ice water and a Jarritos grapefruit soft drink ($2.99), a filling Guatemalan and Mexican dinner came to $41.31, plus a $10 tip.

Twig and Leaf
Mexican and Guatemalan menu
2122 Bardstown Road
451-8944
twigandleafky.com
facebook.com/thetwigandleaf

Noise Level: Quiet with few other customers at the time of our visit.

Accessibility: The entrance appears accessible to wheelchair users, but seating is in booths or counter stools.

The post Twig and Leaf goes Latin at dinner time appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Wait! What? There’s a Thai restaurant in the space that housed the German restaurant Gasthaus for nearly 30 years!?

Yep, and the new arrival, All Thai’d Up, is a good Thai eatery, too. Still, it came as a surprise when Gasthaus announced its departure in a social media post in May 2022.

The owners, it said, decided to take an early retirement, “but hope that someone with the enthusiasm and love for the German culture will step in and take over the Gasthaus.”

That hope didn’t work out, leaving Louisville, despite the city’s Germanic heritage, without a single authentic German eatery, and none in sight.

But All Thai’d Up, which started life as a popular food truck and added a small downtown bricks-and-mortar presence, migrated east to fill the vacant Brownsboro Center space this past July,

The transition from Bavaria to Thailand went surprisingly smoothly, given what a project it must have been to convert Gasthaus’s Bavarian vibe featuring German knickknacks and a simulated white-stone Alpine village to a new Southeast Asian tropical look with Thai knickknacks and simulated thatched-roof beach huts.

Here’s the good news, though: Just as Gasthaus offered tasty German food in a cozy atmosphere and attentive service, All Thai’d up offers tasty Thai food in a cozy atmosphere with attentive service. The food and mood may have flipped to the other side of the world, but it’s still a pleasant and relaxing place to enjoy a good meal.

All Thai’d up opened initially for dinner early, but starting this month they’ve added lunch hours with a separate menu. The lunch menu features a half-dozen Thai soups and salads, which in Thai tradition are substantial enough to serve as main courses. They range in price from $9 (for tom ka gai, lemongrass and coconut milk chicken soup) to $14 (for a grilled beef salad or mung bean noodle salad with pork and shrimp). Nine rice and noodle dishes are priced from $17 (for khao pad gai, egg fried rice with chicken) to $23 (for a curry noodle soup, shrimp pad Thai, or egg fried rice with crab).

The dinner menu is much more extensive, featuring more than two dozen entree options plus starters, but prices are in the same range, from $17 to $23 for most items. Full bar service is available, including craft cocktails, craft and commercial beers, and a modest wine list.

We passed on those options at the noon hour, but I called for a tall glass of Thai coffee ($6) and got a thick, aromatic blend of dark coffee and sweet condensed milk almost sweet enough for dessert.

A pair of fried spring rolls ($5), each cut in half to make four two-bite morsels, were rolled in thin pastry wrappers and fried very crisp and not too greasy. They were filled with chopped cabbage and thin bean noodles plus a few bits of grated carrot. It was presented with a thick, red, sweet-hot chili sauce for dipping.

Another appetizer, a curry puff ($7), consisted of a flaky pastry wrapper the size of your hand, stuffed with potatoes, peas, and carrots and mild yellow curry paste. It came with a gently spicy clear dipping sauce filled with tiny, very crunchy cucumber dice.

Four spicy Thai condiments to fire up your fare.

Only a few of All Thai’d Up’s dishes are marked with chile peppers indicating a non-negotiable hot-and-spicy flavor, but every table comes a set of four bowls of fiery condiments so you can doctor up everything the way you like it.

At first glance the menu also appears not to offer any animal-free options other than a couple of dinner appetizers, but if that’s the way you roll, look more closely: Tiny icons indicate that many dishes can be made vegetarian or vegan by substituting tofu for meat and avoiding eggs and fish-based sauces. Pescetarian and gluten-free are also options for many dishes.

We checked this out by requesting tofu in place of pork in pad see eew ($19), a traditional Thai noodle dish (pictured at the top of the page). A hearty and filling meal, it consisted of wide wheat noodles tossed with thin-sliced gai lan (Chinese broccoli) shredded carrots, bits of scrambled egg, and rectangular strups of pressed, marinated, chewy baked tofu.

The subtle aromatics of chicken broth and coconut milk, lemongrass and salantro elevate the flavor of tom kha gai (Thai hot and sour chicken soup).

A deep white bowl almost brim full of kha gai chicken soup ($9) was excellent, a highlight of the meal. The thin but flavorful broth was made with a mix of chicken broth and coconut milk. The soup was full of goodies, not least abundant slices of boneless white chicken meat plus tender, sweet slices of oyster mushroom, bits of white onion, sliced galangal (a citrusy Asian cousin of ginger), bias-cut lengths of lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves, all topped with fresh cilantro. All these flavors fused into an unforgettably fragrant, complex broth.

A large white bowl alongside was filled with a large, neatly formed mound of white rice decorated with three cucumber slices. Our server suggested pouring the soup over the rice, a suggestion we happily accepted.

A splendid meal for two came to $48.76, plus a $12 tip.

All Thai’d Up
4812 Brownsboro Center
653-7437
allthaidupky.com
facebook.com/AllThaidUpKY
instagram.com/allthaidupky

Noise Level: Conversation was easy during a Saturday lunch hour, with decibel levels at a reasonable 58.2dB.

Accessibility: The dining room and restrooms appear fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Gasthaus space gives way to All Thai’d Up appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Restaurant food is delicious. We all know that. This is why we love to eat out. But is it healthy? Well …Chances are that your wondrous repast is loaded with butter, weighed down with carbs, blown up into portion sizes big enough for three. Hell, that’s what makes it so good!

But sometimes, perhaps after looking at the scales or eyeing our next health checkup, we wonder: Is there any way to enjoy restaurant fare without setting out on a slow path to an early demise?

Well, maybe.

Around this time last year I talked about the deliciousness of pizza and how it’s possible, with a spoonful of creativity and a pinch of sacrifice, to dine upon the tasty pie in a healthy way.

Today let’s talk about a few ways that we can enjoy rich and tempting restaurant fare – with emphasis on “enjoy” – without risking our health or bulging out of our wardrobe. Or, for that matter, sucking all the joy out of dining out, something that’s meant to be fun.

With that in mind, let’s chop up my advice into tasty bites, starting at home or work before we go out.

Before you go 
Check the menu online. Get a sense of what looks good and how you might plan a satisfying but reasonable meal. Leave yourself open to being tempted by specials. That’s fair. But have a general plan.

When you go, be hungry but not ravenous. This is akin to the conventional wisdom about not going to the grocery store hungry and buying all the snack food in sight.

Before the meal
Once you’re seated, take your time. Take a breath and don’t feel rushed. If the server pushes an appetizer or a cocktail, ask for a few minutes to decide. Then consider. Was this part of your plan? Alcohol in particular brings extra calories, but you don’t have to say no to a glass of wine or a margarita. Or choose a glass of water with a lemon or lime twist to make it fun. But avoid a sugary soft drink, the calorific equivalent of a dish of ice cream.

Check the menu again. Does your plan still work for you? You’re free to make a change, but consider the pardon-the-expression weight of your decision. A salad or fries? If you go for the salad, consider a vinaigrette instead of a creamy dressing. Or get the dressing on the side. No one is going to hate on mashed potatoes with a steak, but you might ask about a lighter side dish. How light? A bowl of spinach or a dish of green beans with bacon grease and ham? Use your common sense.

Lomo saltado, a steak with a Peruvian accent, is a beefy appetizer big enough to serve as a main dish at Anoosh Bistro. It’s topped with crisp fries and zippy red peppers. You could avoid the fries to save calories, but why?

Do you really want that steak? Or is lighter-weight chicken or fish just as good? Does it come with a rich, creamy sauce or a tasty but lighter tomato sauce? Don’t rule out a meatless entree, especially if the chef has the knowledge and the skill to craft an exciting plant-based dish as tasty as the meat items.

Hey, look! It’s the chips and salsa! Or the pita quarters or the sliced baguette or warm bread and butter! Yes, you can eat it all. I often do. And then we wonder why we’re full before dinner arrives.

During dinner
Take it slowly. Relax and savor every bite mindfully. This is good for your digestion and your frame of mind.

Drink plenty of water. Pausing for a sip slows your consumption and takes a load off your digestion.

Watch portion sizes. Restaurant portions are often huge. Might you share an entree? How much should you order? One pricey entree along with one or two appetizers or small plates is often plenty of food for two, with a bit of a saving and leftovers too.

What’s on the side? What’s on top? Should yo choose something fried and loaded with crunchy bits or something healthier and, well, almost as delicious.

Do we really need dessert? Yeah, maybe we do. Or maybe just a leisurely cup of coffee after the meal.

Take some home
Once upon a time it felt embarrassing to take leftovers home. That’s why the lying name “doggie bag” was invented. Well, those days are past, bubba. Restaurants are happy to pack your leftovers. Wasting food is a bad practice, and saving part of that pricey dinner for later is good for you and your wallet, too. Don’t hesitate to have your leftovers bagged or boxed. It’s the right thing to do.

Speaking of that bag or box, I’d love it if more restaurants used recyclable or compostable takeout containers in place of non-recyclable plastics. Until then, I keep sturdy containers in the car so I can sneak them in for my leftovers. Don’t send another plastic box to the landfill … or to Earth’s oceans.

Use the leftovers, Iron Chef 
Do you like to cook? It can be fun to take that little pile of leftovers, add some veggies and condiments from your own pantry, and create an entirely new lunch. Add your own topping to that pizza slice and fire it in the toaster oven. Leftovers can make you feel like the Iron Chef!

And every day …
It’s not difficult to eat out regularly and still stay in shape. Regular exercise matters, but you don’t have to run marathons. Twenty minutes a day in brisk walking helps. Get up from your desk and move around every hour or so (and yes, there is an app for that). Maybe most important, do regular pushbacks. Yeah, I’m talking about pushing back from the table when you’re comfortably full.

Finally, don’t stress over all this. You deserve a break today, and so do I. But if you love dining out as much as I do, do yourself a favor and be mindful of doing it in a healthy way … most of the time.

The post Healthy dining out? Yes, it is possible appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Napa River Grill enjoyed a very good run before it renovated and rebranded as Osteria Italian Seafood last month.

Its name recently foreshortened to just-plain Napa, the upscale Northern California-style eatery had endured for 24 years, a long life for a restaurant.

After succeeding the fondly remembered Mamma Grisanti in Dupont Square in 1999, Napa River Grill moved to the then-new Westport Village in 2008. Several owners took its helm over the years. Even its familiar vineyard-shaded patio survived the move, and it remains in the new incarnation.

So while Osteria went through a quick renovation that converted its colors to nautical blues and whites during its brief closing in September, there’s still a distinct sense of the old Napa just beneath the surface.

Several of Napa’s most familiar menu items remain, and Napa’s Chef Seth Butkus is still at the helm in the kitchen. For all the emphasis on seafood and fish, there’s still an ample selection of chicken, pork, beef and cheese dishes to offer variety.

I think this is a smart move by Osteria owner Jared Fox Matthews, who brings his experience taking over and revitalizing Lou Lou Food & Drink and opening its second location; converting Equus and Jack’s into Black Rabbit, and remaking Diamond Pub & Billiards (where he had long been bar manager and later managing partner) to The Fox Den.

Osteria, whose Italian name means “tavern” with a strong sense of “roadhouse,” continues in that pattern: It builds on the vibe of its predecessor, expands it, and makes it new, but in comfortable ways that don’t banish its existing audience.

We arrived for a Saturday lunch and found the rooms filling up fast, but there were more than enough servers on hand to provide ample, if a bit chatty, service to everyone.

The lunch and dinner menus are similar in content and price, but a few more items are available in the evening, and the list of pasta and main dishes is more extensive (and more pricey) at night.

Appetizers (billed as “for the table,” soups and salads are priced from $3 (for lobster sliders and arancini Italian rice balls) to $25 (for Maryland lump crab cakes); a $30 antipasto board is available only evenings. Four house-made pasta dishes are all $20 for lunch; options expand to eight at night with prices from $21 (for spaghetti cacio a pepe) to $46 (for the house cioppino with diver scallops, shrimp, clams, mussels, and lobster in spicy tomato sauce over fettuccine).

Eight main courses at lunch are priced from $16 (for several items) to $28 (for sustainably caught verlasso salmon with a veggie mix). Nine evening entrees, many of them different from the lunch list, are $20 (for a margherita pizza) to $56 (for an 8-ounce filet mignon with Chianti demiglace).

As before, the restaurant’s bar is in a separate room with a comfortable dining area. Gone is the wine list’s Napa focus, replaced by a mostly Italian list regionally divided from Italy’s northern Piemonte and Veneto to Sicily in the south. There’s an enticing list of craft cocktails ($12 to $15), and the extensive bourbon selection that’s mandatory for a quality Louisville dining room.

We started with a popular holdover from Napa days, tomato bisque ($5 for a cup, $10 for a bowl). It was a good pick for a blustery autumn afternoon. A mushroom-cap-shaped dome of puff pastry atop the cup added flaky golden deliciousness while keeping the soup beneath warm. The soup was very rich and loaded with cream, but a tangy fresh-tomato flavor found its way through.

Deeply flavored strips of eggplant form whirls around creamy ricotta in this tasty and filling baked eggplant involtini appetizer.

Another appetizer, baked eggplant involtini ($14) also made a hearty start to our filling meal. Seven fat rounds of thin-sliced eggplant fashioned into tight rolls around creamy ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, baked until the eggplant was crisp but tender and the cheeses molten, and served on a bed of tangy marinara sauce in a small black iron skillet with snipped basil on top.

We finally got to the seafood department with a shallow white, gold-rimmed bowl of spaghetti con vongole ($20), pictured at the top of this page. A portion of fresh-made pasta was coated with thin garlic-lemon clam sauce and that stuck to the spaghetti strands and pooled in the shells of nine small, open littleneck clams. The clam meat tasted fresh but chewy, and its flavor was somewhat overwhelmed by the spicy flavor of abundant chopped Portuguese chouriço sausage. Tiny green peas, thin-sliced garlic, and a decorative grilled half-lemon completed the presentation, along with a thin-sliced, good quality lenth of ciabatta loaf alongside.

A margherita-style pizza ($20) was one of the few vegetarian dishes on the menu. It was built on a good, chewy and oven-spotted long, oval flatbread. It was topped with a thin coat of tart-sweet tomato sauce, molten mozzarella, and a scattering of halved red and yellow cherry tomatoes and a few basil leaves, served on a red plate decorated with streaks and spots of balsamic that happily did not extend to the pizza.

A substantial midday meal came to $62.54, plus a $15 tip.

Osteria Italian Seafood
1211 Herr Lane
423-5822
osterialouisville.com
facebook.com/Osterialouisville
instagram.com/osterialouisville

Noise Level: With perhaps half the tables filled, sound levels averaged a buzzy but livable 68.4dB.

Accessibility: The dining room and restrooms appear fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The post From Napa to Osteria: Italian seafood in Westport Village appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

The Coalition for the Homeless declared homelessness “one of the most pressing crises facing Louisville today” in a 2021 report that found 10,640 people without housing in the city in 2021.

While more than half of those had protection in nonprofit shelters, fully 35% were living in the streets or other temporary settings. It was a 41% increase since 2018, a rising tide perhaps driven by the pandemic but that appears to continue in spite of the city’s controversial efforts to clear houseless encampments and urge people into shelters that many of them prefer to avoid.

“The primary cause of homelessness is poverty,” the Coalition observed in its report, “and the solution to homelessness is housing: affordable, safe, permanent housing throughout our city for our poorest neighbors, with personalized services for those who need support.”

An obvious support service: Good food

One of the most obvious support services for people without housing is food: Good, appetizing and nutritious food.

Last spring I reported on the good work being done by Feed Louisville, a non-profit – then operating out of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church – that mobilized chefs and volunteers to “rescue” unused food from local restaurants that would have otherwise gone to waste. The chefs and volunteer workers would repackage this salvaged food in the form of appetizing new dishes tand move it out quickly distribute to Louisville’s houseless community.

Feed Louisville executive director and chef Rhona Kamar and expo and volunteer manager Sean “Koog” Koogan talk about the day’s food rescue plan.

Six months later I checked back in with Feed Louisville’s executive director and chef Rhona Kamar and learned good news: The non-profit’s success and the pressing need for their services has spurred remarkable progress and significant changes.

Quickly outgowing their church kitchen, a welcome but undersized space of barely 1,000 square feet, Feed Louisville has just completed a move into a venue eight times larger: The former Dare to Care kitchen on Story Avenue in Butchertown.

With the help of both financial and equipment grants, Feed Louisville has hired additional chefs to their full-time staff including veterans of kitchens at Le Relais, Proof on Main, Wiltshire on Market, and more. They’re also focusing intently on food rescue and feeding now, having spun off their housing and training operation in the Arthur Street motel as a separate nonprofit. Now Feed Louisville can focus 100 percent on what its name implies: Get healthy, nutritious food into the hands of hungry people on the city’s streets.

“We’ve been looking for a new kitchen for over a year,” Kamar told me as we toured the spacious new quarters in a red-brick industrial building. “It has been really challenging to find the perfect kitchen and I’m so amazed and thankful that we found this kitchen.”

Over the past year, Kamar said, any number of people have asked if she has looked at the old Dare to Care kitchen that Louisville’s food bank vacated when it moved to its own even larger kitchen several years ago. And every time she said, ’I’m sure it’s rented,’ and didn’t bother. But finally, when on emore person asked, she thought “why not,” found the property manager, and found it was available.

“The doors keep opening …”

“The doors keep opening, the path keeps clearing,” she said. “We keep getting these signals from the community that we’re doing something that needs to be done. So this is another example of that, this kitchen was absolutely perfect for us. And it’s very meaningful to us that this used to be the Dare to Care Kitchen because our partnership with them means a lot to us.”

With the help of a $200,000 grant that Feed Louisville recieved earlier this year from a private family trust they were able to move right in without having to do a capital campaign; better still, they were able to use some of that money toward equipment and renovation.

All this gets done with the hard work of 17 full-time staff members, including the chefs, and plenty of help from volunteers. Currently Feed Louisville gets help from at least 50 volunteers weekly, but Kamar and volunteer manager Sean “Koog” Koogan hope to see that number rise as the new space comes online, allowing plenty of opportunity for more.

While the opportunity for growth is exciting, Kamar said, quality remains the key. “We are not trying to produce thousands of thousands of millions of millions of millions of meals. We will find our edge where we can keep our chefs close to the food. That’s really important to us.

“The chefs being in the center of this work is what’s unique about our model. … Our chefs do this work as a commitment. It’s a form of activism for them We believe in feeding people, but staying close to the food is really important. When you start mass producing things, you lose out. You lose touch with the food.”

As Feed Louisville grows into its new space, they’ll expanding their partnerships, “We know from our peers around the country doing the same thing that their models include multiple community partners. And so that’s our goal as well. We have big dreams for what we want to do around hunger, relief and food rescue,” she said.

For instance, a private donor’s $25,000 grant will be seed money to raise $100,000 to support West End neighborhood farmers to raise fresh and healthful produce for the community.

They’re also developing a food-as-medicine program, working with medical and nutrition experts to produce meals tailored to the health needs of houseless individuals with diabetes and other conditions requiring specialized nutrition.

On November 1 Feed Louisville will launch its annual fund campaign, hoping to raise $500,000 for next year’s operations. Watch for details on Feed Louisville’s website feedlouisville.org and their Facebook page, facebook.com/feedlouisville

The post Feed Louisville’s food rescue grows appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I’m going to come right out and say it: Meesh Meesh is one of the best new restaurants to come along in Louisville lately.

But wait! What’s with that repetitive rhyming name? The restaurant’s website explains it all for us: MeeshMeesh means “apricot” in both Arabic and Hebrew.

With the sad fighting going on in Israel and Palestinian Gaza right now, a restaurant that celebrates both of those cultures seems like a good place to be.

The endearing sound of “Meesh Meesh,” the restaurant’s introduction goes on, “reflects the warm and inviting nature of our restaurant. Israel native Chef Noam Bilitzer highlights the unique flavors and influences that he grew up with … encompassing flavors from Palestine, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria and more.”

“At MeeshMeesh, we are proud to introduce the Louisville community to a piece of our soul and to share the authentic flavors from our hearts.”

Meesh Meesh is popular and usually busy, so reservations are advised. We got in on a Sunday evening, and I’m glad we did. Service was attentive despite the full house, and the food was outstanding.

That’s not surprising when we consider Chef Bilitzer’s background. With a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales University. he’s served in executive positions at Proof on Main, Red Hog, and the organization that includes Feast BBQ, Royals Hot Chicken, and bar Vetti. When Susan Hershberg decided to retire from Wiltshire on Main, she invited Bilitzer in as executive chef. He introduced Meesh Meesh as frequent pop-ups in that popular space until the transition became complete in July.

The bill of fare is varied but relatively concise, featuring six small plates, five mains, and three large format dishes intended to feed a group.

It’s not budget dining, with mains ranging from $36 (for shawarma spiced chicken thighs or a vegetable tagine) to $45 (for a steak from Indiana’s Fischer Farms Natural Foods). The large-format dishes top out at $145 (for a grilled full rack of lamb). It’s reasonable to economize, though, as we did, with a single main plus a small plate and a filling side dish. Generously portioned small plates are priced from $9 (for herb falafel) to $16 (for Haifa hot chicken).

Full bar service is available, including an extensive craft cocktail selection and a short but well chosen list of wines, mostly from the Levant, at by-the-glass prices mostly in the lower teens.

All the dishes we tried, these show real skill and attentiveness to flavor in Chef Bilitzer’s kitchen.

I was grateful for the menu’s handy glossary when it came time to order a main dish, shawarma spiced chicken thighs ($36). The menu explained that it’s made with amba, jalapeño schug, and herbs. So what’s an amba? What’s a schug? Thanks to the glossary, I now know that amba is a traditional curried green mango condiment enjoyed in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and India. The signature house amba includes lemon, spice blend, and apple cider vinegar. Schug? It’s a fiery Yemeni chili condiment made in-house with fresh jalapeños, lemon, garlic, and salt.

This dish was so good that even the scents wafting up from the plate inspired a powerful appetite. Three deboned thighs had been coated with a spice, sumac perhaps, and baked very crisp and deeply flavorful. It was garnished with fresh cilantro sprigs and very large mint leaves.

Main dishes come with salatim (pictured at the top of this page), which is Hebrew for “salads” but much more interesting. Small dishes of varied condiments circle around two thick, tender fresh pitas imported from Brooklyn’s famous Greens Bakery. Salatim dishes included smooth, creamy hummus; caraway-scented crisp apple and cabbage slaw; spicy olives and pickle; sweet and spicy cubed carrots; deeply flavored marinated chickpeas and gigante beans; matbucha, a North African tomato salad; a schmear of mashed beets; and feta dice coated with chopped mint.

Mains also come with vibrant yellow long-grain rice topped with chewy red currants, crisp almond slivers, and bits of chopped parsley.

A side dish of bamiya ($9) – the Arabic word for okra – and a small plate of embered beets ($13) together made an ample main dish. The bamiya is a thick stew of organic okra and tomatoes from Barr Farm in Rhodelia, Ky., mixed with crackling crisp fried onions and topped with small plum tomatoes and a sprig of fresh dill. The roasted beets are garnished with dates and pine nuts and perch on a bed of mild, tangy goat cheese sprinkled with chopped mint.

Too full for dessert but unable to resist, we took home a to-go order of Green’s chocolate babka ($9). Babka, an Eastern European pastry that’s hugely popular in Israel, shows a pretty striped pattern from its many thin layers of rich brioche-type pastry and dark chocolate. It’s served with tangy, vanilla-scented whipped labneh, a mild Levantine yogurt cheese.

A memorable dinner for two, with one cocktail, came to $80.56, plus a $20 tip.

Meesh Meesh
636 E. Market St.
589-5224
meeshmeesh.com
instagram.com/meeshmeesh_med_lou

Noise Level: The scene was noisy but not deafening on a busy evening. We had no problem with normal conversation.

Accessibility: The entry and restrooms appear accessible to wheelchair users, but much of the seating is on bar stools or high chairs. It would be prudent to reserve a regular-height table if this is needed for access.

The post Meesh Meesh is good good appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

The abrupt recent closing of the beloved local restaurant Come Back Inn came as another worrisome note in what feels like an ongoing dirge for our fretful food-loving community: Who’s next? Is Louisville’s fame as a dining destination fading away in the post-pandemic age’s hard times?

In a brief farewell tailored to social media, the Germantown eatery known for its Cheers-like atmosphere and huge portions of Chicago-style Italian-American fare posted Looney Tunes’ familiar “That’s All, Folks” signoff and a brief message: “Guys, we hate to do this, but tonight will be the last night of dinner service for the Come Back Inn. You all gave us so many great years. We appreciate each and every one of you all. ??”

What went wrong? Why would a seemingly popular spot nearing its 30th anniversary shut down so suddenly? A social media post two days before its closing may have given a hint: “Come Back In will be closed today due to staff shortage. Sorry for any inconvenience,” management posted at midafternoon on Oct. 1. Two days later it closed for good.

Sad but familiar

This felt sad but familiar. Restaurant closings have become pardon-the-expression pandemic since Covid, and staff shortages have been blamed for quite a few of them as restaurant workers idled by the pandemic discovered that there’s a life beyond waiting tables. Lease issues mounted as building owners made similar discoveries. Supply chain problems caused major problems during and immediately after the pandemic. And rising food prices? Don’t even ask.

Not just one but pretty much all of those problems apparently came together to bring down Come Back Inn. In a first-rate article combining an interview with owner Cathy Zachari and a heartfelt eulogy for the restaurant, Courier-Journal reporter Maggie Menderski wrote that the decision to close wasn’t based on one single problem but a cluster of problems.

Among many issues, the building’s owner wanted to sell. The pandemic knocked out the restaurant’s business catering lunches to corporate offices. Staffing with skilled cooks became increasingly difficult. Ingredient sourcing became difficult. And the old building and equipment needed costly upkeep. Put it all together, Menderski wrote, and Zachari “wanted to keep quality high and prices low, and that just wasn’t possible anymore.”

It was a sad farewell to a restaurant that, as I wrote in a 2004 review, “brings just about everyone together in hungry harmony: business types in shirt and tie, worker types in denim, gimme caps turned backward; housewives and retirees and the postman on his rounds.”

Is the restaurant scene changing?

This one hit hard because Come Back Inn was cozy, friendly, and a Germantown neighborhood fixture. What’s more, its demise reinforced concern that the local restaurant scene is changing, and not for the better. Closings since Covid came to town near the beginning of 2020 have easily topped 100, ranging from relatively short-lived but welcome newcomers like Couvillion, Portage House, Faces Bar & Bistro, Butchertown Grocery, Honest Indian, Barry’s Cheesesteaks, and a flotilla of Asian-accented “Cajun” crab houses to beloved old-timers whose loss was doubly shocking: Gasthaus, Harvest, Decca, Rye, J. Harrod’s, Wiltshire on Market, and many more.

It’s not just Louisville’s problem, Nation’s Restaurant News reported in its Sept. 7, 2023 issue. Amid the tight labor market of the last few years, writer Mark Hamstra reported, foodservice operators across the nation have been forced to streamline their operations and menus, often eliminating entrees to reduce burden on staff.

“Doing more with less has become a mantra for the industry,” Hamstra wrote. “Although there have been some signs that the industry is returning to pre-pandemic employment levels, there were still nearly 1.1 million job openings in the restaurant and accommodations sector as of the end of July, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

The scene is not entirely dark. Let’s be grateful to the many restaurants that have stayed the course and appear to be holding strong; and to the many more that opened during or after the pandemic and that are hanging in there: North of Bourbon, Nami Korean Steakhouse, Decade, Paseo, Meesh Meesh, CASK Southern Kitchen, Harvey’s, Nostalgic, Hauck’s Corner, and the list goes on.

Let’s not lose sight of these welcome signs that Louisville’s dining scene continues active and strong, even in the face of serious challenges. We remain seen as a strong restaurant town, not just as seen through our own sparkling eyes but from outside as well.

A “foodie city”?

Early in 2022, as we were gingerly emerging from the pandemic, the national apartment-listing web publication Apartment Advisor ranked Louisville first in the nation among “best foodie cities for renters.” We were followed in order by Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the publication’s methodology excluded the nation’s largest cities, but still, let’s take credit where we find it.

Better still, in March this year Travel & Leisure magazine ranked Louisville ninth nationally among the 10 best “food cities,” highlighting bourbon and the Hot Brown in celebrating out 2,500-plus restaurants and “several award-winning chefs. “Louisville is sure to delight food and drink enthusiasts alike,” the magazine assured readers.

That’s all good. Still, as we mourn the many casualties and grieve particular losses – Come Back Inn, we hardly knew you – let’s commit to keep supporting the independent local eateries that we love.

The post Hard times come a’knockin’ at our door appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

A few categories ended in ties, a lucky happening that brings you two (or more!) winners. Most of the time, though, LEO readers have a clear idea about who they think is the best. Here’s your link to the full report.

Some new categories were added this year, and judges also came up with a few surprising honorable mentions that deserved a little spotlight as well. The staff and writers of LEO also picked and created a few categories ourselves to share some of our takes on the best things in Louisville. Read the staff picks here.

We hope you enjoy this year’s Readers’ Choice Awards, and we hope to see you at the Readers’ Choice Party on Saturday, Oct. 19, at PLAY Louisville. Tickets are on sale now. You can get them here: https://redpintix.com/events/leo-weekly-readers-choice-party-10-19-2023

To whet your appetite for the rest, here are the two staff and writer picks that I wrote, celebrating two of my favorite places: Choi’s Asian Food Market and V-Grits.

Best Asian grocery if you’re looking for inspiration or something obscure.

Choi’s Asian Food Market
607 Lyndon Lane

When the television K-drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo sent me out on the town in desperate search of kimbap rolls just like the ones that Woo loves, naturally I ended up at Choi’s in Lyndon. While we’re lucky these days to have an excellent Asian market in just about every corner of the metro, from Okolona to Buechel to Clarksville, Indiana, I like Choi’s best, and not just because it’s relatively convenient for me.

I give Choi’s high marks for its broad selection of canned and packaged foods from all over Asia. Signs painted on the front window proclaim the presence of fare from China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines, and that’s not counting the owners’ own heritage in Korea. I’m pretty sure you can find delights from other Asian nations here too, but maybe they just ran out of window space. Choi’s is packed with freezers loaded with just every kind of of noodles, a full wall of produce, including a virtual garden of obscure but tasty looking Asian greens that I’m more than willing to try. Hot sauces? I lost count, but it’s my go-to spot for Laoganma hot chili crisp.

Not only did Choi’s have the kimbap that I wanted, they make it fresh daily for sale from a cooler right next to the cash register, and there’s lots more fresh-made Korean items too. Want some gai lan (Chinese broccoli)? You’ll find it here. Bok choy? Napa cabbage? Yes, and at affordable prices that undersell the big groceries. Fresh live crabs in season? Check. And if you get lost among all the mysterious goods in the rows of towering shelves, fear not: I’ve always found the staff here friendly and helpful.

Best vegan comfort food that everyone can love

V-Grits at Logan Street Market
1101 S. Logan St.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a hard-core vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian, veggie-conscious or even a hard-core carnivore with an open mind, you have every reason to love V-Grits, Chef Kristina Addington’s all-plant-based eatery. All it takes is an appetite to enjoy V-Grits’ creative meat-free versions of chicken, beef, pork sausage, cheesy mac, and more.

After starting as a food truck in 2014 and moving four years later into the Barrett Avenue spot that had housed Monkey Wrench, it looked like V-Grits had settled in to stay. That’s why it came as a shock when the chef made a tough announcement on social media last February: “a lot of small businesses are struggling right now and many are shutting down entirely, especially in the restaurant industry,” she said. “Sales have gone way down for this industry and the cost of everything we purchase has gone up. The only way we can continue to exist is to shrink down and focus on one thing – vegan comfort food.”

To make that happen, V-Grits closed at the oversize Barrett location. Was it the end? Nope! Within just a few weeks, the popular vegan spot was open again, somewhat smaller but just as appetizing, at a booth inside Logan Street Market.

We dropped in the other day and enjoyed a hefty, crunchy Nashville hot vegan chicken sandwich – oh, so hot! Oh, so crunchy – and a seasonal plate (pictured at the top of the page), an all-vegan German Oktoberfest platter with a plant-based brat, sauerkraut-like slaw, potato salad, and a big, soft pretzel. It’s all delicious, affordably priced, and no animals were harmed in the production of our meal.

The post LEO Weekly 2023 Readers’ Choice Awards plus my picks: Choi’s and V-Grits appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Here’s an existential question about the art of the food critic: Should a restaurant review stick to the simple basics of food, mood, and service? Or does a review gain texture and meaning by bringing in a broader range of history, culture, culinary arts and other trips down fascinating rabbit holes?

If you follow my food writing at all, you won’t have much trouble finding me sitting unobtrusively at a dinner table behind Door No. Two. I love those culinary rabbit holes, and I suspect it shows.

Now, don’t get me wrong: A restaurant critic is not doing their job if they don’t inform you, faithful reader, about the food and adjacent matters that may influence your visit: Menu selection and prices, service, and those overall comfort issues like the furniture, mood, decor, and don’t forget noise and ease (or not) of conversation, along with matters of access that affect not only wheelchair users but anyone who doesn’t easily get around. Oh, yeah, how much your dinner cost, how much did you tip – critics should set a good example – and, at least implicitly, if it was all worth it.

Those are the basics, and any critic or reviewer or influencer worth their salt and pepper must give you those, clearly and specifically expressed.

But should the review stop there? Many do, and frankly, that’s all you need to get a sense of whether the eatery under the microscope seems right for you. But in my opinion, that’s just the start.

Again, you may not be surprised to hear me say this. I’m the guy who’s known for starting my review with a joke, a literary reference, a bit of history, or a deep dive into the background of a cuisine or a specific dish featured in the review.

It is neither with shame nor with pride that I point to last week’s review, in which I spent the first 300 words of a 900-word column on a dissertation about chaat, the crunchy, tangy, fruity, hot, and sweet Indian street food that some (well, me) liken to Indian nachos.

Did the first part of the column tell people anything about Shreeji Indian Vegetarian Street Food, the nominal object of my review? Well, no. But I hope it got people engage with, and informed about, a fascinating side alley (or rabbit hole) of Indian cuisine. And segued right into the rest of my review, in which I hope I marked off all the boxes that readers need to learn about an eatery and, perhaps, decide if a meal there is for them.

It’s always good to do a reality check on one’s own issues, so I took to Facebook to ask how my friends – many of whom presumably also read my reviews – felt about this issue. If I’m doing it wrong, I figured my friends wouldn’t be shy about telling me.

Happily, though, at least 90% of some two dozen responses spoke in favor of my approach.

“Definitely first priority service, then food, then mood,” wrote my friend Scott. “But yes,I love the history and squishy stuff too, that’s what will get me there sooner rather than eventually, assuming service and food past muster.”

“Just write what’s interesting, like you always do,” another friend added, prompting my response with a “hug” emoji.

And, most reassuring of all, LEO Editor Erica Codey-Rucker said, right out in public, “I love a bit of history so I know the reviewer has knowledge of the lineage of the food and I love to know the vibe of the place, cost and satisfaction of the meal. … But you always basically cover that.”

Thanks, Erica!

The art of the restaurant review really comes down to this, in my opinion, and I’m glad a lot of you agree: The food, atmosphere, and service are certainly key, and leaving any of that out yields a failed review.

But providing a wider range of information that considers both the immediate and broader aspects of the dining experience can provide a more comprehensive and insightful perspective. And, I hope, a more engaging read.

I try to do this in virtually every review. I enjoyed digging up the details, for example, of the game of restaurant-business musical chairs that led Goose Creek Diner into the former home of Sal’s Pizza Pub and yielded a new eatery, The Goose, that channeled a little of both.

Along with reporting on the tasty comfort-food fare at the reopened Uptown Cafe, for another, I felt it important to spend a little time on the restaurant’s family tree and how a long-time regular at the old Uptown decided to keep the restaurant alive after its former owner closed it.

And it would have been hard to talk about the newish Harvey’s on Frankfort Avenue without devoting a few words to explaining what charcuterie is and highlighting the news that the National Restaurant Association recently declared charcuterie boards a “Top 3 hot menu trend” and No. 1 in appetizers. (A small Harvey’s charcuterie plate is pictured at the top of this page.)

Do small things matter? I think they do. On your plate and in the details of your service and the comfort of your surroundings. And not least in the review that informs you about a place you might soon wish to try.

The post More thoughts from the critic’s table appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I’m not great at small talk, but I love chaat. Okay, I can hear the chorus of boos from here. I’ll just show myself out.

Seriously, though, the Indian street food delight known as chaat appeals to me, so much so that a search on the word in the Louisville HotBytes archives brought up references at a dozen different local Indian eateries. I’ve eaten plenty of chaat, and I’ve spent plenty of words trying to describe it. Recalling just a few of them:

• The word “chaat” rhymes with “hot,” not “hat.”
• “Chaat” is not a server’s introductory spiel. It’s tempting North Indian street food.
• It’s Indian small plates, somewhat akin to tapas or dim sum.
• It’s affordable, and it’s made for walk-around eating. 
• The name chaat comes from the Hindi word for “lick.” 
• Salty, crunchy, soft, and savory, chaat comes in dozens of forms. These intriguing and varied snack-size goodies may be crunchy, tangy, fruity, hot, or sweet, often all at the same time.
• It’s a crunchy, tangy, sweet-and-spicy vegetarian blend of crunchy carbs, tangy and spicy sauce, fresh veggies
  chickpeas, diced onions, potatoes, or tomatoes are typical – topped with more crunchies and a dusting of spice.
• This crunchy, salty snack that makes me think of a savory Indian take on trail mix … if trail mix grew up and turned out to be really cool.
• Chaat may contain xrispy, spicy bits of fried wheat pastry, tiny fried potato sticks, chickpeas, cucumber and onion bits. All those crunchies might get mixed into a savory blend of rich yogurt, sweet tamarind sauce and spicy mint chutney. Sounds messy? Tastes addictive.
• Think of chaat as India’s answer to nachos.

Tempted yet? I certainly am. In search of chaat and more, we headed over to Shreeji Indian Vegetarian Street Food, a longtime favorite that’s good enough to overcome my natural aversion to fighting the traffic on Hurstbourne Parkway south of I-64.

Shreeji’s extensive menu offers about two dozen chaats, each briefly but helpfully described. They’re just as varied as you might expect, but most of them check off the familiar boxes of crisp, spicy, tart, fruity, and sweet. Most are priced at $7.99, with a few outliers ranging from $6.99 to $11.99.

Other menu items increase the diner’s options to well over 100 dishes, covering categories, in addition to chaat, as varied as South Indian, Punjabi, rice dishes, Indo-Chinese, Shreeji Specials, appetizers, soups, sandwiches, naan and other Indian breads, sweets, and even a couple of pizzas built on naan. I couldn’t find a dish on the menu for more than $14.99, and probably half of the options are under $10. Everything is vegetarian, as the restaurant’s name signals, but vegans should tread more carefully, as some dishes include Indian dairy ingredients like butter, yogurt, and paneer, a fresh, mild cheese.

A six-piece onion pakora plate ($8.99) made a great, if filling, starter. Akin to onion fritters but with an Indian accent, they are loose balls of thick-sliced onion lightly dusted with chickpea flour and deep-fried into crunchy, lightly spicy nexts of onion goodness. They came on a white three-compartment disposable plate with pools of spicy dark-red and fiery green chutneys for dipping.

Then it was on to the chaats. Dabeli chaat ($7.99), pictured at the top of the page, offered a characteristic mix of flavors and textures. Served in a shallow cardboard bowl, it starts with balls of dabeli – a sweet and spicy potato mix – combined with garlic and sweet chutneys and tangy-sweet tamarind to make a spicy, fruity, and filling potato snack. The top is garnished with peanuts, chopped cilantro, a few strips of beets, and crisp sev, tiny turmeric-laced dried noodles.

Chole Bhature ($11.99) is a close cousin to chana masala. It’s a soupy bowl of long-simmered, tender chickpeas swimming in a zippy pool of red-chile-scented chickpea broth with plenty of chopped cilantro on top. A puffy round of fried bhatura – the white-flour sibling to whole-wheat puri bread – came alongside, with a chunk of spicy, funky lime pickle and a ration of thick-sliced raw white onion as accompaniments.

A main course dish, malai kofta ($14.99), was a delight. Creamy and rich, it starts with firm-textured vegetarian “meatballs” fashioned from a spiced blend of potatoes and paneer cheese, and turns them loose in a thick, savory broth of tomatoes, onions, and aromatic Indian spice. Ordered at heat level four (out of five) it was fiery enough to provoke a sweat but well on the safe side of painful.

Garlic naan flatbread ($3.99) was excellent: A full round of chewy yet tender naan, spotted with char marks and divided into quarters, was loaded with enough garlic to make me regret that I had a meeting to attend that evening, but never mind! It was delicious.

Shreeji offers a variety of yogurt lassi drinks, many of them fruit-flavored, but we like it plain ($3.99). These were smallish and simple, a blend of yogurt and milk and, the menu asserts, a bit of sugar. Unexciting, frankly, but it’s a handy antidote for Indian heat.

A large meal came to $59.29 for two, plus a 25 percent tip.

Shreeji Indian Vegetarian Street Food
1987 S. Hurstbourne Pkwy.
890-4000
shreejiindianrestaurant.com

Noise level: Conversation was easy during busy but not jammed lunch hour. Average sound level 69dB.

Accessibility: The strip shopping-center building appears fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The post We chaat it up at Shreeji Indian appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

If you’ve long harbored a wish to go viral on social media but didn’t know where to start, here’s a modest proposal: Speak of your undying love for pizza topped with pineapple … and anchovies.

That should do it, and if it costs you a few lost friends and followers, well, that’s the price of fame.

What is it about pizza that makes it such a natural topic for conversation and even debate? Well, just about everyone loves this Italian-born treat, and just about everyone has strong opinions about what we like … and what we don’t.

Thick crust or thin? Or some golden mean in between? Lots of tomato sauce, or just a schmear? Speaking of that sauce, do you want it spicy or mild? How about cheese? Just about everyone is down with cheese, but which cheese? Mozzarella, Parmigian’, a little of both, or something off the beaten path like caciocavallo or maybe vegan cheese?

And then there’s the toppings battle. Woooeee! When I mentioned pineapple with anchovies, did you respond positively? Anyone? I didn’t think so. Let’s talk about favorite pizza toppings today, and not-so-favorite items too.

Pineapple: Ooooh or ugggh?

I mentioned pineapple, so let’s begin with pineapple, the pizza topping that just about everyone loves to hate. Why put a Hawaiian fruit on an Italian treat? Just because we can, apparently. This is by no means a new phenomenon. I ran into it in Boise, Idaho, of all places, back in the Jurassic era – okay, the ‘70s – in a blend with Canadian bacon billed as “Hawaiian Delight.” I did not partake. The all-knowing Internet tells us that the idea originated in Chatham, Canada in 1954, when Greek immigrant Sam Panopoulos created the first Hawaiian pizza at his restaurant, Satellite, located in Chatham, Ontario, Canada.

In a 2017 interview with the BBC, unchastened at 83, Panopoulous said he and his brothers “just put it on, just for the fun of it, see how it was going to taste.” They said enjoyed the contrast between the pineapple’s sweetness and the savory flavor of the ham that they used with it.

Apparently a substantial number of pizza lovers agree. In a 2021 survey by YouGov.com, an internet pollster, 34% of respondents gave thumbs down to pineapple, enough to rank it as the nation’s fifth-most disliked topping. It was outpolled, though, by broccoli (39%), artichokes (44%), eggplant (52%), and, trailing badly, the much-loathed anchovy (61%).

What’s the problem with pineapple? Panopoulous wasn’t really wrong: Sweet and salty flavors can work together. But pineapple is not traditional on pizza, and for many of us, that’s reason enough. “Hard no on pineapple,” a friend said. “It’s pizza, not a luau.”

Anchovies

So how about that finding that anchovies are America’s most hated topping? In an extended social-media discussion, one friend dismissed the hairy little salty fishes as “basically bait.” But another begged to differ: “Anchovies are the best! Tasty little salt bombs that get ripped by folks that’ve never tried them.”

Unlike pineapple, anchovies are as historic as it gets in the pizza universe; they’re recorded as present, with tomatoes, in Naples’ first pizzas in the 1600s. They may indeed trace all the way back to ancient Rome’s garum, a fermented fish paste akin to early Worcestershire sauce.

So we can’t knock them on the basis of tradition, but let’s face it: They’re strong, salty, and fishy, and that’s not for everyone.

The favorites

Looking on the bright side, the YouGov survey found pepperoni the most-liked topping, garnering approval from 64% of poll participants. It was followed in fairly close order by sausage (56%), mushrooms (54%), extra cheese (52%), and onions (48%). The Louisville-based trade journal Pizza Today concurred in the top four, but moved rising star bacon into its top five in a report this year.

My social-media conversation drew about 150 responses at last count, and most of the mavens there assembled seemed to agree with these findings. Pepperoni and sausage clearly emerged as crowd favorites, with mushrooms and cheese in hot pursuit. More controversial options included green peppers and olives (black or green) which mustered separate crews of lovers and haters.

One thing’s for sure: Louisville’s pizzeria community offers plenty of toppings to choose from. A random check of menus found selections ranging from 21 at Wick’s and 28 at Impellizzeri’s (pineapple but no anchovies at the spots) to 41 at both Coals and Boombozz (which both offer anchovies and pineapple and much more). Pay your money and make your choice.

Is margherita a topping?

Pizza margherita may be my favorite way to enjoy the worthy Italian pie. But is it a topping? I’m not so sure. Still, quite a few friends agreed that it is the pizza de la pizza. (That’s a margherita from Coal’s Artisan Pizza pictured at the top of the page.)

Created in the 1880s and patriotically named after Margherita of Savoy, the first Queen of unified Italy, pizza Margherita’s simple ingredients – ripe tomatoes, fresh basil and mozzarella cheese – were chosen to represent the red, green and white colors of the then-new Italian flag. It’s no coincidence that these ingredients, baked on top of a well-constructed pizza, bring together the ultimate in classic Italian flavors. I love it!

Finally, how about that crust?

I’ve never understood people who eat the saucy part and leave the bones – the golden, char-spotted deliciousness of the properly puffy and chewy edges – to be discarded. The proper pie is about toppings, sauce, and bread all three, and none of these components is optional.

But do we want it thick, thin, or deep? The YouGov.com survey found Americans narrowly divided between thin crust pizza (31% preferred it) and regular (29%). Fewer than one in five (18%) like the deep-dish style, and most of them may be in Chicago. I like a crust that’s thin enough to be foldable if I want to carry it around, but thick enough to hold up the ingredients. How about you?

The post We just can’t stop talking about pizza appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

If you haven’t heard about Chef Edward Lee’s new Korean restaurant Nami by now, it’s probably only because you haven’t been paying attention. The news about this Korean-American top chef opening his first Korean restaurant since his 20-something youth in New York City has been all over the place.

Nami, which opened on May 2, has been jammed since the start. If you want a seat, especially on weekends, you should get a reservation will in advance or plan to arrive before 6 p.m.

Regardless, you should definitely go. Nami is sleek and stylish, with a floor-to-ceiling wall of windows framing the streetscape, a long bar, and spare decor that emits an soft Asian vibe.

Nami means “I am beautiful” in Korean, according to the restaurant’s social media, which calls the restaurant “a modern approach to Korean cuisine” that seeks “to share with you the beauty of our cuisine, our design and our hospitality.”

Much of the heavy lifting is done by Chef Breanna Baker, who quickly rose through the ranks from intern to chef de cuisine at 610 Magnolia, and Chef Yeon-Hee Chung, who achieved acclaim at the Korean restaurant Charim in St. Matthews. This deep bench allows Lee the latitude to step out into the dining room, where he makes it a point to stop briefly and welcome diners at each table.

You could call the menu “upscale Korean.” It isn’t pricey by 610 standards, but it might impart sticker shock if you’re expecting pricing akin to the city’s more traditional Asian eateries. That goes double if you decide to spring for Nami’s thick-sliced wagyu rib eye, $125 for a 9-ounce cut.

Otherwise, though, entree pricing isn’t scary, with a total of 14 Korean BBQ dishes, bibimbap rice bowls, and main course dishes priced from $26 (for ja jang myun noodles) to $46 (for deung-shim, beef rib eye with salt, pepper, and sesame oil). A selection of starters, salads, and kimbap hand rolls, many suitable as light meals, range in price from $8 to $16.

The bar program is and attractively priced at the lower end, with creative cocktails from $11-$14 and well chosen wines by the glass, beers on tap, sake and soju. The wine list is as good as you’d expect of a Lee property, and as pricey, with bottles beginning in the $40 range and rising to triple digits for the trophies.

Joined by our friends Steve and MaryJane, we settled in a comfortable booth and started with a trio of House made kimchi (($14) and a bowl of dukbokki rice cakes (($13).

Presented on attractive bowls and plates, like all the dishes at Nami, the three kimchis were based on shredded fennel, cubes of spice-dusted honeydew melon, and thin-sliced marinated red beets.

Dukbokki ricecakes (($13) aren’t quite like any carbohydrate I’ve sampled elsewhere: Tiny white cylinders and green rounds, they’re mild in flavor and very, very chewy. They gain additional flavor interest from herb and vegetable accompaniments: fine-chopped minty mugwort and, onion-scented leek, with strips of shiitake mushroom and carrot, all bathed in a reddish-brown and deliciously flavored Korean chili sauce. It was hot but not fiery, and I could not stop eating it.

Ga-Ji ($27) treats slabs of Asian eggplant and oversize king oyster mushrooms to a Korean barbecue technique with a marinade of briny fermented soybean and garlic marinade, then sears them on the grill and dusts them with sesame seeds. The result looks like beef but tastes like spicy, umami-loaded veggies. It came with a couple of roasted asparagus spears and an onion slice, a mound of three-grain rice, apparently a mix of brown, white, and basmati, and a selection of housemade banchan, the varied plates of spicy and tangy condiments that accompany just about every Korean meal.

Ja Jang Myun Noodles ($26) could be described as the Korean version of spaghetti with meat sauce. A mound of al dente white noodles reposed in a pretty red and black bowl, topped with a thick, sweet-and-savory sauce fashioned from tiny black beans and ground beef that unctuously cloaked the noodles and made a filling dish. It was topped with crisp shredded cucumber and a couple of florets of almost-raw broccolini.

Dessert drew from a Japanese street-food tradition: Taiyaki ($10) is a crisp filled pastry in the imagined shape of a sea bream fish swimming on a sea of light-blue whipped cream. it was baked to a pale-golden crisp and stuffed with a dab of chocolate pecan-pie filling. It was imaginative but not entirely successful, as the pastry was tough – difficult to cut with a table knife – and there was only a spoonful of filling.

Our share for two, with two entrees, two apps, and a dessert, came to $101.76, plus a $25 tip for excellent service from our attentive yet unobtrusive server, Anna.

Nami Korean Steakhouse
835 E. Main St.
690-2067
nami-restaurant.com
facebook.com/namisteakhouse
instagram.com/namisteakhouse

Noise Level: The restaurant is invariably crowded and noisy, with a few fabric features to soften mostly hard surfaces. An average 79dB sound level approaches the limit of easy conversation.

Accessibility: The main floor is at ground level in a new building and appears fully accessible to wheelchair users with the exception of a few booths equipped with gas-fired barbecue grills.

The post Nami: Korean-style fare with a side of Ed Lee appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Refusing to eat a disgusting dish may be one of the first things that we as humans can do to claim our individual agency, our right to yell “No!”

“It’s broccoli, dear.” “I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.” Carl Ross’ classic 1928 New Yorker cartoon captured the concept perfectly. We don’t like it. We say the hell with it. And more often than not, that childhood response evolves into a lifelong aversion.

Until it doesn’t.

Consider cilantro, the controversial herb that just about everyone either loves or hates. Until sometime in the 1980s or ‘90s, when Sichuanese restaurants, then Vietnamese, and finally real Spanish-speaking taquerias came to town, Louisville didn’t have a lot of experience with this aromatic weed.

I apparently don’t have the genetic variation that makes your brain react to cilantro as a threat of poison. I just thought it was weird and strong, and I didn’t love it. But when it got trendy and started turning up in those cuisines that I love, I couldn’t keep avoiding it. So I kept faking it until I made it. I love it now, and liken its odd aroma to the evocative scent of that big box of Crayolas in grade-school art class.

Kale, though. That’s a tougher challenge for me. Well, kale, and cabbage, collards, turnip greens, even brussels sprouts: With the exception of barely wilted fresh spinach, which I loved, I didn’t grow up with those stinky things. My first exposure came in grade school when the funky scent of over-cooked cabbage would linger in the halls all day. By lunchtime my appetite was dead on arrival, assassinated by the stench of hydrogen sulfide and bad cooking.

I know kale is trendy now, a purported superfood. But spare me, please. You can have mine.

But then something funny happened on the way to dinner. During a recent visit to Naive Kitchen + Bar in Butchertown, I enjoyed a tempura cauliflower appetizer. Actually, even cauliflower is a little too close to the cabbage family to be a favorite for me. But this dish was exceptionally creative and spectacularly good. And for an even bigger surprise, it was garnished with fried kale leaves. Yes, kale. Maybe it’s true that frying makes everything better, but I didn’t leave a speck of kale on my plate.

I am also reliably informed that the odd act of massaging kale by hand can make the despised green more palatable. The process purportedly softens kale’s tough fibers and breaks down the cell walls of its bitter compounds myrosinase and glucosinolates, rendering the leaves gentler, kinder, and more digestible.Maybe I’ll try this sometime. Or maybe not.

And then there are brussels sprouts. Little green balls of doom, chewy and reeking of sadness and failure. Yet the kitchen at the sadly defunct Rye in NuLu had me yelling “gooooaaaaalll” with a dish of crisp roasted halved sprouts in a spicy Korean sauce. It was so good that I picked up some sprouts and Korean gochujang hot pepper paste the next day so I could back-engineer the dish at home.

How to change your (culinary) life
These revelations got me thinking, and here’s what I thought: If you want to overcome a food aversion that’s lasted since childhood, a great way to do that might be to find a local restaurant that makes a life-changing rendition.

Let’s consider, then, a few food aversions that many of us share, and suggest a local eatery that may be able to persuade you to overcome them.

Beets
I’ve been a fan for ages, but it surprises me how many people argue that beets taste like dirt, or even personal mortality. To try a reset, I suggest a beet salad with a dairy component.I had a great one at Anoosh Bistro this yearfeaturing tender, sweet red and gold beet halves in vinaigrette, dressed with arugula and crumbled mild Capriole goat cheese. I’ve also oohed and ahhed over beet salads at Barn 8 in Goshen and a House of Marigold.

Licorice
We hated licorice so much in our family that the threat of gift-wrapped licorice as a holiday present was enough to ensure our good behavior. I found my way to it gradually as an adult, with gateway treats like Asian five-spice flavor and Mediterranean dishes featuring fennel. A charcuterie plate during a recent visit to Harvey’s on Frankfort Avenue made this case with a rosette of thinly sliced finnochiona, fennel-scented Sicilian-style pork salami from Wisconsin. 

Lima beans
My mom made limas regularly and I never minded them, but they seem to be a legume that legions love to hate. The fix is easy: Get yourself to Mayan Cafe in NuLu and treat yourself to a dish of Chef Bruce Ucán’s trademark tok cel (pictured at the top of this page). This deceptively simple Mayan delight starts by roasting limas until they’re crisp, then dressing them with ground roasted pumpkin seeds, lime juice, parsley, and sesame oil. Try it! You’ll like it!

Liver and onions
You either love your liver or you don’t, and we’re not going to talk about Hannibal Lecter’s fava bean and Chianti feast. You can find well-made local versions, among others, at The Goose Eatery & Hangout, Cottage Inn, and Check’s Cafe.

Okra
Okra is another veggie that people love to hate. It has a bad reputation for being slimy, but that’s easily defeated with proper care in the kitchen. I learned to love okra in Cajun dishes but now enjoy it as well in African fare (Funmi’s Cafe in the Outer Highlands does it well) and at just about any Indian spot, where it may show on the menu as bhindi. I’ve had excellent, spicy versions of bhindi masala, a dry okra curry, at Taj Palace on Goose Creek Road and Clay Oven in Middletown.??So, if you have a food aversion that’s dogged you since childhood, now you know that to do!

The post Overcoming food aversions, restaurant-style appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Two popular East End restaurants did a kind of corporate musical chairs this fall: It all started when Goose Creek Diner closed its shop on Goose Creek Lane after more than 20 years, and Sal’s Pizza & Sports Pub on Lyndon Lane closed last December after a dozen years.

Neighbors promptly begain grieving the loss of their familiar watering holes, but the events seemed unavoidable. Goose Creek Diner’s landlord decided to raze its building. Sal’s owner simply decided it was time to retire. Neighbors at both places wondered where they were going to go for down-home fare in a friendly environment.

It didn’t take long for Goose Creek to answer that question. Meet The Goose Eatery & Hangout, new tenants in Sal’s old space in the freshly renovated Lyndon Yard, a two-story shopping center in beautiful downtown Lyndon.

Opened in mid-June, the new Goose is a lot like the old Goose, but it’s a little bit like the old Sal’s too. The new space is sleek and stylish, with decor in subtle shades of light and dark gray, with wood-look tables and booths. A long bar spans the length of the back room. A few big-screen televisions salute Sal’s old sports-bar feel without dominating the space.

Sal’s pizza option is gone, but save for that tradition, both establishments offered essentially similar fare: Down-home country-style cooking, with plenty of deliciously crunchy fried items but not so many healthy or plant-based options.

A lunch menu, available from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, offers more than a dozen dishes that range in price from $10 (for a barbecue pulled-pork sandwich, chicken livers, or a two-piece fried chicken lunch) to $15 (for a grilled salmon spinach salad). Most lunch dishes come with one side; you can add a bowl of soup or a small house or Caesar salad for $4 or choose an additional side for $2.50. A soup-and-salad option is available for the thrifty for $9, and a half-dozen desserts are $6 to $8.

If those choices don’t suit you, a more extensive dinner menu is available all day. More than 25 dishes are divided among signature dishes, seafood, hot browns, burgers and sandwiches, and pasta dishes, and are priced from $13 (for chicken livers, fried chicken, or several of the burgers and sandwiches) to $21 (for blackened salmon with sweet chile sauce). Fifteen dinner starters, soups, and salads run from $8 to $14.

The menu invites guests to “enjoy local favorites and original dishes in a relaxed atmosphere,” and the neighborhood seems to be taking full advantage. We dropped by for lunch on a weekday and found just about every table taken, with a happy crowd generating a constant but livable buzz.

Sal’s used to have one of the best fried-fish sandwiches in town, weighted down with three huge slabs of Icelandic cod, bound-breaded by hand and competently fried golden-brown. Could the Goose match this memorable entry? Well … let’s just say that Sal’s is gone and not coming back, but the Goose’s beer-battered cod plate ($12 on the lunch menu, pictured at the top of this page) is pretty good, too.

This item is not a sandwich but a boneless fillet, cloaked in a thick, smooth beer-batter coating fried a pretty golden-brown. The cod was good quality, mild and flaky, and the crunchy breading adhered well to the fish. It came with a small tub of mayo-based tartar sauce and a large wedge of lemon that added a tasty citric snap to the fish.

Lunches come with one side from a roster that includes mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, cole slaw, macaroni and cheese, green beans, french fries, tater tots, or fried green tomatoes. The mashed potatoes were a good choice: Served in a cup, they were smooth and deliciously creamy with a whiff of dairy tang, studded with parsley flakes. They came with a separate tub of glossy, gooey beefy brown gravy that we tasted and left untouched.

There’s no better way to make a healthy salad a little less healthy (but delicious) than by topping it with fried food. Behold, fried mozzarella salad ($13), bearing three of the Goose’s memorable fried green tomatoes (which and three big chunks of fried mozzarella. Two thumbs up to the Goose’s frying skills: These items were remarkably crunchy, grease-free, and delicious.

Almost hidden under the fried goodies was a sizable salad full of clean, fresh romaine and mixed lettuces, bright-red diced tomatoes, and grated parmesan. A think, tart-sweet balsamic vinaigrette came in a tub alongside.

Reese’s peanut butter pie ($8) for dessert satisfied just about all my guilty pleasures: A rich peanut butter mousse filled a chocolate cookie-crumb crust studded with peanut-butter cup bits and topped with a chocolate glaze, drizzled with dark chocolate and dabs of whipped cream.

With a tall glass of fresh, strong unsweetened iced tea with lemon ($2.50). lunch for two totaled $37.63 plus a 25 percent tip.

The Goose Eatery and Hangout
812 Lyndon Lane
339-8070
thegooselyndon.com
facebook.com/goosecreekdiner
instagram.com/thegooselyndon

Noise Level: When this room is full, as it usually is, it gets noisy. Average sound level during our visit was 74.7dB, getting into the louder reaches of normal conversation.

Accessibility: The dining area appears to be fully accessible to wheelchair users, but there’s no apparent accommodation for sitting at the bar.

The post The Goose has landed, and we’re happy about that appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Think about accessibility for disabled people in restaurants and other businesses, and you’ll probably visualize that familiar blue-and-white stick figure in a wheelchair.

That’s not too surprising. The Americans With Disabilities Act, popularly known as the ADA, passed in 1990, is a civil-rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life.

That means all people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else, says the ADA National Network: Wheelchair users, folks using walkers or canes, people with sight or hearing impairments, and many less visible disabilities including those on the autism spectrum or dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, dementia, and much more.

But wheelchair access gets attention because it’s easy to see: A wheelchair ramp, a flat entrance that doesn’t trip anyone, a reserved parking space, and that familiar blue-and-white sign.

Accommodations for those with vision or hearing impairments are more difficult to find, often requiring the individual to resort to their own measures, such as screen-reading apps that can scan text and read it aloud.

And that’s not even considering those invisible disabilities. Plate, a magazine and online voice for independent restaurants, restaurant workers, and professional chefs, took on the topic in its Aug. 20, 2023 cover story: 

“For most of your guests,” reporter Maggie Hennessy wrote, “the bustle of going out to eat is a thrill … But for someone with an invisible disability, even the quiet hum of fluorescent lighting can take on the irritation level of a gnat relentlessly buzzing in their ear, and trigger a sensory overload episode. 

“If no one on staff is trained to recognize what this looks like or how to help, they may instead perceive a child who is entitled or being difficult, or an adult who’s maybe had too much to drink and is acting out.”

This may seem like an uncommon occurrence, but Plate begs to differ, pointing out that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that fully one-quarter of all American adults have some type of disability. And roughly one in six Americans has some sensory needs related to such conditions as autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, strokes, and dementia.

How can restaurants improve accessibility?

How can restaurants, and people who dine out, bridge these less visible accessibility gaps?

If you’re going out for a meal with a friend or relative who’s dealing with dementia, the Rev. Georgine Buckwalter – a longtime Episcopal priest and chaplain – offers practical advice from her time on the board of the Kentuckiana Alzheimers Association:

“Carry a little card the size of a business card that says something like ‘The person I’m with has Alzheimer’s. Please direct your questions to them directly. Please overlook any behavior that you think might not be appropriate.’ Palm it, hand it to the server discreetly. It’s not something that the loved one with you needs to know you’ve done. An outing can be so shaming and humiliating for a person with dementia. This can make it much more pleasant.”

A friend who had a stroke a few years ago told me that he has only half of each eye’s field of vision left, making him “exponentially more clumsy.” But, he says, he has learned to take charge of the situation: “If I am sitting at the bar of someplace crowded I usually just tell the person to my right that I am blind and if I get in their space, to just tell me. Most people are decent about it.”

Another friend who has neurodivergent children said there’s a simple, but sadly rare, solution for his youngsters: “Restaurants without menus with photos are impossible for my children. Most fast food corporations provide them for nonverbal communication, but they’re rarely found in the wild. … The amount of money I’ve spent over the years on uneaten food is staggering.”

Betsy Jones, a local commercialization and marketing strategist who has spent nine years collecting evidence-based and fact-based information on how to work with older people and others affected by dementia, PTSD, stroke, and more, offered lots of good ideas and useful advice to write a book about it. Here are a few quick tips for restaurateurs based on her advice:

Hearing
Turn down the volume. Avoid music that has strong percussion or major changes in volume. Design with soft surfaces to absorb sound. And seat people with hearing difficulties in a booth if possible, and away from kitchens and other high traffic areas. Train staff to turn toward the person with hearing loss, and offer a printout of food and drink specials.

Autism (neurodivergence)
Turn music to low, or turn it off while the guest is with you. If a guest wears headphones to filter out sound, do not object.Teach staff to pleasantly bear with children’s activities such as hand flapping, spinning, rocking and finger-flicking. These are not deliberate misbehaviors but efforts to self-regulate sensory input. Staff also should be equipped to offer grace in response to potentially awkward or blunt questions from some.

PTSD
If this condition is revealed—which often it is not—staff should ask if the patron has a seating preference. You want your customer to feel safe. Lighting should be at a level where people can be seen easily. Spacing between tables is critical so the individual can be in control of touch.

Finally, Jones said, it’s important that staff treat a person who has any of these conditions with respect. “Don’t use lilting speech or infantilizing language. Don’t assume that a person needs help – ask first. Don’t speak to their companions rather than the guest herself. Don’t assume that the guest is not intelligent. Staff should handle accommodations quietly, with grace and discretion, never calling attention to a guest’s impairment.”

In short, be thoughtful, and treat people the way you would want to be treated yourself, or that you’d want an older parent or friend to be treated. That’s a good rule for everyone, everywhere.

The post Invisible disabilities: A challenge for restaurant accessibility appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

As autumn 2020 chilled into the first Covid winter, one of the hardest hits of a run of bad restaurant news came when Uptown Cafe announced that it was closing on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, seemingly ending a 35-year run as a fixture on Bardstown Road’s Restaurant Row.

Uptown was comfortable, cozy, reasonably affordable, yet stylish, more a bistro than a diner. If it wasn’t a place where everyone knew your name, at least it was a place where your face was always familiar.

But its time had come, squashed by the worldwide pandemic. Owner Kelley Ledford put it bluntly, calling the closure “totally pandemic related … financially insurmountable.” Ledford had taken the reins from her parents Nancy and David Shepherd, who had also founded the more upscale Cafe Metro across the street in 1980.

The Uptown building stood closed and dark through that cold pandemic winter. But then in February good news broke: Longtime Uptown regulars Tom and Lisa Drexler, best known as proprietors of Tom Drexler Plumbing, had bought the business.

Uptown reopened in July 2021, following gentle renovation that maintained its style and spirit but avoiding major changes in a beloved tradition. Executive Chef Matt Weber (who had started at Cafe Metro) and Pastry Chef Jenna Miller remain, and most of the familiar menu items stayed. “This is not a place where you can get rid of the old favorites,” a HotBytes forum participant observed.

So here’s the new Uptown, pretty much like the old Uptown, so much so that I blinked and suddenly two years had passed before I got back. A delightful recent visit and a very good meal took quick care of that.

The lunch menu is straightforward. Six appetizers are all $12, with soups going for $8. Most of the salads, workable as light meals, are $15, with lighter house salads and caesars going for $14 (large) or $7 (side salads). You can turn a salad into a more serious meal by adding chicken ($5 upcharge) or blackened salmon, shrimp, or chicken livers ($8 additional).

Lunch entrees range in price from $14 (for a maple chipotle pork tenderloin sandwich or chicken in puff pastry) to $18 (for smoked salmon pasta or curried rice noodles). The dinner menu is similar, with larger evening entrees mostly priced in the $20s but topping out at $46 for grilled beef tenderloin medallions. Of particular note on the dinner menu is Uptown’s iconic pork tenderloin jägerschnitzel ($23).

Uptown’s full bar service includes, its social media proudly proclaims, an “extensive bourbon selection.”

I was happy to see an old Uptown tradition continues: As we sat down, a wire basket containing complimentary sliced loaves landed on our table: dark, slightly sweet brown bread and tender white baguette, with plenty of whipped butter.

An appetizer order of fried green tomatoes ($12) started things off right. Five thin slices of properly green tomato were coated with a crispy, crackly fried cornbread breading, plated on a fresh lettuce leaf, and garnished with chopped parsley and tomato dice. A bowl of cumin-laced, gently spicy red bell pepper aioli came alongside. It was a tasty starter, although the cornmeal crust and spicy aioli overpowered the tomato flavor; thicker slices might have made for more balanced flavors in the dish.

The Uptown burger ($18) has been a menu star since the very start. An excellent homemade patty, shaped by hand and thickest at the center, it was a good fit for the thin, buttered and grilled English muffin that it perched on. Hot-pink medium-rare, exactly as ordered, it was served open-faced, with a dollop of blue cheese dressing (our choice from pepper jack, cheddar, smoked Gouda, Swiss or American) atop one muffin half. The other half of the muffin was set up with fresh leaf lettuce, sliced red onion, a ripe red tomato slice, and mild pickle slices.

Excellent fries came alongside: crisp, not flabby, lightly dusted with mild spice, and apparently cut from very large potatoes: One startling fry measured about 8 inches long.

Several of the menu items are marked as gluten-free, but you’ve got to figure out vegetarian and vegan options on your own (or, yeah, ask a server.) Two of the entrees, stir-fried vegetables and curried rice noodles (both $18), appear to be vegan.

The Asian-style noodles (pictured at the top of this page) made an exceptional dish, served in a large, shallow white bowl attractively decorated with curlicues of Sriracha sauce around the edge. Tender flat rice noodles in a hot but not fiery curry sauce were topped with an artful selection of tofu cubes, broccoli florets, snow peas, thin-sliced cabbage, carrot, and onion, and topped with a scoop of chopped peanuts and a few cilantro leaves. The vegetables were very well done, quickly blanched so their colors remained bright and they were still crisp-tender to the bite but no longer raw.

A main-meal-size lunch for two came to $50.88, plus a $12 tip.?

Uptown Cafe
1624 Bardstown Road
405-8898
uptownlouisville.com
?facebook.com/UptownLouisville?
instagram.com/uptowncafelouisville

Noise Level: Just about every table was taken at this popular spot, and that results in a happy hum. Conversation was only occasionally difficult, though, with average sound at 69dB with peaks to a noisy 78.8dB.

Accessibility: The restaurant and its multiple rooms appear fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The post New Uptown Cafe, a lot like the old Uptown Cafe appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I was putting on my disguise and puffing up my wig, getting ready to go review a restaurant, when a New York Times headline caught my eye: “The 21st-Century Shakedown of Restaurants.” (The Times’ headline is pictured above.)

“This isn’t a joke,” opinion essayist Karen Stabiner wrote. “This is a 21st-century shakedown. Here is how it works: An influencer walks into a restaurant to collect an evening’s worth of free food and drink, having promised to create social media content extolling the restaurant’s virtues.”

Dang! Have I been doing this whole restaurant criticism thing wrong all these years? I coulda made a mint! But that’s not my style. Asking a chef or owner for a payoff would have been a firing offense at Barry Bingham Jr.’s Louisville Times and Courier-Journal back in the ‘80s.

I continued the same ethic when I started LouisvilleHotBytes.com in the ‘90s, and we’ve continued a similar policy at LEO Weekly since partnering up around 2006.

Stabiner’s opinion is firm: With the possible exception of a few “first-tier” influencers who share some common ground with journalists, she’s against the whole idea. A food writer and journalist and author of the 2016 book Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dream, Stabiner has the chops to judge.

You should really check out the whole article. It’s a good read, and this gift link will take you legally through The Times’ paywall. Here’s a sample that got my attention:

“In a business without boundaries, anything goes. Brian Bornemann, the chef and a co-owner of the restaurants Crudo e Nudo and Isla in Santa Monica, Calif., said that while there are reliable influencers, the ‘lower echelons’ see a free meal as a way to build their personal brands. And the most entrepreneurial influencers, whether they have sophisticated skills or merely a prospector’s zeal, offer an ascending roster of fee-based services.”

She doesn’t make this sound like an admirable line of business. I wouldn’t offer a chef an “ascending roster of fee-based services” if I could. Actually, I probably don’t even rate as an influencer since a Nigerian spear-phisher captured my old Instagram account and I couldn’t get it back because – true story – I couldn’t prove my own identity since to protect my anonymity, I never uploaded a photo of myself.

That’s been my rule since the very start: Dine as anonymously as possible (just kidding above, I don’t really wear a wig or disguise), keep a low profile, don’t reserve in my own name, and avoid buddying up with chefs and owners. It would be mighty embarrassing to turn around and extend my hand for a tip after acting like that. ??Still, this whole concept of pay-to-play influencers intrigued me. When I wrote a recent column about restaurants and social media (LouisvilleHotBytes, July 26, 2023), it didn’t even cross my mind to mention paid influencers. What a strange idea!

Is this happening right here in River City, I wondered? I reached out in person and on social media, talking to foodies and chefs and even an influencer or two, and hooboy! Did I get an earful.

I probably shouldn’t have surprised that while plenty of people had opinions, very few of them cared to be quoted by name. I get that, and so did the Times’ opinion piece: “Fear and imagination are a potent mix, and wary restaurateurs worry about retaliation if food influencers don’t get what they want.”

Said one local restaurateur: “Let’s pay someone for good reviews. At this point how can you trust anyone’s opinion? I’ve seen some locally by people that do this. Rave about a place that is average at best. You like our food? Tell people about it but I’m not gonna give you anything free for a shout out.”

Another restaurant owner laconically said, “I’ve heard that,” and left it at that. Food-industry friends from California to Buenos Aires said the practice has become commonplace. “It happens globally,” said one chef.

Some influencers can apparently get downright demanding. “I know of at least one that shows up and tells you their drinks should be free cause they’re ‘gonna post about it’,” one source said. “Then when you make them pay they write a big zero on the tip line.”

A public-relations expert at Mediaura, a local full-service digital marketing agency, isn’t impressed with paid influencers as a publicity measure. “I personally think it’s a waste of money,” they said. “It’s more important for the restaurant themselves to figure out how to do it in-house. And of course, encourage regular customers to post positive things.”

It probably won’t surprise you that influencers didn’t come running from the woodwork to talk to me, but I did have a good conversation with Todd Lanham, who goes by The Lou Guru to his nearly 5,000 followers @thelouguru on instagram.

Lanham, who grew up in Central Kentucky but moved to Louisville in 1999, says he has always enjoyed learning about the city and finding ways to connect people and help them out with recommendations around town, so he started The Lou Guru on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and a website to share his thoughts and recommendations about local spots and help them connect with guests.

“I really find it to be an enjoyable hobby more than anything,” he said. “I definitely didn’t start it to monetize anything. I may be a bit untraditional in the space: I don’t run into many 47-year-old dads doing this stuff!”

Lanham said, he was a little shocked by the New York Times article’s reports of influencer corruption. “Personally, I’ve only experienced positives.” Restaurants usually reach out directly or through an ad agency. “If the cost of his meal is covered in return for the publicity, he’ll take care to overtip the servers. “The business owners are always very appreciative, and it’s fun for me to share their passions.”

That sounds more than fair.

The post What’s an influencer? Is there money in it? appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Blue Dog Bakery celebrated a quarter-century of making great bread for Louisville’s people this year, and it’s hard for me to believe that it has been that long.

It feels as if it was only recently, but it was actually way back in 1998 that I knocked on Blue Dog’s back door in the dark hours before dawn and met owners Bob Hancock and his wife Kit Garrett.

I was there to write a story about this new artisanal bakery, an assignment that I sought so I could get a look at this fascinating new Frankfort Avenue spot. I even got to peek inside its 45,000-pound, $50,000 Llopis (“YO-pee”) Spanish bread oven that Hancock purchased and got installed with the help of an expert from Barcelona who came over to Louisville to help.

Hancock had already built a wood fire in the oven, and I would spend the rest of the morning looking on, talking, and learning as this bright new bakery and cafe woke up around me. They told me about how they had come back home to Louisville from the Pacific Northwest with a bucket of natural bread starter bubbling in the back of their van. And I heard about how the name of the bakery perpetuates the memory of a beloved dog.

Mostly, though, I absorbed the look and feel and taste of an exceptional artisanal bakery. And I was impressed by the obvious desire for perfection that infused Hancock’s and Garrett’s work and that still shows in the quality of the bread that has become an iconic part of Louisville culinary life.
 
That same insistence on seeking perfection would later inform their second property, Red Hog, an artisanal butcher shop and restaurant that opened just down the street at 2622 Frankfort Avenue in 2017. Red Hog features sustainable, humane, and ethically raised pork, beef, lamb, and poultry from local farms.

Blue Dog continued operating as a commercial bakery during the pandemic, but its public cafe closed for a while. I’m glad it’s back. It is one of the city’s favorite spots for European-style cafe dining, with a bill of fare largely based, of course, on Blue Dog breads and Red Hog meats, plus artisanal coffee drinks, wines, and an appealing range of pastries and desserts.

The café is open for breakfast and lunch Tuesdays through Saturdays, with counter service from 7-9 a.m., table service from 9 a.m.-2 p.m., and retail bakery hours continuing at the counter until 4 p.m.

The café menu offers four or five breakfast and brunch dishes priced from $12 (for a fried egg and cheese sandwich) to $16 (for a smoked-salmon tartine or poached egg and bacon flatbread). Soups and salads, available from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., are $9 (for the soup of the day) to $15 (for a cobb salad or salade niçoise).

Sandwiches are all $12 including a choice. of side; topped flatbreads are all $16. They’re available from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Flatbreads look a lot like pizzas, which is fine with me; and that goes double for Blue Dog’s flatbread fitted out with Red Hog sausage and pepperoni ($16, pictured at the top of the page). A thick, puffy whitebread crust, tender and full of yeasty holes, had been hand-formed into a long oval. It was dressed with a thin coating of thick, slightly sweet tomato jam and a mix of mozzarella and provolone cheeses that blanketed chunks of cooked ground sausage and thin-slices of excellent handmade pepperoni. Earthy black kalamata olives and fresh green arugula completed a delicious pizza-adjacent dish.

A grilled artichoke and eggplant sandwich ($12) also made a filling and delicious lunch. A large square of Blue Dog’s chewy, wheaty Pugliese bread was sandwiched with layers of mild goat cheese, roasted red bell peppers, funky kalamata tapenade, and mozzarella, all surrounding a generous portion of tiny bits of artichoke and sliced roasted eggplant. Squished and toasted panini-style until the bread was gently crunchy, it was one of the best sandwiches I’ve enjoyed lately.

A side dish of wheatberry salad was built on a portion of wheat berries – tiny, tan, chewy whole wheat grains – mixed with plumped golden raisins, chopped walnuts, small lima beans, and thinly sliced celery rounds. Dressed with a sweet vinaigrette, it’s a healthful salad that’s been on the Blue Dog menu since the very start.

Chocolate mousse cake ($7) made a great finishing touch. A round of mousse was thick yet airy, intensely chocolatey and complex, with a blend of chocolate flavors playing together, not too bitter and not too sweet. Built on a base of chocolate cookie crumbs and topped with whipped cream, it was an impressive dessert.

With an oat milk latte ($3.75 plus a dollar upcharge for the oat milk), lunch for two was $36.68, plus a $10 tip.

Blue Dog Bakery & Cafe
2868 Frankfort Ave.
899-9800
bluedogbakeryandcafe.com
facebook.com/bluedogbakeryandcafe
instagram.com/bluedogbakeryandcafe

Noise Level: Blue Dog is almost always busy, and the crowd makes its presence known in a steady but rarely ear-shattering buzz. Its 68dB average sound level is within the range of normal conversation.

Accessibility: The entrance and restroom appear accessible to wheelchair users, but the small dining room is packed with tables and chairs and may be challenging to negotiate in a wheelchair.

The post Blue Dog achieves perfection, or comes mighty close appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

In the overall scheme of things, it hasn’t been all that long since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. And it’s still recent history when Steve Jobs started the process of getting a tiny, powerful computer into everyone’s pocket.

How in the heck did we figure out how to eat before we could grab our smartphone and in a matter of seconds check out everything we wanted to know about where to go for dinner tonight and figure out what to have when we got there?

As recently as the 1980s, when I first wrote about restaurants for the old Louisville Times, a newspaper review was one of the few ways you could find out about the latest and greatest. If you’re reading this column, perhaps it still is, and I thank you!

Of course many places also advertised in the papers, and just about every eatery in town had a listing in the Yellow Pages. Remember those? The fancier or more assertive places paid up for larger display ads in that would stand out in that hefty, annually updated volume filled with tiny print.

Other than those dead-tree options, the occasional billboard, and fliers carried door to door, it was pretty much all word-of-mouth. It seemed to work, and the good news was that it didn’t cost the restaurant owner all that much to get the establishment’s name out there.

That was then. This is now.

That was then. Everything is different now. We want to know everything there is to know about every place we might want to eat. We want to know the hours, the location, what the place looks like, the dress code, and of course a full, accurate, current menu with detailed descriptions and prices.

Where do we want it? We want it on a website, Facebook, Instagram (like Anoosh Shariat’s post for his Anoosh Bistro, at the top of this page), and, increasingly, TikTok and even that spanking-new Twitter killer, Meta’s Threads. not to mention search engines like Google and Bing, reservation services like OpenTable, local online forums like LouisvilleHotBytes. And yeah, we still want to read media reviews, too. We’re still here and plan to stay, although looking around, this seems to be a declining art form.

From our perspective as consumers, this may seem like a golden age. Pull up an eatery’s website or Facebook page, follow it on Instagram, and we’ve got a ton of information to help us decide. We probably have good reason to doubt whether it’s 100 percent current – I recently checked a local eatery’s menu that cited a supplier I knew had been closed since last winter – but it’s a wealth of data that we never had before.

How does social media get paid for?

From the restaurateur’s perspective, though, this can’t be an unmixed blessing. In a business with narrow profit margins and unexpected costs lurking around every corner, advertising was a small but necessary budget line. Then came the Internet, and maybe for a while you could get by with the help of a tech-savvy kid crafting you a simple website. Ha! Not any more.

Costs vary widely, and a lucky executive may still know where to find that tech-savvy kid. But in a competitive market where you need to look professional or go home, it may cost $10,000 or more to set up a website, Facebook and Instagram pages and another couple of thousand to keep it up to date. That’s not a place to cut corners, either. You don’t want to make a potential customer angry before they even come in the door to discover the dish they wanted or the price they expected has changed.

It’s enough to make an owner throw up their hands and give the whole thing up. Who needs a website anyway? Only a restaurant executive who wants to survive, that’s all!

It takes money to make money, as the saying goes, and it’s necessary to be in the competition to lure those hungry diners in your doors. According to a survey cited in QSR, publication of the quick-service restaurant industry, nearly half (45 percent) of U.S. diners said they’ve tried a restaurant for the first time because of a social media post; and three-quarters said they actively follow and engage with restaurants on social media and are most likely to dine in or order food from the establishments that they follow.

“For restaurant marketers, it’s clear that high-quality social media content … has great relevance to consumers,” Ryan Goff at restaurant marketing agency MGH told QSR. “When done right, social content marketing can have great influence over where diners choose to spend their hard-earned money.”

How much is enough?

So, you’ve shelled out for your website and your Facebook page and made sure that they show up on Google Maps. Can you call it a day? Probably not. Instagram matters. According to Social Media Today nearly one-third of millennial diners “actively avoid restaurants with a weak Instagram presence. The power Instagram has on consumers’ purchasing behavior is continuously growing. This means that your business’s Instagram is just as important as your website.”

Nor can you stop there. According to Nation’s Restaurant News, Gen Z is showing a distinct preference for TikTok over Google Maps for deciding where to eat, thanks to “TikTok reviews’ immersive, authentic qualities. Users like TikTok because its seemingly endless content feels authentic and unfussy – videos made by real people, for real people. Creating ads that capture the candid nature of organic TikTok content helps businesses blend in and profit.”

And then there’s fast-growing Threads. “Many restaurant brands aren’t wasting any time trying to leverage the mass migration to Threads,” Nation’s Restaurant News observed in another article. What does having a presence here mean? Well, for starters, it means the brands that choose to join Threads will have to develop another content strategy for yet another social media channel.”

It never seems to end, but if you want to be seen, you’ve got to be there. Good luck, restaurant industry friends!

The post “Find us on Facebook” Or not. Restaurants and social media appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Charcuterie. Not long ago, most of us weren’t even sure how to pronounce it. Now, says the National Restaurant Association, “Charcuterie makes the cut for 2023. A Top 3 hot menu trend and No. 1 in appetizers … charcuterie is a rising star on menus.”

Indeed, charcuterie is showing up in restaurants all over town. You can get a board on the menu at Red Hog, North of Bourbon, Mussel & Burger Bar, Monnik Beer Co., where the $21 charcuterie plate features local meats and cheeses … did I mention that charcuterie is trending? We’re even getting shops that specialize in charcuterie: Board and You in New Albany will fashion you a board to go, and so will Cultured – Cheese and Charcuterie Bar in Butchertown. Not to mention Harvey’s in Clifton, a newish spot that I’ve been meaning to check out since it opened at the end of February, when it moved into this storefront in the Clifton Lofts condo building from its former stand in the Logan Street Market.

It’s a small but comfortable space, doing a substantial take-out business in party cheese and charcuterie boards, cheese plates, and a small but interesting slection of cheeses, locally produced jams and jellies, and more. You’ll hear a faint Aussie accent here, as Brent Mills, who owns Harvey’s with his wife Ashley Urjil-Mills, hails from Sydney, where the couple met. They named the shop after their son.

You’re welcome to dine in too, with comfortable wooden tables and chairs in a quick-service setting where you order at the counter.

The lunch menu fits on one page but still gives plenty of choice; the flip side offers a similarly enticing choice of beverages. On the food side you’ll find four appetizers (titled “snacks”), four sandos (yep, sandwiches), and four meal-size bowls, along with a cheese-and-charcuterie option and a trio of sweets. Just about everything is priced in the teens, with a couple of snacks on the low end and a black garlic ricotta gnocchi bowl topping out the price range at $24.

We started with a pair of snacks: bowls of marinated olives ($7) and crunch nut mix ($6). Both items looked small but turned out to be so filling that we took about half home in takeout tubs.

At least 30 attractive emerald-green Castelvetrano olives had been neatly pitted and marinated in a tangy lemon-fennel-scented oil that played nicely against the mild, buttery flavor of the olives. A sliver of gently spicy red Fresno pepper on top added color and a touch of heat.

Crunch nut mix appeared to be based on mixed nuts and perhaps corn kernels; they’d been roasted until flattened and crunchy, flavored with Asian lime leaf and pepperberry, a fruity spice from a Tasmanian shrub in Australia. Offbeat, yes. Delicious, also yes.

Harvey’s classico toastie ($13) is a hefty creation that a plain grilled cheese only wishes it could be. It’s built on Wiltshire’s tender buttermilk white bread, which holds up well under a combination of aged Cheddar and smoked mozzarella and a generous layer of mild, vegetal arugula pesto, with bits of sun-dried tomato as flavor surprises. It’s toasted until the bread is crisp and light golden brown and the cheeses molten. It’s almost too heavy a load for the bread, but the Wiltshire product came through. It was a real treat; and a ration of gaufrette waffle chips kicked up with pepperberry made it even better.

Naturally we had to have charcuterie, and the menu offers several options. First, select two or three of the cheeses of the day ($19 or $27), one or two of the charcuterie meats of the day ($9 or $16) then, optionally add a $12 conserva, a single-serving tinned fish from Spain or Portugal.

The toastie had left us deliciously cheesed out, so we opted for a single-meat charcuterie portion ($9) using finnochiona, fennel-scented Sicilian-style pork salami made in Wisconsin.

Charcuterie selections come with bread, condiments, and “accoutrement,” and all those goodies filled up an attractive, antique-looking rectangular glass dish with a tiny silver spoon to match. It was a satisfying combination of colors and textures – Some crunchy, some soft, some spicy, and some sweet – and yes, in retrospect, a bit of cheese on the plate wold have made it even better.

About eight round salami slices were neatly fashioned into a flower shape, the star of the plate. Artfully arranged around it were spicy pickled brussels sprouts; creamy mustard perhaps with a dab of wasabi; tiny cornichons; tiny mild teardrop-shape red peppers; pistachios in the shell that appeared to have been spiced and roasted or fried; corn nuts from the crunch nut mix; marinated black olives; dried figs and apricots; toasted seeded bread triangles and a stack of tiny square mini-toasts. It was a work of edible art, and I’d definitely do charcuterie again.

With cold water alongside, lunch came to $37.10, plus an $8 tip.

Harvey’s
2011 Frankfort Ave.
314-0432
harveyscheese.com
facebook.com/harveyscheese
instagram.com/harveyslou

Noise Level: The room wasn’t very crowded during a late weekday lunch, and even with soft background music noise never rose above a conversational 68dB.

Accessibility: A step bars independent wheelchair access to the front door, but a side door, the dining area and the restrooms all appear accessible to wheelchair users.

The post We go for the big cheese, and charcuterie too, at Harvey’s appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

“Uh. Two things I don’t much like: Maraschino and Amaretto,” I whispered to fellow judge Caity DiFabio as yet another slice of cake dropped on our star-spangled table.

She nodded, and then we picked up our forks, and we were like “Whoa.” Whoever made this cake knew what to do with flavors. It was remarkable! Judge Josh Moore agreed, and the deal was sealed. Amanda and Eleanor B…’s almond maraschino cake with Amaretto had won the annual cake contest at the Crescent Hill Old Fashioned Fourth of July Picnic.

“We’ve been doing this since 1880. That’s the honest truth,” claimed contest co-organizer Scott Endres, although his partner and spouse Shannon Endres later confided that they’ve been running the event since 2018, with two years off during the pandemic; a previous contest had dropped off the program in 2010 after, by strange coincidence, Shannon won that year.

DiFabio, who is executive chef at DiFabio’s Casapela, and Moore, who holds the same position at Volare, and I have judged the annual event for the past several years spanning the pandemic, along with a changing cast of other culinary characters.

It’s always fun. It’s more of a challenge than you might think to carefully analyze a parade of tasty cakes fashioned by neighborhood home bakers and cooks. And an hour of cake tasting on a sunny summer afternoon imparts a memorable sugar buzz that takes hours to fade.

So what’s it like being a judge? What exactly does a cake judge do? When I posted my adventures on social media, I was surprised by how quickly the questions started coming in. Let’s talk about some of the basics, and then I’ll tell you about the amazing cakes.

How does one get on a tasting panel?

Basically, you have to get an invitation. For this event, it helps to live in the Crescent Hill neighborhood. Then, it’s good to have some relevant experience, such as being a food writer (me) or being a chef (Catie, Josh, and past judges Madeleine Dee and others). If you’re interested and think you have the appropriate résumè, reach out to Scott or Shannon Endres through Peterson-Dumesnil House.

What criteria do you use? Moistness? Classic taste? Unique taste? Looks—whether the frosting and any decoration look pretty?

I love a good, detailed question! Over the years, judges and organizers have come up with a simple scoring sheet. Each judge rates each cake on a scale from zero to 10 on each four criteria: Presentation, originality-creativity, taste, and baking technique. After I total my numbers on each card, I stack them in order and head for a private back room to compare notes with the other judges.

Do the judges’ criteria differ among themselves?

We’re all individuals, of course, but I’m always surprised that our ratings aren’t generally all that far apart. The best cakes rise to the top, and over recent events I can’t recall a time when we didn’t reach quick agreement on the prize winners.

Don’t your taste buds get tired from eating all that cake?

You’d think! Cake judging is a bit like wine judging in that you don’t want to overdo at the start. But at least we don’t have to spit out the cake unlike those poor wine judges who never get to swallow. We do get very small portions, though, and carefully parse out bits of frosting, filling, fruit, and the cake itself before tasting it all together. And even most of the tiny portions get left over.

Did you save me leftovers? Will gladly pay!

Yes, we saved you leftovers, if you were there! Organizers slice and box all the cakes after the judging, and they’re available to all, first come, first served, for $5 per slice. All the proceeds benefit the historic Peterson-Dumesnil House.

How can I enter a cake next year?

Go “like” the Crescent Hill Community Council Facebook page right now. Watch around mid-June for an announcement with details. Basically, the contest is open only to home and non-professional bakers, and entries are limited to 13 cakes, a Baker’s Dozen! Crescent Hill residents get precedence, but everyone is welcome to enter with no entry fee.

Tell us about this year’s entries!

There were nine entries this year, and all were excitingly good. The range of scores between my highest and lowest was very narrow indeed. Because they were all so delicious, I won’t name them in order, but I’ll say that I’d be delighted to find a slice of any of them on my plate.

Here’s the list in entry-number order:

1 – Dark chocolate raspberry
2 – Chocolate raspberry buttercream
3 – Lemon blueberry
4 – Esther’s orange marmalade cake
5 – Almond maraschino cake with Amaretto: The winner! Amanda and Eleanor Brainard’s entry, despite my initial concern about not being a fan of two of its ingredients, was expertly baked and finished and showed a professional-level command of flavor. A well-earned win.
6 – American Flag. This entry by Squish Schmidt won the judges’ Unicorn Award for most patriotic entry. A gigantic American Flag sheet cake, it was assembled from 10 separate pieces, used seven pounds of shortening, required an SUV for transportation, and needed to be tilted very, very carefully to get it through Dumesnil House’s 154-year-old doorways.
7 – Lemon lavender blueberry cake
8 – chocolate orange cake with orange flavor icing
9 – Triple layer chocolate brownie cake

Are you tired of cake now?

You might think so! In fact, though, going over my notes and photos as I write this, I’m kind of craving a slice.

The post Let ‘em eat cake: the view from the judges’ table appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” Yogi Berra may or may not have said that, and if he did, he was talking about Ruggeri’s, an iconic Italian restaurant on The Hill in St. Louis.

But Yogi might as well have been talking about The House of Marigold, a stylish new restaurant out Shelbyville Road. This breakfast-and-lunch spot opened late in March and got so popular, so fast, that it took me until now to find a way to beat the crowds and get in.

Stymied by a no-reservations policy, two-hour waits and an overflowing parking lot on several early attempts, I finally resorted to calling to ask about the best way to claim a table.

The gist of management’s advice: Don’t try it on a weekend, and don’t wait until after 11 a.m.

That seemed fair, so we rolled in at 10:30 on a Friday morning, got a table right away, enjoyed great service and a fine meal, and watched the tables fill up around us as the noise level grew.

Located in a free-standing building that previously housed a short-lived branch of Royals Hot Chicken, House of Marigold has been through a serious remodel. It’s spacious and airy, with walls of windows, rows of hanging lights, and classic casual decor in whites, greens, golds and natural wood.

The co-owners, the husband and wife team of Chef Kristopher and host Adrienne Cole, parlayed a history in the local eats business and a successful catering company with popular mobile bar carts into powerful word of mouth publicity.

The restaurant claims a commitment to local produce and meat suppliers (including Kentucky beef from poet Wendell Berry’s Our Home Place local farms initiative). The menu incorporates breakfast, brunch, and lunch options throughout its 8 a.m.-3 p.m. daily operations. (The dining room is available to rent after those hour for special events and private dinners.)

Cole’s seasonal menu offers breakfast items (billed as “I’m not ready for lunch”), “biscuit things,” shareable dishes, salads, sandwiches, and entrees (“whole lotta lunch”). Most items range in price from $10 to $18, with entrees a bit more spendy at $22 (for vegetable pad Thai) to $27 (for seared salmon); add more protein to any dish for $7 (for chicken breast) to $12 (for steak, salmon, or shrimp).

A drinks menu offers a dozen cocktails from $9 to $11, plus a mimosa trio at $26; there’s a short, modestly priced wine and beer list and a couple of $7 mocktails.

I was intrigued by social media posts about Marigold’s “build your own” deviled eggs ($12). Naturally I had to try it! This appetizer is served on a long, purpose-built white ceramic dish with a dozen spaces to hold six egg halves filled with creamy whipped yolks seasoned with black pepper piped in pretty floral shapes. Alternate spaces were loaded with six topping to apply as you like them: crumbled bacon bits, yellow cheese shreds, pickled green-tomato chow chow, chopped green onion, “everything“ bagel topping mix, and microgreens.  It was fun to try flavor combinations, but be aware, this is an eat-with-your-hands dish that will put your attractive cotton napkin to the test.

Beets are a divisive veggie. I love them, although I had to laugh when a social-media friend recently described their flavor as “bitter mold and sadness.” More for me! I was impressed with Marigold’s farmhouse beet salad ($13). Attractively plated, a treat for the eyes and the palate, it was a meal-size plate filled with separate mounds of diced, tender cooked purple and yellow beats flanked on one side by citrus ricotta drizzled with olive oil, on the other by rich beet sumac puree drizzled with champagne herb vinaigrette. This mountain of color and flavor was finished with garnishes of grilled lemon, microgreens, pea tendrils, and edible flowers.

A large biscuit ($2) ordered alongside the salad because biscuits, was very buttery, delicious, and big enough for two to share.

A fried chicken sandwich ($14, also available grilled) consisted of a large, mild-flavored chicken thigh, pale and tender within a thick, very crisp batter-breaded crust. It was large enough to fill an oversize golden-brown brioche bun lightly speared with mayo and a handful of thin quick-pickled cucumber slices, leaf lettuce, and a surprisingly pale slice of what looked like last winter’s tomato. A generous portion of thick-sliced, crunchy, fresh-fried potato chips filled the rest of the plate.

I’m not a fan of commercial Pop-Tarts, but I’ve heard enough about Marigold’s $4 tongue-in-cheek house-made version that I couldn’t resist. I asked for brown sugar filling but accidentally got the version filled with strawberry. It was still good, filling surrounded by taste pie dough and topped with sugar glaze and colored sprinkles, but it’s not really something I’d crave again.

House of Marigold isn’t cheap eats, but it’s not unreasonable. With hot, strong coffee ($3.29 each), an impressive lunch came to $54.68, plus a $12 tip.

The House of Marigold
10310 Shelbyville Road
384-3767
thehouseofmarigold.com/welcome
facebook.com/marigoldcateringco
instagram.com/houseofmarigoldky

Noise Level: Undraped tables and hard surfaces bounce around the sound of a happy crowd, making conversation difficult. Noise levels averaged a 79.7 roar to an ear-shattering 92.2dB peak.

Accessibility: The dining room and restrooms appear fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The post The early bird gets the table at House of Marigold appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

One cold day last winter, I joined a group of friends at a popular local breakfast spot. I pulled up a chair, said down, reached for a menu, and … oops! hey now, what’s this? I’m stuck to the chair!

Sure enough, I was literally glued in place. It took an actual effort to pull up and break loose from my mooringswith an audible pop. On closer inspection, the problem became clear: A previous occupant had left a small pool of pancake syrup pooled on the seat.

Silly me for failing to look before I sat down, but still: GRRR!

I took it on myself to pull the chair over to a corner. I draped a napkin over the pool and informed a server. She nodded, showed no particular interest, and didn’t offer to have the cleaning bill for my khakis deducted from my tab.

Lesson learned: Look carefully at the chair before you sit down. But it wasn’t really the sticky chair that torqued my cheeks. It was the server’s ho-hum reaction. Let’s be honest: Amid all our pleasure in delicious restaurant meals, memorable dining settings and perfect service, we have to face reality: Not every dining-out experience sparks joy.

A couple of months ago, in an article about the little annoyances that get in the way of the full enjoyment of your restaurant meal, I promised to circle back with some thoughts and stories about restaurant issues that get more serious.

“I could devote a full column to food-related annoyances,” I wrote. That prompted quite a few of you to get in touch with stories about experiences that went well beyond mere annoyances and actually made you question whether it would be wise to return to that eatery ever again. Wooee! If some of those restaurant walls could talk!

Let’s share a few of the best stories – and by “best,” I mean “most horrifying” – today. A couple of caveats: I’ll omit the names of the restaurants involved, recognizing that even the best places can have an occasional really bad day. And I won’t name my friends who told the stories, freeing them to bring full candor to the table.

It don’t get no worse than this …

Years ago, a friend went to a local restaurant with a business associate. “We ordered the same appetizer. I go home and have a nice relaxing weekend. Then Sunday night happened. Abdominal pain. The next day pain and swelling of my abdomen. By Saturday morning the pain was so strong I took a ambulance ride to my first emergency room visit. I spent six weeks in the hospital, was unable to eat for two months and lost over 60 pounds.. My fellow diner and I were infected with two microbes. My gut never fully recovered.”

My response: Food poisoning is one of the worst things that can happen in a restaurant setting. And in my friend’s case the source appeared obvious. But food poisoning is actually very rare, and it’s usually impossible to prove a direct, actionable connection between your restaurant dish and your indigestion. Should you seek legal relief if you believe you were poisoned? That’s up to you, but chances. are you’ll have a lot of pain and little gain.

Nobody goes there any more because …

Another friend told of a long-ago visit to what had been a favorite restaurant.
“Late afternoon and they were not busy. We ordered our regular meals.
My starter came out with mold on some of it. I asked for it fixed. The next also had mold. Our entrees came out. Raw and cold in the center. We sent it back, and the following three times, it came out the same way. We left and haven’t returned in fifteen years but did nostalgically mention giving it another shot recently.”

I fully understand my friends’ reluctance to go back. If it were me, even years later I’d do a lot of due diligence and crowd-sourcing before trying it again.

At your service … Not!

The restaurant was practically empty at when another friend came in for an early dinner at 5:30 p.m. “The server was the most pretentious server I’ve ever had. She treated us as if she didn’t think we were good enough to be there. Her body language reeked of superiority. She rolled her eyes at questions about the menu. When we ordered ‘black coffee, no cream or sugar,’ she conspicuously rolled her eyes again and said, ‘Black coffee means no cream or sugar.” Her snide, arrogant, impatient approach to us was reflected in a 2% tip with a written explanation.”

I’m usually an advocate for generous tipping, and until the U.S. somehow finds its way toward a more European system of living wages for professional servers, I’ll remain so. But in this case, I approve of my friend’s response.

Surprise!

This unexpected incident at an out-of-town restaurant ended well, but it’s probably funnier in the re-telling than it was at the time: “My dad ordered a dessert quesadilla, but it somehow got confused with a seafood quesadilla. His order came out covered in chocolate, with whipped cream and a cherry on top. He took a bite assuming it was a dessert, but when he tasted the shrimp, cheese, cilantro, and onion inside he let out a yelp of disgust, confusion, and disappointment that I’ve never heard a human being make before or since.”

The good news: “They replaced it and comped it and everyone laughed.” And that’s the kind of happy ending we wish all these stories could have.

See ourselves as others see us

Finally, as we enjoy telling scare stories about bad restaurant experiences, consider this advice from a server friend: “My absolute worst experience as a guest doesn’t even come close to my many bad experiences as a server. No matter what, the serving side will always have it worse than the patron side.”

The post What could possibly go wrong? Oops! appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

When I get a restaurant meal, I look for a number of things whether I’m reviewing or not, but especially if I am.
• I like a sense of design and style that doesn’t get in the way of comfort.
• I like good service. Friendly is fine. Fawning is not. And competence matters.
• I like a menu that’s clear, informative and easy to read in dim light; that lets me know what a dish is like. Extra points for naming the sources of meats and produce.
• Most of all, I like good food. Isn’t that what a restaurant is for? And “like” turns to “love” if the food isn’t just good but shows off the chef’s creativity and bold experimentation.

A recent visit to Naive Kitchen + Bar in Butchertown ticked off every one of those boxes, cementing its place among my local favorites. When my friend Laura and I dropped in for lunch on a weekday, I noticed that things had changed since my last visit five years ago, not long after it opened.

The scene is cool and stylish now, with a curved bar separated from a dining area. The room is discreetly colored in grays, off-whites, tans, and earth tones, with large windows at the front allowing in plenty of light and offering a few of its Butchertown neighbors. The old quick-service operation – order at the counter, take a number and wait for your food – has been replaced by full table service, and tables are set with quality tableware and white cloth napkins.

Chef Drew Corman’s menu fits Naive’s declared mission as “a west coast, vegetable-centric restaurant” turned bar at night, with meat options and some healthy indulgences, too, serving local and organic dishes focusing on a vegetarian lifestyle “with options to include carnivores, vegans, and all diets in between.”

Our server described the menu as “Japanese-Italian fusion.” I could see that, sort of. Plenty of East Asian and Italian flavors meet and mingle, with a few other stops around the world too.

Billed as the spring menu, so possibly due for a seasonal change soon, it featured 15 dishes that segue seamlessly from appetizer-size small plates to entrees, ending with a couple of desserts. Lunch pricing tops out at $26 (for crispy skin salmon with fingerling potato, fava bean, arugula, and garlic), with just about everything else in the middle to upper teens. Come back for dinner and you’ll find a longer menu with higher prices for larger dishes, but still fairly priced with only a couple of steaks reaching into the $30s.

Full bar service offers fairly priced, intriguing wine selections and creative cocktails. An extensive espresso bar menu tempted Laura and me with an iced pistachio latte ($6 plus $2 almond milk upcharge) and a large, steaming caffe latte ($4.50 plus $2 oat milk upcharge).

Each dish on Naive’s menu is coded according to its status as dairy-free (DF), gluten-free (GF), nut-free (NF), vegetarian (VG) or vegan (V), and our appetizer, tempura cauliflower ($15) ticked off every single one of those boxes. It was spectacularly good, and a splendid example of that kitchen creativity that I value.

If you had asked me beforehand, I might have told you that cauliflower isn’t a favorite, and I actively avoid kale. Not this time, bubba! Eight big chunks of tender but not mushy cauliflower were encased in crunchy panko tempura breading and fried just right, then topped with pickled scallions, sweet-and-spicy maple chile dressing, crisp fried kale leaves, and delectable bits of popped sorghum on top just for fun.

The beets in a roasted beet sandwich ($15) were sliced thinner than paper, interleaved with spicy kimchi, smothered in a blanket of melted mild white cheddar and dressed with aromatic garlic chive aioli on thick-sliced toast. It takes a bold spirit to assemble such a disparate cast of flavor characters and make it work. A small salad alongside ($3) was simple but well made with fresh lettuces and arugula.

A burger ($17) made with Kentucky Freedom Run heritage lamb had a lot of potential, but in this instance we felt that creativity reached too far. The burger and quality seeded bun were fine. But the combination of an exotic aioli made with funky, spicy, salty yuzu koshu – a tart and fragrant Japanese fermented citrus and chile paste – plus basil relish and mozzarella was just a little too far out there for us.

Creativity didn’t stop with dessert, and this one got back on the woo-hoo train: Olive oil ice cream with Parmesan ($6) may sound odd, but once you’ve tried it you may just come back for more. Three balls of white chocolate ice cream were dusted with grated Parm and drizzled with good greenish-gold olive oil, and whoa! The flavors worked.

A substantial lunch for two came to $59.36, with a $14 tip for Emma, our cordial and helpful server.

Naive Kitchen + Bar
1001 E. Washington St.
749-7856
eatnaive.com
facebook.com/eatnaive
Instagram.com/eatnaive

Noise Level: Hard edges and a lack of soft, sound-absorbing surfaces kicked the sound level up to an average 74.8dB, a bit above the line for easy conversation.

Accessibility: A step at the front entrance bars equal access to wheelchair users, but there’s an accessible path through the rear. The unisex restroom appears fully accessible.

The post Creative Naive scores high on our critic’s criteria appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Things are changing, and this makes us nervous. We’ve already mourned the loss of Harvest, Decca, and Rye during the pandemic, and their replacement in place if not in spirit by a branch of Cafe Lou Lou and a squadron of Latin-accented Olé Group eateries.

And now James Beard House reveals its annual restaurant award winners for 2023, and once again Louisville strikes out without a sniff of glory.

I just recently lamented about the way Louisville dining lately isn’t like it used to be, and I know I’m not alone in singing this chorus. Is it time for us to accept that our dreams of world recognition as a top-tier restaurant city aren’t to be?

Maybe. Maybe not. As a long-time observer of the scene, I’ve always felt that we’re a damn good place to get a meal and a drink or two, including more than a few eateries that punch above our weight. But New York or Chicago we’re not, and maybe not even Atlanta or Nashville.

On the bright side, some top spots have survived the pandemic and its economic gyrations. Anoosh Bistro, Seviche, Volare, 610 Magnolia, and a few others remain at the top of their game. And we do have some exciting places opening – I’m looking at you, Decade and Nami, Nostalgic and House of Marigold, and I’m sure there will be more. But there’s no use in pretending that the local scene hasn’t shed some of its excitement since Covid-19 came calling in 2020.

For more than 200 years now we’ve remained a relatively wide-open river city surrounded by miles of country, so we’ve always been a place to go for a little fun if you live someplace nearby that isn’t known for fun. This simple reality just about guarantees a town a reputation for good things to eat and drink.

The specifics may change, even drastically. Similar things happened after 9/11 and again after George W.’s Great Recession, when dining interests seemed to turn from fine and fancy to comfort food. But good things to eat and drink? We’ve got that, and it’s not going away.

My friend Carla summed up the situation in a recent HotBytes Forum post:

Now that things have eased up, people are pretty much vaccinated and folks are dining out with a bit more frequency, are you going back to your go-to restaurant, the one that offers you your comfort zone and a familiar menu? Or … did it close? It seems that diners are wandering around wondering “Where do I eat now?” Or maybe that’s just me. What’s your go-to place?

What’s your go-to place, indeed! Mining the many responses to Carla’s post and following up with similar posts of my own on social media, I’ve assembled a list of go-to places, both old and new, that should keep anyone happy, with or without a national award hanging on the wall.

Let’s spend the rest of today’s essay talking about some of my own go-tos and those shared by friends. You’re welcome to add your own in the comments.

For me, this won’t be the first time I’ve told you that Seviche. Anoosh Bistro, and Volare were among my high-end favorites before, and it’s good news that they remain on point as we come out the other end of the pandemic. Ditto for places like Fat Lamb, 210 Clover Lane, 610 Magnolia, Wiltshire on Market, and a squadron of new spots that dot my to-do list: Nami, Decade, Nostalgia, and many, many more. Watch this space, at least on special occasions that justify a budget-blowout meal.

I don’t have to wait for a special occasion to dine happily at all the taquerias and Indian and Asian places that I loved before, and some new ones too. Maybe these great cheap eats are even more go-to than ever for me, eager to save a buck as we navigate a post-Covid economy.

Indeed, a lot of friends’ comments centered on relatively affordable go-to eateries as well, often with the added attraction of offering down-home comfort food. Quite a few people mentioned Goose Creek Diner, a nomination shadowed by speculation about how its pending move to the former Sal’s in Lyndon, a popular sports bar, might (or might not) change its old-school country-style warmth.

Old-school warmth inspired plenty of love for Check’s Cafe in Germantown (with honorable mention for its warming chili), the recently reopened Cottage Inn, The Cafe on Brent Street off East Broadway, and Corner Cafe in Lyndon.

Pizza is a go-to for lots of people, myself included, with plenty of favorites mentioned among the city’s vast selection: MozzaPi, Pizza Lupo, The Post, Coals, Garage Bar, Old School NY Pizza, and many, many more rank among my favorites, and garnered nominations from others as well.

Listening to the enthusiasm as people talked of their favorites was frankly reassuring: If we are in fact losing some fancy, high-end spots in the current economy, the love for good food and dining out that makes Louisville special doesn’t seem to have faltered. There’s still plenty of love for old favorites like Mayan Cafe, El Mundo, Red Hog, Blue Dog, Oskar’s, Irish Rover, Monnik, Holy Grale, and a long list of other microbreweries to explore.

We’ve got our river view eateries like Captain’s Quarters and River House. We can relax and enjoy relatively upscale spots such as Porcini, Varanese, Bar Vetti, Bourbons Bistro, Grassa Gramma, Ciao, Sarino, North of Bourbon, and so it goes. Or we can enjoy affordable fare at Burger Boy, Burger Girl, Hillcrest Tavern, Con Huevos, Lonnie’s, Wagner.s, Shirley Mae’s. D. Nalley’s, Twig & Leaf, and, well, you name it.

What’s your go-to? Just about any restaurant you love for its food and mood, it seems, and this town still has more than its share. Tell us your favorites! Contact me at rgarr@louisvillehotbytes.com and let’s talk.

The post Restaurant fame may falter, but we’ll always have our go-tos. appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

The two guys work together like the practiced team that they are. Their elevator speech is sharp. Then they seque smoothly into a clear presentation. They look at each other. They smile. They laugh. They finish each other’s sentences.

Meet J.D. Mitchell and Eric Wentworth, co-creators and corporate co-owners of Modica, billed as “the world’s first superfood cocktail and mocktail mixer.”

Modica, the team proudly asserts, is a gay-owned local company, certified by NGLEC, the largest advocacy organization dedicated to expanding economic opportunities and advancements for LGBT people and the exclusive certifying body for LGBTQ-owned businesses.

These guys obviously love what they do. And they appear to care about each other. They’ve been on this project since it started as an experimental gig while they were fellow students in the University of Louisville’s Entrepreneurial Master of Business Administration program.

So, a reporter has to ask: Are they a couple? Married?

They echo each other in a big laugh. Nope! Just business partners and friends.

And there is a Pride Month lesson for us all: There’s no reason to assume that our LGBT friends are somehow basically different from the rest of us. Do straight, cisgender business partners become lovers? Sure. It can happen. Is this one of the first questions you’re likely to ask them? Probably not.

So let’s move on, honoring the creativity and spirit that led two then-20-somethings to create a product that arguably disrupts the bottled mixer market.

They met in their U of L grad program in 2016, JD and Eric said during a casual interview over samples of their drinks. They took night classes while working full-time: JD at an investment firm, Eric as a bartender, mixologist, owner and founder at The Hub on Frankfort Avenue.

Combining work and grad school could be a slog, they said. At the end of the day, they often got together for a cocktail. After a long day, they explain in their well rehearsed presentation, they didn’t want to put a lot of effort into constructing a tasty cocktail. Eric didn’t want to muddle or infuse anything. And JD, as he famously explains, can barely squeeze a lime on a good day.

They prowled grocery stores in pursuit of a quality mixer and found loads of of preservatives, toxic-sounding ingredients. and a ton of sugar. Inspired by the absence of what they really wanted, they came up with the idea for Modica: A healthy, flavorful mixer equally suited to building tasty cocktails or equally flavorful non-alcoholic mocktails.

Their creation is built with “superfood” ingredients like aloe, turmeric, ginger, tart cherries, and more traditional ingredients, all naturally-sourced and stoked with vitamins, and electrolytes. No preservatives, no fake flavors.

The coined the product name Modica from the Latin “modicum,” a small amount of something great. They ramped up quickly, creating labels and trade information with the help of Eric’s sister Cat Wentworth, a Yale University arts graduate.

Made with a reasonably short list of ingredients, Modica mixers typically contain water, cane sugar, fruit concentrates, electrolytes and vitamins.

Want to try some? You know you do! You can find them at many local wine shops, bars and restaurants, and grocers including Rainbow Blossom, Paul’s, and some Kroger wine shops. A 16-ounce glass bottle, which holds enough to make 10 cocktails or mocktails, sells for $20 on the website. They’re often a couple of bucks less at retail. There’s a full “Find Us” directory on the Modica website at drinkmodica.com/pages/store-locator.

I tasted two soon-to-market flavors with Eric and JD, crafted into simple fizzes with sparkling water.

I thought the blueberry lavender lemon drop flavor was very good. A pretty reddish-garnet color, it brought appetizing fruity and floral scents to the party. It would make a great cocktail with vodka or even bourbon or rye. Or, of course, sipped with bubbly water as a non-alcoholic fizz.

The cacao espresso martini had me at the first sniff: Rich, bold, dark coffee flavors leapt out of the dark cola-color fluid, and forward coffee and distant cocoa hit my palate upside the taste buds.

These two new flavors should be on the market this summer, Eric said. Meanwhile, I was equally impressed with the three current flavors, tasted later at home.

The Cucumber Aloe Margarita mixer is designed for tequila but also goes well with gin, vodka, or plain club soda. I fashioned a cocktail with equal parts mixer, Sipsmith London Dry Gin, and Topo Coco sparkling mineral water plus a slice of cucumber. Distinct cucumber flavors and slight sweetness made this one a winner.

The Tart Cherry Old Fashioned mixer, as the name implies, makes a great instant old fashioned: Just add bourbon to its fresh, appealing cherry flavor. Fair enough: A little mixer, a little more Old Forester 86, and a seasonal farmers’ market strawberry popped in made a fine version. Topping it off with Topo Chico mellowed it out for day drinking.

Finally, all the superfoods meet and mingle their anti-inflammatory properties in the Turmeric Ginger Mule mixer, a powerfully aromatic, sunny yellow ginger-forward potion that you can mix with vodka, rum, tequila, or gin or knock back with a little iced sparkling or warm water. Here’s to your health!

Modica Superfood Cocktail Mix
tiktok.com/@drinkmodica
instagram.com/drinkmodica
facebook.com/drinkmodica

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The Louisville Independent Business Alliance (LIBA) hosts the Buy Local Fair on Saturday, June 10 from Noon-6 p.m. at Festival Plaza in Waterfront Park (231 Witherspoon Ave.). The event features over 100 local retailers, makers, local libations and food, with kids activities, a cooking competition, “kid-preneur” market, and more. Admission is free with a $3 per person suggested donation to support LIBA and the Buy Local cause. For more information, visit KeepLouisvilleWeird.com/BuyLocalFair. #BuyLocal Fair

The post Buy Local Fair Louisville June 10! appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

The Louisville dining scene sure has changed since I was a kid! Or has it? There’s hardly a better way to spark a conversation among food-loving locals than to start talking about dining out the way it used to be.

It’s no coincidence that one of my recent columns that attracted the most comments was “Memories! The Closed Louisville Restaurants That We Miss The Most” (LouisvilleHotBytes, Oct. 22, 2022). Remember? Talking about old favorites like Hasenour’s, Casa Grisanti, Allo Spiedo, and all the other beloved eateries that many of us (cough cough) are old enough to remember with nostalgia.

How much have things really changed since I first got into writing restaurant reviews as a reporter at the old Louisville Times way back in 1984? I’d say “a lot. But I’d also say, “not as much as you think.” The details would make a good story for another day, and I’m sure I’ll get to it.

Today, though, let’s hop on the wayback machine for a trip even farther back in restaurant time: Have you ever wondered how much our local dining scene has changed since our parents or grandparents were kids? Nah, me either. But my curiosity got sparked the other day when I wandered down a social media rabbit hole into the Louisville Thru The Years, a public Facebook group.

There to my wondering eyes appeared a full-page ad from the Oct. 13, 1963 Courier-Journal, 50 years ago this fall. Headlined “Enjoy a Family Adventure, Your Guide to Good Eating. October is National Restaurant Month,” the ad features a grid of 20 small ads for restaurants designed to lure the hungry reader, and their family too.

It was quite a list: A collection of ads that included a few places I’ve heard of, a couple that lasted into recent years, and a fair number that I don’t recall ever having heard of!

A lot was also notable for its absence. “Mexican” meant chili with spaghetti in those days. “Chinese” meant chop suey and fried rice, mostly. Indian, Thai, Korean, Japanese? You had to travel to New York City or Chicago for that.

What’s more, the few world-food outposts made many of our parents wary. You wouldn’t know what to order at Hoe Kow or Oriental House, and that would be embarrassing. You might get indigestion at The Chile Bowl or the Old Walnut Street Chile Parlor, where you could have a canned tamale dropped atop your chile-on-spaghetti for an extra quarter. Pizza was still relatively recent and a little strange, although you could get a large sausage pie for $1.35 at Joe Z’s Pizza in Buechel, which seemed like a pretty good deal.

So just for fun, let’s take a look at some of the memorable eateries that the CJ ad listed.

Gruber’s Restaurant billed itself as the “house of sauerbraten and wiener schnitzel,” with “complete American and European menu and bar service.” It was located at 2461 Bardstown Road in what now appears to be part of the McDonald’s parking lot. The host Bill Gruber, I’m told, had been maite d’ at the Brown Hotel and was known to serenade guests on their birthdays in a booming, operatic voice.

Kaelin’s, on the other hand, the purported source of the world’s first cheeseburger, lasted into modern times at 1801 Newburg Road, and, with considerable remodeling and new owners, hangs on as Kaelin’s 80/20. The CJ ad declared it the home of Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken, back in the days before the Colonel’s franchising really took off. (Pictured at the top of the page, the 80/20 burger pictured with our 2019 review – heir to the Kaelin’s original cheeseburger – is fashioned from a five-cut beef blend.

Kunz’s The Dutchman resided at 526 S. Fourth St. at the time of this promotion. It started as a liquor store in the 1890s, became a restaurant in 1941, and moved through several Fourth Street locations with its brand of Louisville-style German food before finally closing in 2007.
Leo’s Hideaway had just moved from its longtime home at 115 W. Jefferson St. to 412 W. Chestnut St. when the newspaper ad appeared. An upscale seafood joint featuring shrimp and lobster, it was one of my parents’ favorites. Sadly I wasn’t old enough to go along.

The Colonnade was a fixture in the lower level of the Starks Building for 80 years before new building management ousted the beloved cafeteria in 2006. I can still remember its meat loaf, firm and tender with a haunting scent of green peppers.

“Enjoy the best always,” boasted the ad for Chas Simon’s Delicatessen, at 1603 Bardstown Road just south of Bonnycastle Avenue. Unfortunately, “always” didn’t mean always. This deli seems gone without a trace; even The Google can’t find it.

Li’l Abner’s, “Kentucky’s Most Intriguing Family Restaurant,” was a favorite of Boomer kids during the ‘60s, until the more adult environs of Jim Porter’s replaced it at 2345 Lexington Road at Grinstead Drive.

This random discovery was quite a trip back memory lane beyond the stops that I can actually remember. And that makes me wonder about some of the other older spots that didn’t make the ad or, perhaps, decided not to pay for space on it. Luvisi’s, one of the city’s first upscale Italian restaurants, preceded The Old House at 448 S. Fifth St. and had already gone by the time of this ad. Imorde’s a beloved Italian deli at Third Street near Ormsby, was also gone by the early 1970s.

Now I’m wondering what great restaurants our great-grandparents enjoyed before World War II. Kaelin’s was already there, and Mazzoni’s, and the Cottage Inn. The original Pine Room and the Willow Lake Tavern. The Brown and Seelbach dining rooms. But how about the smaller eateries, the ones whose memories faded before our time? I’d love to know, but I’m afraid Google isn’t going to be much help with this one.

The post We get happily lost on Memory Lane appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I’m sure I’ve confessed this before: I’m a pizza snob. I learned pizza in New. York City, with graduate studies in Italy, and I want my pizza authentic, artisanal, and made according to tradition. Pineapple pizza? Harrumph! I’m not even comfortable with jalapeños or broccoli on my pie.

But then I spotted a pickle pizza with Pop’s Pepper Patch Spicy Habagardil pickles on top. Hey, now! A strange yet irresistible call lured me out to Craft House Pizza’s new shop on Hurstbourne Parkway. I need this in my life!

So I got my pickle pizza, and it made me happy. But it was a close call: I saw it on the Craft House website, but when I got to the eatery, it had disappeared from the printed menu, d’oh! I asked our friendly server about this, and she was able to make one happen. “It’s still in the system,” she said.

If you’re intrigued too, you’d better head for Craft House sooner rather than later, or even call ahead. I can’t guarantee its survival, although with enough demand, who knows!

What’s a Craft House? Listen up, as this is somewhat complicated. It’s a five-unit chain (four in suburban Louisville, one in Lawrenceburg, Ky.) that split from the larger local Hometown Pizza family in 2021. The new outfit joined with the owner’s Hometown Brewing Company to form a one-stop shop for artisanal-style pizza and microbrewery suds. (It doesn’t appear to be connected with the short-lived Craft House in Crescent Hill, which earlier gave way to Parlour pizza. Whew!)

Whatever the back story, we dropped in to the brand-new Hurstbourne location – which opened last month – and found the pizza satisfying, the beer tasty, and the menu’s pizza array bolstered by a selection of other Italian-American standards.

There’s a choice of about a dozen house pizza combos that come in four sizes from Individual ($7-$8) through Small and Medium to Large ($22-$23). Actually it’s one less than a dozen with the departure of that pickle pie, but I hope that’s a temporary disappearance.) You can also build your own pizza by combining those four sizes with dozens of crust, cheese, meat or veggie toppings plus “craft” toppings like meatballs, grilled chicken, and feta cheese.

Eight pasta dinners with garlic bread range in price from $7 (for spaghetti marinara) to $12 (for ground beef lasagna), and a half-dozen sandwiches are $10-$11. There’s also a tempting collection of appetizers ($5-$13) and salads ($7-$13.50).

Eight Hometown Brewing craft beers are helpfully listed with brief descriptions and alcohol by volume. A 16-ounce glass of The Formula ($5), a lightweight, citrusy sipping beer, went down easily with the spicy pickle pizza and our other dishes, too.

Let’s talk about that pickle pie (pictured at the top of this page). They had me at Habagardil: I’ve been a fan of the local Pop’s Pepper Patch product for years, and the spicy level is just right for me. Not too mild, yet not fiery enough to hurt. An individual pizza ($7) with the traditional thick crust, not deep-dish thick but not foldably thin either, was crisp and crackery with good toasty flavor. It was spread with a dollop of creamy, tangy ranch dressing, topped with eight or ten spicy Habagardil slices, drizzled with fiery Buffalo sauce and sprinkled with hot red pepper flakes. Authentic Italian it’s certainly not, but I loved the flavor and texture combination. I would do it again, without shame.

A Mediterranean salad big enough for two ($12) hit a home run. It came with a vinaigrette-style Greel dressing in a tub on the side, but the salad itself was so well made that it really didn’t need more. A large, shallow white bowl was filled with fresh, coarsely chopped green romaine, lightly coated with just a touch of oil. It was decorated with four large artichoke heart halves and liberally sprinkled with crumbled feta cheese, chopped red and green bell pepper, black and green olives, and a pale cherry tomato. It was flavorful and refreshing, a memorable salad.

The salad was flanked by four slices of warm, crusty, garlic bread, a gift that just kept on giving as plenty more came with a pasta dish. It was sprinkled with chopped dried herbs and drizzled with butter; it wasn’t too garlicky but definitely passed flavor muster.

Spaghetti with meatballs ($9) was hearty and filling, decent if unspectacular. It came in a single-serving iron skillet filled with a generous portion of thick spaghetti loaded with thick, textured tomato sauce, slightly sweet and redolent of onion.

Although the menu specified meat sauce, this appeared to be meatless marinara; that was perfectly all right, as meat sauce on meatballs might have been a trifle much. Two meatballs the size of golf balls were firmly textured and dense.

With a salad, a pizza and a pasta and a tasty golden pilsner, our hearty lunch came to a very reasonable $34.98, plus a $7.26 tip.

Craft House Pizza
2813 N. Hurstbourne Pkwy.
861-1012
crafthousepizza.com
facebook.com/crafthousepizza

Noise Level: It was a busy, noisy place on a Saturday afternoon, with decibel levels running at an average 76dB and spiking to a conversation-blocking 86.5 db.

Accessibility: The shopping center space and the restrooms appear fully accessible to wheelchair users, but some seating is in booths.

Other locations: Preston Highway, Jeffersontown, Fern Creek, and Lawrenceburg, Ky.

The post We pick a plate of pickle pizza at Craft House appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

If you love good food, cooking and dining out as much as I do, allow me to invite you to make the food justice movement part of your culinary life, too.

Um, what is food justice? Good question. Let’s start with a definition. Here’s a good one from Boston University’s Community Service Center:

What Is Food Justice?

The Food Justice Movement works to ensure universal access to nutritious, affordable, and culturally-appropriate food for all, while advocating for the well-being and safety of those involved in the food production process. The movement aims to address disparities in food access, particularly for communities of color and low-income communities, by examining the structural roots of our food system. Food Justice addresses questions of land ownership, agricultural practices, distribution of technology and resources, workers’ rights, and the historical injustices communities of color have faced. Food Justice is closely intertwined with environmental justice and sustainability movements.

That covers a lot of ground. Break it down and we find concerns for people who don’t have enough to eat; people who can’t afford to buy nutritious food: people who have a hard time finding the foods that their ancestors enjoyed; people whose health and safety are at risk in farms and factories that produce the foods we love; people affected by the farm economy and corporate farming; exploited farm workers; racial inequalities in food access; and the impact of the environment and sustainability on food access. Oh, yeah, and don’t forget economic inequity for cooks, servers, bussers and dishwashers. And let’s not even start on the whole tipping economy.

?Whew! That’s a lot to absorb. But it boils down to this. Those delicious restaurant dishes don’t just pop out of thin air. They require a lot of work by a lot of people, many of them struggling to make a decent living. And a lot more people have very little hope of sitting down to a luxurious meal like ours.

So, if we love dining out and enjoying delicious restaurant fare, it’s good to pause and reflect on where our food comes from and who works to get it to us. Behind every delicious meal is a complex web of farm workers, distributors, and kitchen workers who build our access to a diverse and abundant food supply.

Unfortunately, not everyone has equal access to nutritious and affordable food, which is where food justice efforts come in. By supporting organizations that promote food justice with our work or dollars, we can mobilize our passion for food to help address systemic issues of inequality and ensure that everyone has access to fresh, healthy, and sustainable food.

Where to begin? There are plenty of ways to get involved locally, both through organizations that help hungry people directly and organizations that press for policy change. Here are a few ideas:

Food banks and food pantries

• Volunteer at a local food bank or pantry. Food banks, like Louisville’s Dare to Care Food Bank (daretocare.org), are regional organizations that collect food – often through donations of excess or unwanted food from major food companies and local grocery chains – and redistribute it to individuals and families in need through food pantries at churches and community organizations.

Many of these organizations rely heavily on volunteers to sort and distribute food and assist with other tasks. This link (daretocare.org/volunteer/) offers more information about volunteering at Dare to Care.

Organizations that salvage food that would otherwise be wasted and redistribute it to community organizations offer another good option. Locally, check out Feed Louisville (feedlouisville.org, featured in our April 19 column), and Kentucky Harvest (kyharvest.org).

• Donate food or money to a local organization. Many food banks and pantries accept donations of non-perishable food as well as cash. You’ll often see Dare to Care donation barrels at groceries and other public spots.

Community Gardens

• Volunteer with or even start your own community garden. It’s garden season in Louisville, and community gardens can grow and share fresh produce with those in need. These gardens make it easy for neighbors to come together and work towards a common goal.

Among local organizations well worth your attention, check out the Food Literacy Project (foodliteracyproject.org/), Louisville Grows (louisvillegrows.org/), and Food in Neighborhoods (FIN) Louisville Community Coalition (foodinneighborhoods.org/).

Advocate for change

• Advocate for policy change. Many national organizations work to address hunger at the policy level. For example Feeding America (FeedingAmerica.org) the national umbrella organization for food banks (formerly Second Harvest); and Bread for the World (bread.org), a religious-based nonprofit that describes itself as “advocacy organization urging U.S. decision makers to do all they can to pursue a world without hunger.”

Bread for the World makes a key point that concurs with my own experience when I worked for the national nonprofit World Hunger Year in the 1990s and wrote the book Reinvesting in America about that experience: “Churches, charities, food banks, and nonprofit organizations can’t solve hunger alone. Government programs and policies play an especially important role. Thanks to an abundance of resources, federal nutrition programs provide 10 times as much food assistance as private churches and charities combined.”

Organizations like these advocate for policies that address the root causes of hunger, including poverty and unemployment. We can get involved not only by supporting them but by directly contacting your elected officials and urging them to support policies that address hunger and poverty.

An invitation

Let’s make this as simple as can be: On Saturday morning, May 20, at 9 a.m., I’ll be helping out at the monthly drive-through food pantry at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, 330 N. Hubbards Lane. If you’d like to join me in sharing out boxes of Dare to Care groceries to hungry families, email me at rgarr@louisvillehotbytes.com and I’ll give you the details. Fighting hunger, one day at a time: We can do this.

The post Love food and dining? Make food justice a part of your diet. appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Between the budget impact of the pandemic and the time most of us spent hiding in our houses, I haven’t been to many fancy, upscale restaurants lately.

Did I say “Lately”? Let’s say I might have had one, maybe two, pricey dinners out since March 2020! I imagine a lot of you are in a similar place.

But sooner or later, it’s time to dine. And so, to celebrate my birthday last month, we dressed up and headed out to Anoosh Bistro.

It was an easy choice. Anoosh Bistro ranks among my top restaurants in Louisville. I’ve been following Chef Anoosh Shariat for 30 years and more, from Remington’s, his initial venture that opened in the late 1980’s on Hurstbourne Parkway, through 10 years at his namesake Shariat’s on Lower Brownsboro Road; a venture at Park Place and Browning’s in then-new Slugger Field, and now, finally, his first-name namesake Anoosh Bistro on US Highway 42. (He recently sold the Bistro’s more casual neighbor, Noosh Nosh, in a bid to cut back.)

Throughout that tenure, Shariat has made friends and earned respect for his kindness, his gentle demeanor, and his deft chef’s hand, a kitchen leader who’s known for skills that run from baby lamb to vegetarian dishes.

I’ve got a couple more high-end spots on my want list, but Anoosh Bistro was the place to begin. It did not disappoint, as it never has for me, from its look and feel to, of course, the food.

White-draped tables huddle closely along banquettes that run the length of the room. A cozy bar fills one corner of the space. An open kitchen hums with activity at the back.

Anoosh’s Facebook page describes the bill of fare as “high-end American cuisine,” and I’d say the “American” part is accurate if we think of America’s beautiful mosaic of immigrant cultures: Ten main-course options cover Earth’s cuisines from the U.S. through Italy to East Asia, and I’m glad they do.

The “high-end” bit fits, too, with entree prices starting at $38 (for three vegetarian dishes) to $62 (for filet of beef Bordelaise). Even small-plate appetizers mostly go for $22.

Anoosh’s boasts an excellent selection of beer, wine, and liquor, including a good Bourbon list of course. We enjoyed an old favorite from Italian travel, bubbly and pleasantly bitter Campari spritzes ($11 each).

We started with grilled artichoke ($20): Three tender artichoke halves were split lengthwise, neatly prepared with long edible stems attached. They bore neat char marks from the grill and boasted a happy tang from roasted shallot vinaigrette and preserved lemon. Bits of fresh-pickled carrot added brightness to the plate.

Alongside came a standard Anoosh Bistro starter: A length of good baguette was split, grilled, and drizzled with rich green basil oil, with a tangy mild cheese sauce for dipping.

Beet salad ($14) made a tempting and seemingly healthy appetizer.Tender, sweet red and gold beet halves were dressed with perfect leaves of gently bitter arugula. decorated with crumbled mild Capriole goat cheese, and finished with aromatic pickled shallots, balsamic vinaigrette, and basil oil.

A lovely appetizer special, asparagus soup with pepitas ($14), hit another home run. Redolent of fresh spring asparagus, it was creamy and rich, blended perfectly smooth. and topped with a dozen toasty roasted pumpkin seeds coated with piquant spice.

Beef Lomo Saltado ($22) offers a small (and more affordable) alternative to a main-course steak dish, and it was very good indeed. A Peruvian specialty with Chinese roots, it’s a beef tenderloin stir-fry topped with fiery red pepper slices and a ration of crisp fried potatoes, South of the Border style. A fairly generous portion of a half-dozen tenderloin chunks were tender but firm in a spicy soy-chile sauce.

A meatless dish, vegetable Bolognese ($38), proved to be an exceptional combination that could please even the most ardent carnivore. It was built on a portion of spaghetti squash, which assuredly isn’t pasta. But as a crisp base for a Bolognese-style sauce built on lentils in lieu of chopped beef, blended into a complex savory sauce with cauliflower and portobellos, it was nevertheless a tasty and filling combination. Lots of chopped basil to mix in and finely grated Parmesan (which could be omitted for a vegan dish) completed the flavor symphony.

Sticky Toffee Pudding ($14) wrapped up the evening on another high note.
Based on a thick bread pudding akin to British plum pudding and topped with a sweet toffee sauce, it was delicious on its own and got even better with a cookie-like hazelnut tuille on top, bearing in its turn a scoop of mascarpone cheese ice cream drizzled with more pale toffee sauce. You had to break up this architectural masterpiece to eat it, but I didn’t care. It was too good to worry about details.

An outstanding celebratory dinner came with a price to match: With two Campari spritzes, the tab came to $152.64 plus a $35 tip.

Anoosh Bistro
4864 Brownsboro Center
690-6585
anooshbistro.com
facebook.com/Anooshbistro
instagram.com/anooshbistro

Noise Level: Conversation became iffy as the dining room filled on a busy weekend evening, The average dB level rumbled at a noisy 76.2dB with peaks at an ear-shattering 88.5dB.

Accessibility: The building and restrooms appear accessible to wheelchair users, but only the left entrance door has ramped access.

The post Anoosh Bistro delights as always appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I was excited to go to one of my favorite upscale eateries recently. I was full of happy smiles until I sat down at our table and picked up a menu, ready to peruse its tasty delights

D’oh!

Thanks to an overhead light that blasted down from behind my head like an airport runway beacon, much of our table was bathed in harsh light. But that light was placed above and behind me so everything in front of me was lost in dark shadow. (Image recorded for posterity above.)

It was hard to read the menu. It was a struggle to see the food on my plate. And it was really tough to get Instagrammable photos of my food.

I’m not naming or shaming the restaurant. Everything else was great. And I’m pretty sure the bad lighting came from a previous occupant.

So why am I bothering to complain about something so small? That, my friends, is the point of today’s dissertation. When we go out to dine, our expectations are high. An unpleasant annoying surprise – even a relatively trivial one – ramps up the disappointment.

Or maybe I was just being a pill.

To get a reality check, I sought the advice of the social-media hive mind. How do others feel about minor annoyances that spoil the restaurant mood? What little things harsh your dining mellow?”

More than 200 replies later I had my answer: It’s not just me. Let’s talk about this.

Let there be light, but not too much

Let’s begin with lighting annoyances, since that’s what set me off. My usual heartburn starts when a romantically dim eatery is so dim that I can’t make out the menu. Extra penalty points if the menu is in tiny print. More still if it’s printed in non-contrasting colors.

What? I can’t heeeeaaarrr you!

I get more complaints about restaurant noise than just about any other issue. Of course nobody wants to eat in a place that’s as silent as a tomb. But when a happy buzz escalates into a roar so loud that you can’t hear your table mates, it’s no fun. The esthetic trend of hard surfaces with no soft fabrics makes this even worse.

Do we even need to mention over-loud music, loud telephone conversations, boisterous “over-served” neighbors, children or babies crying, or clattering dishes and silverware? I didn’t think so.

The rest of our senses

Feeling too hot or too cold? That’s no fun. If your chair is too high or too low for you to reach your plate comfortably, that’s a problem. So is a chair so heavy that it’s hard to move.

The good aromas of food and wine are delicious. A heavy scent of perfume or cologne or leftover tobacco smoke, not so much.

All together now: Eeeuuuwww!

Things get serious when apparent sanitation issues make one wonder what the health inspector might have missed. Utensils with dishwater spots may not be dirty, but they sure look dirty. Worse still is the random rogue utensil or plate that actually is dirty.

Employees vacuuming, mopping or sweeping around your table is an absolute no-no. And wildlife in your food or near your table, dead or alive, will stimulate just about anyone’s gag reflex.

It’s about time

A leisurely meal can be a good thing, but when the leisure is enforced, not so much. An unreasonable wait for a table in a restaurant that doesn’t appear full can be frustrating. So can a long wait for a server’s attention, or a long, unexplained, wiat for food or drinks.

A lot of people get upset if plates or finished dishes are left on a crowded table, but slower diners feel shamed if everyone else’s empty plates are gone. The server can’t win on this one.

Meals coming out at different times can be frustrating, but so can one dinner getting cold or overcooked while the kitchen works on another plate. Timing can be challenging for the kitchen and servers, but it’s worth a try.

Miss? Sir? Anybody?

Another challenge: Servers who check in too often or too dramatically can be annoying, and it’s good to read the table and sense their mood before being overly chatty or pushy. It’s tough for a server who just wants to get it right, though. Some diners want pampering. Others want to be left alone.

But for Escoffier’s sake, don’t interrupt conversations! “What is the point of ‘how was the meal?’” asked one friend. “Do I get a discount if I didn’t like it?”

Pushing drinks as soon as a party sits down can feel pushy, too, although I get that some thirsty diners might appreciate this. More dubious is the practice of pouring repeated wine refills, perhaps in the hope of selling a second bottle.

Dinnertime! What could possibly go wrong?

I could devote a full column to food-related annoyances, ranging from bringing out the wrong order or discovering that the menu description doesn’t fit the reality. Food that’s supposed to be hot-and-spicy but comes out mild is irritating. Food that’s not billed as spicy but packs an actual burn can be even more annoying.

Then there’s my frequent complaint about polyester napkins that don’t absorb … because they’re so slick that they also slide right off your lap. Cotton, linen, even high-tone damask are good, but cost is an issue. In addition, said a friend in restaurant management, “I wouldn’t be too hard on management because of linens. They typically come from a linen service and you are quite often at the mercy of what’s delivered.”

Wrapping it up

Here’s the takeaway: When we’re paying good money for a good experience, it’s reasonable to feel disappointed or even angry over avoidable issues that detract from that experience.

But let’s not let a little buzzkill take away all that’s good from our restaurant joy. Relax, keep our perspective, and get over being crabby before it’s time to calculate a generous tip.

The post Nitpicks and whines: Dining annoyances appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I hope everyone enjoyed Louisville Taco Week last week and ate your fill. There’s a lot to like about a promotion that brings you tacos for $2.50 a plate at close to 20 local Mexican-style eateries!

I had big plans, but peaked too soon. All the advance advertising gave me such a powerful taco crave that I rushed out to Gustavo’s Mexican Grill and ate my fill a week before the event.

It was worth it.

If you missed out, it’ll be around again next year, I’m sure. And similar promotions abound, including Louisville Burger Week, Louisville Hot Brown Week, Louisville Pizza Week, Louisville Restaurant Week, Margaritas in the ‘Ville, and Louisville Wing Week.

They’re all worthy, and I hope you enjoy them. We’re here to talk about tacos and more Mexican culinary delights today, though, and Gustavo’s does them very, very well.

Like several other local Mexican restaurant groups – Los Aztecas, El Nopal, and El Tarasco come to mind – Gustavo’s is the product of an entrepreneurial immigrant from South of the Border. Gustavo’s owner and namesake, Gustavo Reyes, has built a popular business with a bilingual menu, friendly servers, and Latin-accented food that pleases just about everyone.

We tried the most recent shop in the group, Gustavo’s Hurstbourne property, which opened about a year ago in the much-renovated and spacious 300-plus seat venue vacated by a Romano’s Macaroni Grill.

A wealth of menu options

The colorful eight-page laminated menu offers more than 150 options across its eight pages. Dishes are clearly explained in English, so don’t fret if you don’t know what queso fundido means … you can learn right on the spot that it’s a cheese dip made with Mexican Chihuahua cheese.

Dishes are sorted by category, from appetizers, salads, quesadillas, tortas and sopas through house specialties and signature dishes; steaks, seafood, vegetarian items and chicken dishes, fajitas, combo plates and a lunch menu. Virtually all main-course dishes are $10.99 to $16.99 range, with only a couple of steak items exceeding that by a buck or two.

Gustavo’s chips and salsa are exceptional: The chips appeared to have been cut from fresh corn tortillas and fried in-house. They’re thick, shattering crisp, and grease-free. The salsa was thick and textured, dotted with bits of cilantro. It comes only in one mild flavor, but bottles of red and green hot sauce are handy on the table so you can doctor your own to taste.

Birria tacos: A family recipe

Let’s get right to the tacos: Gustavo declares that its quesa birria tacos ($15.99) use a traditional family recipe. The Jalisco original usually uses goat or lamb meat, but here in El Norte beef is more popular. Gustavo’s uses Certified Angus Beef, roasted with mild guajillo chilies, herbs and spices, then hand-pulled into tender, toothsome chunks and shreds.

Three large corn tortillas that had been dipped in rich birria broth and grilled were folded over a generous amount of meat shreds and chunks along with melted cheese, chopped onions and cilantro. A dish of excellent broth for dipping and a small bowl of savory charro beans came alongside. It was an excellent dish. Taco Week? Why wait?

A spinach Salad with avocado and orange ($7.99), marked new on the menu, was both pretty to the eye and good to eat, remarkable for its generosity and attention to quality ingredients. A big bowl was almost filled with baby spinach leaves that had been carefully cleaned and sorted. The bowl also held sliced red onions, brown mushrooms, half of a huge perfect avocado, sliced thin and fanned out, and slices of navel orange.  It came with a tub of creamy dressing, substituted without comment for the menu’s promised raspberry vinaigrette.

Grilled elote ($6.99) is one of my favorite ways of improving corn on the cob. A very large yellow-corn cob with a stick in the end for easy handling was set up in the traditional Mexico City street-food tradition: Dressed in a light spread of garlicky aioli, then sprinkled with lightly funky grated cotija cheese and chile powder.

Chilaquiles ($8.99) also hit the spot. Fried corn tortilla quarters were slathered with red salsa (you may also choose green), a blanket of melted white Mexican cheese, and a portion of chopped onions. Atop this food mountain were a couple of fried eggs, more red salsa, and grated mild queso fresco. It was a hearty, filling dish, with the minor complaint that a super-heated serving dish cooked the eggs hard. A little soft yolk flowing into the tortillas and cheese is part of the joy of chilaquiles, and that wasn’t happening here.

Mexican rice and refried beans on the side were fully satisfying. The rice was flaky with a smoky vibe; the beans were unctuous and smooth.

We didn’t get away for Taco Week prices, but a hearty, filling meal topped out at a reasonable $42.36, plus a $10 tip.

Gustavo’s Mexican Grill
401 S Hurstbourne Pkwy.
420-1100
gustavosmexgrill.com
facebook.com/gustavoshursbourne
instagram.com/gustavosmexgrill

Noise Level: There was plenty of buzz during a busy lunch hour, but conversation was never difficult.

Accessibility: The free-standing building appears accessible to wheelchair users. Much of the seating is in booths, but there are plenty of tables that would accommodate wheelchair users.

Other locations: 6051 Timber Ridge Drive, 434-7266; 10715 Meeting St., 690-7070, 6402 Westwind Way, Crestwood, Ky, 243-6950; and 1226 Market St., LaGrange, Ky, 222-4050

The post We anticipate Taco Week at Gustavo’s appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Early in 2020, Chef Rhona Bowles Kamar was trying to figure out what she wanted to do in life. Recently divorced, and out of the job she’d done as co-owner and chef at Ramsi’s Cafe on the World for 25 years, she was doing some catering and wondering what to do next.

Then came Covid-19. Restaurants were closed, the catering business cratered, and in a random encounter she met Donny Greene, a local activist who works in solidarity with Louisville’s houseless community.

Greene, who had been working for years to distribute food, snacks, and supplies to the city’s houseless camps, told Kamar that the pandemic was causing a crisis for unhoused people. With restaurants closed, caterers struggling, and even church soup kitchens shuttered, his usual sources of food donation were gone.

That lit a spark, and just like that, the two of them assembled a few friends at other restaurants; gathered donations, and – mostly working in separate spaces in those early, scary days of contagion – started cranking out meals in individual boxes for Green, his family, and others to get to hungry unhoused people all over town.

“We thought it was going to be temporary”

“We thought it was going to be temporary,” Kamar said with a laugh. “Something we would do for a couple of weeks.”

Hardly. Three years later, these co-founders, with Greene’s wife Camila Jasis-Greene, operate Feed Louisville, a non-profit organization with a staff of 35, a corps of hundreds of volunteers, and a budget approaching $500,000 this year.

Feed Louisville works with partners ranging from local restaurants and Louisville’s Dare to Care Food bank to city government, Metro Public Health, and Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, which provides kitchen and storage space.

The organization is building an impressive record with a mission that involves not only feeding 1,000 unhoused people every day but also building effective strategies to safely, kindly help many of them transition back into housing and a better life.

Quoting the organization’s website, “The work started with a conversation and has grown into a network of chefs, restaurants, food companies, farmers, outreach workers, social workers and countless volunteers who work together daily to stop this humanitarian crisis happening in our city.”

Feed Louisville meets our houseless community’s daily basic human needs while working to remove the barriers to housing, the non-profit explains in its promotional materials.

Meeting people where they are

“We meet people where they are. This is key to building trust and fostering stability. We take care of hunger and other emergency needs first, no questions asked, and then we work to move folks toward permanent housing. Our model is built around three key components: street outreach, food rescue, and housing navigation.”

The street outreach component focuses on harm reduction and building trust as its heart. Every day, workers bring our houseless neighbors water and 1,000 hot, fresh, nutritious meals created by its team of shelves. They also provide critical outdoor survival supplies like tents, sleeping bags, sternos and clothing.

These supplies and arranging medical care helps save lives and deter disease, while the group’s social workers meet people where they are and seek to build relationships that can lead them back toward permanent housing. “You’d be surprised how many people have housing vouchers in their back pocket but have no way to use them,” Donny Greene said.

The feeding component mobilizes the established practice of food rescue. By partnering with local farmers, at least 15 restaurants, and Dare to Care Food Bank, the organization’s professional chefs and volunteers to save usable food that would otherwise be discarded to landfills, utterly wasted at the end of the day. Following strict procedures to ensure health and safety, the chefs reimagine a range of donated food items as appealing and tasty dishes for distribution.

Like an episode of “Chopped.”

“Every day is like an episode of ‘Chopped,’ Kamar said, a sentiment echoed by Sous Chef Sean FitzGerald, a veteran of the kitchens at Lynn’s Paradise Cafe and later Le Relais, who likened the process of creating dishes from a range or random donated foods to ‘Iron Chef’.”

Housing builds on the premise that Housing First is a basic human right. When a houseless person or family accepts the Hotel-to-Housed program, their lives move indoors and begins to stabilize. During their stay in the bright, well-kept hotel, trained care coordinators work with them to assess their individual needs and create a plan of action.

It’s important to address all the the physical, mental. and emotional issues that the experience of being unhoused causes. Coordinators ease the process of finding housing, all the way from getting needed documentation to helping with moving in. Thus the hotel program is transitional and temporary, organizers emphasize; it’s not. and shouldn’t be, a permanent housing solution.

This program started last October with the help of a grant from affordable housing developer LDG development. At the time of my visit last week, the program had already moved 111 unhoused people into permanent housing. Feed Louisville workers will continue to coordinate with those individuals and families for a year to address any problems that arise.

1,000 unhoused people in Louisville

Louisville has more than 10,000 unhoused people, living in their cars, in tents, often in encampments that the city frequently removes, more than ever around Derby time with its influx of well-healed racing fans. That’s way too many, just about everyone agrees.

Like similar model nonprofits in other cities, from Cincinnati’s La Soupe to Washington’s DC Central Kitchen, Feed Louisville is working hard to do something about that. And now, Kamar says, they’re outgrowing their kitchen and looking for new, larger space that will make it possible to feed more people.

How you can help

If you’re moved to contribute or to volunteer, Feed Louisville would love to have you. Easy forms on their web page make it easy to donate and to volunteer. You, too, can make a difference.

The post Feed Louisville: Chefs fighting houselessness appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Remember back before Covid when restaurant buffets were commonplace? Lots of people love a buffet meal, and why not? You get abundant choice, all you can eat, and there’s no wait for a server and chef to do their work before you can pitch in.

That’s a lot to like, but a lot of people are wary of the buffet, and with good reason. In the best of times, you’re getting food that’s been sitting over heat, overcooking and softening; and you’re relying on management (with the Health Department looking over its shoulder) to ensure that sneeze guards are in place, proper temperatures maintained, food replaced while its fresh, and people aren’t casually exchanging germs with strangers via serving spoons or careless touches.

All that, and then came Covid-19 and doubled down on all the negatives. Even after restaurants reopened, buffets remained a no-go, with good reason. It’s hard to maintain social distancing in a buffet line, and sharing serving spoons? Nuh-uh.

Indian buffet is back

But now an Indian buffet is back, and I’m there for it. Let’s give a warm welcome to Paradise American-Indian Cuisine in Middletown. It opened since January in the Middletown shopping center space that previously housed Millions Crab.

Its menu features a broad selection of Indian dishes (mostly priced between $12 and $18) and, for that one person in your party who won’t do Indian, an American menu loaded with burgers, sandwiches, pastas, wings and more (mostly from $5 to $15).

In a salute to buffet lovers everywhere, it runs a modest but appealing lunch buffet from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. A dinner buffet is served from 5-10 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays.

I was surprised at first to see no sneeze guards, but on closer inspection, everything except for a few brightly colored chutneys and a basket of crunchy papads was safely housed in warming pans with individual covers that you have to open to dip out your food with a large serving spoon.

Two dozen items

I counted 24 items on the Indian lunch buffet. We managed to sample them all, and also summoned a couple of tall yogurt salty lassis. which unfortunately were almost too salty to serve their intended purpose as a hot-stuff antidote.

Thin rice-lentil papadums on the first table were fresh and good, admirably crisp and dry. They were also the most hot-and-spicy papadums I’ve ever tasted. I considered this a plus, but some may not. You have been warned. This table also held bowls of spicy onion and mint chutneys and a fiery red sauce.

My overall view is that the food was good, not great. I rarely expect “great” in a buffet setting. Just about all the dishes brought the same level of spice – not fiery but with ample heat – and many of them shared a consistent flavor. It was a good Indian flavor, and I enjoyed it, but I didn’t find a lot of individuality or those sudden bursts of taste surprise that I love in Indian fare.

Several of the vegetarian dishes – dal padka, veggie korma, and dal makhani – were exceptionally soupy, requiring one to wade through a deep pan full of savory broth to find a few lentils, green beans, and other tasty goodies lurking at the bottom.

Lamb curry came as big chunks of back or neck bone separated by bits of meat. A thick, spicy-hot brown gravy dominated the dish and worked well over a bed of long-grain basmati rice.

In addition to that pure white rice, fluffy and delicious, a veggie biryani option added bits of onion, yellow and green peppers and spice to a spicy basmati blend.

Street-food fish delights

Amrisati fish pakoras, an iconic street-food dish from Northern India’s Punjab, may have been the star of the show. Breaded and crisply fried, they looked a lot like like chicken fingers, but were firm, mild white fish that had been marinated with ginger, garlic, red chiles, and other aromatics.

Chicken tandoori (pictured, with other items, at the top of the page) was the standard item: white and firm chicken meat, yogurt-marinated, tinted red with spices and charred from the tandoor oven. Chicken tikka masala, like the vegetarian dishes, were mostly sauce, with uniformly cut cubes of firm, dense chicken meat hiding at the bottom of the man.

Chickpea chana, another traditional northern Indian dish, came in a reddish-brown sauce that upped the fiery quotient a notch or two. So, surprisingly, did dahi bhala, a fluffy lentil-flour fritter bathed in creamy yogurt with a startling dose of hot chile flavor.

Pakoras – vegetable fritters – were milder in the spice department but oddly chewy, as were otherwise estimable naan flatbread quarters.

We finished with two traditional Indian desserts: not-too-sweet gulab jamun – Indian “doughnut holes” – in sweet syrup, and gajar halwa, a concoction of chopped carrots and cardamom.

With two yogurt lassis ($3.99 each) and two lunch buffets at $15.99, an ample lunch for two came to $42.36, plus a $10 tip.

Paradise American-Indian Cuisine
12951 Shelbyville Road
230-7121
paradiseamericanindiancuisine.com
facebook.com/paradiseamericanindiancuisine
instagram.com/paradise_american_cuisine

Noise Level: Decibel levels during our visit were mostly around a loud but bearable 70dB, with frequent louder bursts that could hamper conversation.

Accessibility: The entrance and free-standing tables appear accessible to wheelchair users, but booths are up a step.

The post Is this Paradise? Indian buffet is back appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

¡Bueños días! Nihao! Konnichiwa! Bonjou! Xin Chào! Annyeonghaseyo! ? káàsán!

And there you have it! A simple, multilingual glossary to help bridge the language gap – let’s not call it a barrier – when you take your seat and greet the server at, respectively, a Latinx, Chinese, Japanese, Haitian, Chinese, Korean, or Nigerian restaurant.

There’s nothing quite like greeting a person in their own language to get your encounter off on the right foot, even if you don’t have much of a common language.

Indeed, for some of us, it’s exciting and fun to head for a taqueria out Preston Highway or an out-of-the-way South End Vietnamese eatery to order wonderful food from friendly people who may share only bits and pieces of a common language. For others, the idea of trying to communicate about unfamiliar food in an unknown language can by scary. And, let’s be honest: For most of us it’s a little bit of both: exciting fun and scary.

“I’m actually really intimidated by this,” a Facebook friend said during a conversation on this topic. “There are some spots that interest me but I feel like I may be intruding and slowing the process for others.”

For some, language-based misunderstandings aren’t just embarrassing but serious. “I’m allergic to dairy foods,” another friend explained. “I periodically learn the hard way that the person who took my order and told me something was dairy-free instead either misunderstood me or didn’t want to miss a sale.”

Spanglish in the kitchen

If you think that’s a challenge, take a peek into the kitchen of just about any local restaurant these days: Thanks to the growing Latinx diaspora, Spanglish is becoming a necessary form of communication for chefs and kitchen staff. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25.9% of restaurant industry workers in the U.S. were Hispanic or Latino in 2018, and the number continues to grow.

“Working in back of the house doesn’t require fluent English. So as long as you can take directions and cook or clean, you can make a living and build a career as you rise through the ranks,” reported the Toast restaurant point-of-sale company. “In some cities, it’s also perfectly possible to work front of house without speaking much English, but for obvious reasons, it presents more of a challenge.”??Think about that, the next time your server’s apparent lack of comprehension strikes you as a personal slight. It’s not. And these, our hard-working immigrant neighbors, are working as hard as they can to master our language as fast as they can.

But still. It’s only human nature to feel, well, stupid, embarrassed, or even incompetent in a one-on-one setting if you can’t express yourself or understand what the other person is saying.

As our welcoming community becomes more and more multicultural, though, this is going to come up. It’s completely normal to struggle to communicate with someone who speaks a different language. Remember, again, that your immigrant server likely hasn’t been here long, and they’re working hard to learn our language. Be patient, be generous, and bear in mind that the goal here is not only to learn and connect but to get a really good meal on your table.

Still nervous? Try these tips

Got it? Good. Wait! What? You’re still a little nervous about actually heading for the nearest Spanish-speaking taqueria for a great meal, like the spread from La Lupita in Clarksville pictured at the top of the page? Yeah, I get that. Let me share a few specific suggestions that, in my experience, work as well for coping with a language gap at local restaurants as they do for getting by in foreign travels.

• The Internet search engine is your friend. Find the restaurant’s menu, have the system translate it if that helps, and set your sights on a couple of dishes that appeal to you.

• Don’t put away your device just yet! Say you find something on the menu that looks good, but you’re not sure what it is. Google it, bubeleh! The picture of a tlacoyo looks tasty, but you don’t know what’s in it? It takes only seconds to learn that it’s a treat from Oaxaca: A thick tortilla folded around meat, cheese or other goodies, and topped with more treats such as cactus nopales. Dinner in a dish!

• When you get to the restaurant, be just as polite and friendly as you would at a place that speaks your language. Use a greeting word in the staff’s language if you wish – a little “bueños dias” can go a long way – but don’t push it if it’s not in your comfort zone.

• Bear in mind that just about all the servers at any Louisville restaurant are learning English and eager to communicate with you. Be as patient with them as they are with you, and don’t be shy about pointing to the dish you like on the menu if you’re wary of trying to pronounce it. What’s more, I can’t think of any local eatery that doesn’t have English translations on the menu.

• If things get desperate, your smartphone has an efficient language translator built in. Talk to it in English, and it will pop up your words in the target language. When they respond, it translates back. I wouldn’t use it for a deep philosophical conversation, but it could save the day if you get stuck, or at least your lunch.

• Be patient and open-minded. Everyone has the same goal here, and that’s for you to have an excellent dining experience.

Wrapping it up, my friend Carla on the HotBytes forum beautifully expressed the idea of sharing culture through food: “By being open to trying foods unfamiliar to us, we open ourselves to new ideas in a relatively safe and non-threatening way. … We open ourselves to the idea of inclusion. If we can eat, celebrate, and grieve with our neighbors surely we can live peacefully with them as them and they become less scary.”

The post A smile and a word can bridge the language gap appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Every year on St. Patrick’s Day, Louisville’s Irish Rover famously holds a humongous party, featuring an oversize tent that covers most of the parking lot, live Irish music, and plenty of great Irish food and gallons of dark Irish beer.

It’s fun, I’m told. But I’ve never been. Big, noisy crowds guzzling draft beer outdoors on a brisk March day, even with the comfort of a tent loaded with toasty heaters, is just not my style.

But catching up with The Rover for lunch the day after St. Patrick’s, enjoying the warm and cozy Irish pub comfort of The Rover’s historic Frankfort Avenue building on a more normal day? Priceless.

We dropped by shortly after noon on a Saturday and had no problem getting a table. The Rover’s attractive dining rooms – one the color of Irish salmon, the other a lighter shade of Colman’s mustard – are decorated with old photos of Irish scenes and famous Irish literary lights. The darker but welcoming bar offers another attractive seating option, at the bar or in sturdy booths. Within moments the restaurant appeared completely full with a happy, convivial crowd, and this seems to be the case year ‘round, not just on St. Patrick’s Day.

A special St. Patrick’s Week menu did not appear much different from the regular menu:

A half-dozen starters and a trio of soups and salads range in price from $4.95 (for the iconic potato cakes, bubble and squeak) to $12.95 (for an appetizer portion of Irish smoked salmon with soda bread).

Nine pub grub (main) dishes are priced from $7.95 (for veggie smash, steamed veggies and mashed potatoes) to $16.95 (for that perennial favorite, North Atlantic cod fish and chips). A half-dozen sandwiches are $10.95 to $12.95.

The well-stocked bar boasts as large a selection of Irish whiskeys as you’ll find outside Dublin (or maybe New York or Boston); there’s also an ample choice of bourbons, ryes, and single-malt scotch; a well chosen, affordable wine list, a range of cocktails, and a dozen beer taps along with an extensive choice of bottled beers.

It’s rare for me to visit the Rover without summoning a tall 20-ounce pint of dark, freshly drawn Guinness Stout ($7), and Mary was happy with a half-pint of its light but gently hoppy golden sibling, Harp Lager ($3.75)

Bubble and Squeak ($4.95) is beloved throughout Ireland, Scotland, England, and Australia too. These crisp griddle fried potato and veggie cakes get their name, it is said, from the sound they make while frying. Two thick flattened rounds of mashed potato studded with flecks of green pepper, carrot, and green onion had been grilled until brown and crisp on both sides. They came with a little tub of hot mustard, and they went great with Guinness. Most things do.

Fried fish is ubiquitous in Louisville, and not only during Lent. The Rover’s fish and chips ($16.95) consistently rank high, perhaps at the top, among scores of worthy competitors.

A big rectangular slab of cod, more than one inch thick, had been thoroughly beer-battered and fried until a crispy, crunchy, sizzling hot, grease-free coating formed. The white fish inside fall into large white flakes that were tasty but, oddly, a bit tough and chewy, not a character that I usually associate with cod. Still, it was a treat for Lent or any other time of year. It came with a modest pile of chips, er, fries, that were also fried grease-free but could have benefitted from a bit from a bit more time in the fryer to get crisp and brown.

One might wonder what a dish like vegan vindaloo ($9.95) is doing on an Irish menu. I’d say the vegan bit stems from the Rover’s location in Clifton, where there’s a substantial market for vegetarian, vegan, and healthy fare. As for the vindaloo bit, you’d be surprised how easy it is to find Indian restaurants in Ireland. Once upon a time I had one of the best Indian meals of my life in a small but elegant Indian restaurant in Dublin.

The Rover’s version was spicy and warming, well suited for a chilly March day. A filling mix of bite-size chunks of zucchini and yellow squash, red and green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and tender cubed potatoes and a few chickpeas swam in a thick, piquant but not fiery yellowish curry broth.

Guinness chocolate cake ($7.95) adds just a haunting splash of the black coffee and bitter chocolate character of the iconic stout to a slab of flourless cake. The cake was dense and intense, and it was topped with a thick layer of feather-light chocolate mousse, with a generous mound of whipped cream on top of that. One slice was more than enough for two to share, I think, although it did go away fast.

With two Irish beers, our meal for two totaled $53.59, plus a $12 tip.

The Irish Rover
2319 Frankfort Ave.
899-3544
theirishroverky.com
Facebook: bit.ly/Irish-Rover

Noise Level: Even when it’s not St. Patrick’s Day, this popular place fills up fast, and a happy crowd generates a soft roar. Decibel levels around 72dB with peaks to 82dB made conversation difficult at times.

Accessibility: The owners have done a good job of making this historic, 170-year-old building accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Every day is St. Patrick’s Day at The Irish Rover appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Years ago, after I left the newly corporate Courier-Journal, I went to work for a national non-profit based in New York City. It was a fascinating job that took me all around the country, visiting and reporting on creative grassroots organizations in all 50 states.

It was fun, stressful at times, and at the end of just about every day filled with meeting, chatting with, and interviewing grassroots heroes, I was ready for some quiet time alone … and a good dinner with only my thoughts or a good book for company.

Back in those days – we’re talking the ‘90s here – a lot of my friends thought I was brave, or maybe a bit addled, to do this thing, especially since I always asked for a table for one and declined any suggestion that I eat at the bar. After a day of constant interaction with people, though, I went into full introvert mode and really didn’t want to chat with the bartender or the guy on the next stool.

Recently, sparked by a random recollection, I wondered if many food loving types are still perturbed by the idea of dining out alone, so I put out a call for opinions on social media.

A generational change?

What did I learn? To some extent, it appears that there’s been a generational change. Only a handful of friends remain averse to the very idea. Most feel – as I do – that one has a complete right to dine alone, entitled to treatment just as welcoming as anyone else.

This seems particularly true of younger friends, who find the very idea of feeling shy about dining alone a bit laughable. Or pitiful, maybe. All of a sudden, Gen Z babies born at the dawn of the new millennium are old enough to go out to dine, pull up to the bar, and order dinner and a cocktail, a beer, or a glass of wine. Legally. Without a moment of self-doubt. See them and learn.

Mostly. though, I was getting answers to s question I didn’t ask. People spoke of the joy of sitting down at a restaurant bar and enjoying a sociable evening with the bartender and new friends. That’s the exact opposite of what I wanted to do.

So I asked the question again, this time specifically asking how people felt about dining alone at a table in an upscale restaurant, perhaps with a sommelier and maitre-d’. Now a bit of aversion started to show up. Quite a few friends repeated their preference for bar seating. Yeah, but that’s not what I asked, folks! A few said that, like me, they’d gladly enjoy solitude and a good book at a table. Others, though, finally acknowledged that this would feel uncomfortable and they’d prefer not to do it.

That might have been me, before I learned better. Let’s talk about solo dining today, and how we can make it easy.

Feeling wary …

First, let’s review a few reasons why people might feel wary about eating solo in a high-end establishment.

Some might feel awkward about being surrounded by couples and groups who are drinking, sharing bites, and chatting happily. Are they having a better time than you are? I’m not so sure of that.

Others might worry that they’ll be judged or looked down upon for dining alone, as if it’s a sign of being undesirable or unpopular. To those folks I offer one of the best pieces of life advice I ever got: People are almost never thinking about you as much as you fear they are.

Would-be solo diners might fear of being seated in an undesirable location. An out-out-of-the-way corner, maybe. Or next to a noisy server station or kitchen door. Or, gasp, adjacent to the restrooms. Pro tip: Ask to be moved!

Finally, you may worry that servers and staff will look down on you, ignore you, make your table last priority in getting service and food. If you start by feeling guilty about dining solo, I get why you might feel that way. But I urge you to push through it.

Here’s my advice: Keep in mind that the restaurant industry is also known as the hospitality business. Every restaurant I can think of, and this certainly includes the high-end niche, seeks to provide quality service and hospitality to every customer, whether it’s a party of 20 or your party of one.

Dining alone is becoming increasingly common, and restaurateurs understand that it’s good hospitality and good business to ensure that every guest feels comfortable and even pampered. Yes, even if they are dining alone.

My advice

So here’s my advice: Dine with confidence. There’s nothing wrong with your party of two being you and your book. There’s nothing wrong with dining alone, and it doesn’t make you a weirdo or loser. Hold your head high, smile, and enjoy your meal.

Need a little more reassurance? Here’s a random half-dozen of Louisville’s fancier restaurants where – without even having to ask the management – I am confident that you will be welcomed and well served during your solo visit, at a table for one or at the bar. Take your choice, or add your own favorite.

Anoosh Bistro (4864 Brownsboro Center, 690-6585, anooshbistro.com)

Barn 8 Restaurant (10500 W. US Highway 42, Goshen, Ky., 398-9289, hermitagefarm.com/food-bourbon/barn8-restaurant)

Fat Lamb (2011 Grinstead Drive, 409-7499, fatlamblouisville.com)

Seviche (1538 Bardstown Road, 473-8560, sevicherestaurant.com)

211 Clover Lane (The Colony Center, 211 Clover Lane, 896-9570, 211clover.com)

Volare Italian Ristorante (2300 Frankfort Ave., 894-4446, volare-restaurant.com)

Still uneasy after all that? A couple of final tips:

Reassure yourself by calling ahead. Reserve a table for one and seek their assurance that you’ll be welcome.
Forget the fancy and enjoy an affordable meal at favorite taqueria, pizzeria, soul food or down home eatery or, well, pick a place that you love.

Bon appetit!

The post Dining solo: No fear, no shame, just do it appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

A vegan walked into a barbecue joint. What’s the punchline?

Actually, there’s no punchline. I’m not a vegan myself. But I can see the ethos: The commercial agriculture that’s necessary to have everyone eating tasty animals is bad for the environment. It’s bad for our health. And it’s pretty obviously bad for the animals who have to be killed for our gustatory enjoyment.

For reasons such as these, growing numbers of people have gone vegan, vegetarian, or flexitarian recently, and that’s why I always try to include at least one meat-free dish in each review.

This can be a challenge, though, when I visit a new barbecue joint. Like this week, when I followed the delicious scent of hickory smoke to The Smokery, a new eatery in a small building on Frankfort Avenue in Clifton.

The building has seen a variety of uses over the years. A nice Asian eatery was there once, briefly a massage parlor, later Matt Anthony’s Record Shop, and most recently, a watering hole called Dark Horse Tavern & Avenue Bar.

Dark Horse didn’t last long, but it appears to live on in The Smokery, as its chef, Giovanni Tenace, stays on at The Smokery’s, and even Dark Horse’s Facebook page and email address now serve as pointers to The Smokery.

Tenace’s experienced presence may account for some of the buzz arising around The Smokery. Born in Italy, his previous Louisville resume includes such top tables as ROC Restaurant and Le Moo.

The Smokery’s menu is brief and fits well with the BBQ genre. As sandwiches with choice of two sides, barbecue meats range in price from $14.99 (for pulled pork or chicken) to $26.99 (for a full rack of ribs); a half-rack or a brisket sandwich are each $16.99.

Brisket, pork, and chicken may also be ordered as sliders with fries ($17 each), in tacos ($4.75 to $5.50), as an add-on to salads ($6-$7) or added to smoked Gouda mac and cheese ($9.99) or pasta alfredo ($12.99). A fully dressed American wagyu beef burger with one side is $19; add bacon for $3 more.

The bartender was taking lunch orders, and didn’t miss a beat when we told him that we were looking for a couple of meatless items to go with our smoked animal flesh. As you’d expect in a barbecue eatery, this isn’t a particularly easy task – especially if you prefer a fully vegan option. The salads would fill that bill, though, if you pull the Parmesan from the caesar; corn fritters appeared plant-based, and smoked Gouda mac is a good choice if cheese isn’t an issue for you.

Caesar salad ($8) just might have been the best thing on the table. Fresh, green romaine was cold and crisp, neatly cut in squares with no sign of brown or limp edges. Paper-thin slices of Parmesan was scattered on top; croutons were fresh and browned, and a tart vinaigrette, though perhaps not traditionally caesar-style, was refreshing.

Corn fritters ($6.99) made a tasty treat. Who doesn’t like hot spicy fried things? Seven two-bite orbs were carefully fried golden-brown and grease-free. A thick, crunchy coating cloaked what appeared to be white cornmeal studded with plenty of yellow corn niblets. They came with a tub of remoulade-style sauce, creamy and pink, cranked up with fiery spice.

We wavered among several of the meats, but decided against baby back ribs after learning that they are painted with a sweet glaze after being smoked with a dry rub. Call me finicky, but I’d just as soon save the sweet stuff for dessert. We ordered a pulled pork sandwich ($15) and found it satisfying but well short of life-altering.

A fairly abstemious amount – maybe 3 ounces, 4 at most – of finely shredded pork sat on a decent, grilled brioche bun. I could see some charred end bits mixed in with the rest, but didn’t get the textural variation that burnt ends usually provide. It was all quite juicy, almost as it if had been stewed. The smoke flavor was dominant, almost to the point of obscuring pork flavor. It’s served without additional sauce, which is a plus for me; squeeze bottles of good quality hot and mild bourbon sauces sat with paper towels in buckets on the table to use as you like.

A side dish of smoked Gouda mac and cheese was made in what appeared to be stovetop style, with a tangy, creamy sauce coating cavatappi pasta. The short pasta was a nice touch, as was the addition of a crunchy bread-crumb topping.

The green beans were long-cooked and studded with bits of shredded pork that resembled the pulled pork.

We passed on the bar offerings and held the cost of our meal for two, with meat for one, down to a thrifty $31.79 plus $8 tip.

The Smokery
2354 Frankfort Ave.
709-5176
Facebook: https://bit.ly/SmokeryLou

Noise Level: Even when only partially full for a Saturday lunch, the small space, country music, and a happy crowd pushed sound up to 70.6dB, a bit loud but no barrier to conversation.

Accessibility: The restaurant is on two levels separated by stairs. Both levels are accessible to wheelchair users via ramps from the patio area.

The post Meat or no meat: The Smokery has you covered appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I had never envisioned myself as a fan of South Korean K-dramas, but that was before a Netflix promotion drew me into the fictional life of Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

Now I’m almost through binging this sweet, sometimes challenging drama about the brilliant 20-something Korean attorney Woo Young-woo (played by Park Eun-bin), who, as Netflix explains it, “faces challenges in the courtroom and beyond as a newbie at a top law firm in Seoul and a woman on the autism spectrum.”

Before long I had added a Korean module to my Duolingo routine so I could learn characters in hangul, the Korean alphabet. And most of all, I found myself deeply craving the only food item that Young-woo enjoys: Kimbap.

What’s a kimbap? Sometimes spelled gimbap or kimbab, it’s a popular Korean street food. Its name comes from the Korean words for “seaweed” and “rice,” and it looks quite a bit like a Japanese futomaki sushi roll.

Please don’t call it sushi

Please don’t call it sushi, though. Yes, it’s made with black seaweed rolled and fillings and sliced into rounds that look like maki sushi. But it’s distinctly Korean and distinctly different. It’s flavored with sesame oil, not vinegar. It’s stuffed with a hefty mix of ingredients but not raw fish. And it’s wrapped in seaweed that’s thinner and more delicate than Japanese nori.

Most important, kimbap is culturally and historically distinct. It is one of the most iconic Korean comfort foods, like Mom used to make if Mom was Korean.

Woo Young-Woo loves kimbap because she can see everything that’s in it. You know what? That sounds kind of appealing to me, too. So where could I find some? I couldn’t spot it on the online menus at a few local Korean eateries. But then someone whispered a secret: You can get it at Choi’s Asian Food Market in Lyndon (607 Lyndon Lane, 426-4441).

I’m always up for a trip to Choi’s, one of my favorite Asian markets, so off I went. Sure enough, right on the front counter stands a cooler loaded with long black rolls of both beef and vegetable kimbap. It’s affordable, too: $4.99 for beef kimbp and just $2.99 for a vegetable roll. (The latter, a sign points out, is not vegan or vegetarian. It contains a small amount of fish cake, although they’ll remove that on request.)

Another sign politely asks the public not to touch the box: “We serve you kimbap.”

Coincidentally, the man in front of us in line was buying kimbap too, and when the woman behind us saw what we were doing, she wanted some as well. Yes, it’s that popular, and Extraordinary Attorney Woo is very likely due some of the credit. It hit Netflix’s Top Ten list within weeks of its U.S. launch, and was the platform’s most-viewed title last August. By the end of 2022, Netflix named the series one of its most popular non-English titles ever.

Season Two is supposed to launch some time next year, and I for one can hardly wait. In the meantime, I see more trips to Choi’s for kimbap in my future.

Kimbap comes home

We brought home a beef roll and a vegetable roll and enjoyed them both. I think I’m starting to see why they appeal to Young-Woo. Arranged neatly on a white plate, Choi’s version looks very much like the plate shown in the show’s opening credits.

Both beef and veggie rolls are similar, with the obvious distinction of the main ingredient. The seaweed wrapper is very thin, so although they’re well fashioned, it’s a good idea to pick up each roll with one finger holding the seam to keep them from falling apart. There’s no vinegary flavor to the sticky, short-grain rice, with a faint hint of sesame imparting a more savory character.

The fillings are neatly chopped and arranged, rolled into an artful, display. Both contain crisp julienne carrot strips, tender cucumber, crunchy Asian pickles, and a portion of scrambled egg. The meat version also includes a portion of thin-sliced, well-done beef; the veggie item contains a small strip of mild-flavored fish cake in an otherwise all-vegetable combo.

I loved the way that each slice presents a variety of colors, flavors, and textures, and yes, you can see everything that’s in it before you bite. One roll made a filling, affordable lunch, and I’ll definitely go back for more.

“Tell me what you watch, and I’ll tell you what you eat …”

All this inquiry got me thinking about food, and it didn’t take me long to realize that this was not the first time a television series has sent me rushing to a local eatery to enjoy something I just watched.

For instance …

The Taco Chronicles on Netflix fired my appetite for birria before birria was cool. The pandemic was going full bore in the autumn of 2020, but that didn’t stop me from heading for the Jeffersontown shop of I Love Tacos to sample birria. “Long-simmered, tender and juicy beef brisket is piled high on a tortilla that has been grilled in spicy adobo sauce,” I wrote, “served in traditional style with cilantro and onion, with a tub of rich, intense beef broth seasoned with chopped onions and cilantro for dipping or spooning on your taco.”

Something similar had happened a year earlier. “While I was binge-watching the Taco Chronicles on Netflix last week,” I wrote in August 2019, “I got to the sequence on carnitas, and immediately realized that I had to get up and go either to Michoacán or, at the least, to a really good local taqueria. Once I checked my wallet, La Catrina Mexican Kitchen in New Albany got the nod.”

I could easily go on, and on and on. But I think you’re getting the picture. From Jiro Dreams of Sushi to Babette’s feast, Big Night, Chocolat and beyond, television can make you hungry. In a good way.

The post Streaming and dining: Korean drama imparts a crave appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

It’s fish fry season in Louisville again! We’re back in that season of Lent when you don’t have to be Catholic to go gaga over Friday fish fries at dozens of local parishes … and a couple of Episcopal churches, too.

Now, for the record, all year is fish-fry season in this river city. Perhaps owing to a substantial rush of German, Irish, Italian, and Lebanese Catholic immigrants during the 19th century, when the L&N railroad would rush fish and oysters up from the Gulf in ice-filled boxcars, Louisville is crazy for seafood all year ‘round.

But that fishy history doesn’t deter us from piling on another layer of culinary excitement when those Friday Lenten fries return. If you’d like to track down a favorite church fish fry, or discover what’s available near you, here are a few handy sources:

• The Archdiocese of Louisville’s calendar of Lenten Fish Fries lists events at nearly 50 Catholic churches throughout the region, at https://bit.ly/YummyFries2023.

• Louisville Public Media’s 2023 Fish “Frynder” assembles similar information on a clickable map that makes it easy to filter results by date, time of day, and special activities: https://bit.ly/FishFrynder2023

• Two Louisville Episcopal churches also offer worthy fish fries through Lent: St. Luke’s in Anchorage (1206 Maple Lane, stlukesanchorage.org), and St. Mark’s in Crescent Hill (2822 Frankfort Ave., stmlky.org).

Eateries that specialize in the golden-brown specialty

Now, all that’s fine, but I’d just as soon get my fried fish at a restaurant, and I don’t have to wait for Lent. Even with the sad closing of Sal’s Pizza Pub in Lyndon and the loss of Moby Dick in St. Matthews, the city still boasts a score or more of eateries that specialize in the golden-brown specialty.

And that’s not counting many more general-service restaurants where fried cod, scrod, haddock, or other favorites have a place of pride on the menu.

This year, in search of fishy pleasures I hadn’t sampled before, we headed out on Fat Tuesday to check out the Irish-style fried cod at The Raven. This popular spot, which evolved early in the pandemic from its former status as an easterly outpost of Molly Malone’s in the Highlands, has emerged as a prime destination in the busy block of bars and eateries in St. Matthew’s roaring nightlife zone.

The Raven’s Irish pub feel

Dark and cozy, The Raven boasts an Irish pub feel surely attributable to the ownership of native-born Irishman Brendan McCartan and his Louisville-raised wife, Renee. Billed as “an authentic Irish cultural experience.” It also claims status as the city’s premier rugby pub, along with proper obeisance to soccer including hometown team Lou City FC.

I couldn’t help noticing that The Raven’s drinks list offers even more choices than its food menu. It’s an interesting list, too, with nearly 60 bourbons and almost 30 Irish whiskeys, along with a fascinating selection of Irish whiskey-based cocktails, a couple of dozen beer and cider taps, and a short wine list.

The booze-to-food ratio does not signal a lack of deliciousness on the food side, though. The menu offers a mix of Irish-style and American dishes and includes some vegetarian options.

Three soups, three salads, and a half-dozen starters are priced from $8 (for some of the soups) to $15 (for an Irish cobb salad). Eight sandwiches go for $12 (for chicken salad or a curried chicken wrap) to $17 (for a thinly sliced steak sandwich).

A dozen main courses range in price from $12 (for Guinness beef stew) to $28 (for a grilled 12-ounce New York strip steak). Most of the mains are $18 or less, though. Five tempting house-made desserts are all $8.

Leek and potato soup ($8) made an outstanding starter on a chilly afternoon. A deep white bowl held a generous portion of thick, hearty potato soup with a delicious aroma and flavor from leeks and scallions – members of the lily family, after all – and chunks of tender potato.

Scotch eggs are a standard treat that extends from Scotland to Wales and Ireland too. Hearty and filling, they are a natural with a pint of Guinness. We couldn’t resist checking out The Raven’s vegetarian version ($10), which seemed indistinguishable from the pork-based original. A tender hard-boiled egg was wrapped in finely chopped sausage, then coated with panko breading and deep-fried until the exterior is shattering crisp. One egg was served whole and the other sliced in quarters, drizzled with piquant orange sun-dried tomato aioli.

Time for the fish

And then it was time for the fish. You can get a fish-and-chips sandwich on a potato bun for $14, but four bucks more will get you even more fish. What’s more, our friendly server was happy to substitute onion rings for the standard chips (french fries).

This platter brings two medium-size pieces of heavily crumb-breaded, crisply fried cod. The kitchen shows real skill at breading, coating and frying; both the fish and the rings were perfectly done.

The two pieces of fish were randomly different in size, which caused a small problem: Fried together, the larger piece was perfect, flaky and steaming, but the smaller piece came out overcooked, crossing the line from flaky to bordering on mushy. This is a minor complaint. It was still enjoyable. But this is a thing to watch for in the kitchen.

Four or five fried onion rings were huge and fat, coated with a thick but light and airy beer batter. They were excellent, and next time I’d willingly pay $4 for a full order. The plate also came with good, creamy tartar sauce and a tiny cup of crisp, fresh slaw.

A hearty pre-Lenten lunch for two was $38.07, plus a $10 tip.

The Raven
3900 Shelbyville Road
883-0400
theravenirishpub.com
facebook.com/theravenirishpub

Noise Level: We went for lunch and had the room almost to ourselves at midday. Silence prevailed. It would be another story, of course, during busy evening hours.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Quoth The Raven, “Gimme more fish!” appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I love it when one of my columns sparks a conversation about a similar-but-different idea. Consider my comment in last week’s review:

“What do I like so much about Con Huevos? As simply as I can explain it, it’s a happy place.”

That seems simple enough. It’s concise, but hardly a quote for the ages. But those few words prompted more response than just about anything else I’ve said recently. People wanted to tell me about their happy place eateries, and from there it went on to a philosophical follow-up: What is it, exactly, that makes a restaurant happy, cozy, magical, gemütlich, hygge, and all the other warm notions of things bring us joy?

Let’s dig into this today, with a spoiler alert: There is no single one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Each of us defines it in our own way, and that’s all right.

One person’s happy place may be a simple, down-home, mom-and-pop eatery that makes you feel at home. In contrast, another’s comfort zone might be an elegant, white-tablecloth eatery that makes them feel pampered and cared for.

What’s your pleasure?

What’s your pleasure? It might be good, old-fashioned, down-home American fare like Mom used to make. But it might be good, old-fashioned, down-home fare from wherever Mom or Grandmom came from, whether you call her Abuelita or Bubbe or Nonna, Grandmère or Obasaan.

Or maybe the food that touches your heart comes from a place your ancestors never knew, yet that speaks to you in feelings as strongly as words. I’m like that for Indian, Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Iranian, not to mention Italian and French. Really, just about any food that speaks of distant places and immigrant neighbors can ring that comfort bell for me.
?So, if we enter our soul-touching cuisine as relationship information on Facebook, we might click “It’s Complicated.”

It’s no easier to zero in on exactly what it takes for a restaurant to impart this burst of joy. My friends on social media and in person weren’t shy about expressing their opinions. I engaged with a couple of hundred of them on Facebook and the HotBytes Forum, and I must have gotten something like 300 suggestions out of them. Whew!

Still, a few standard descriptions for an iconic happy place seem to recur.

• Atmosphere, ambience, feel, whatever synonym you want to use for it, has to rank high. A fancy eatery with a memorable chef and kitchen can garner critical raves and multiple stars; but if its atmosphere is chilly and the servers snooty, it won’t rate highly on the hygge meter.
• The personal touch matters. An owner or chef who takes time to walk around the room and greet diners can earn dividends with a warm, welcoming attitude. That smile has to be genuine, though. Nobody loves a faker.
• Service makes a difference. Friendly and attentive servers earn a strong positive response; so does firm knowledge of the menu and a clear sense that the diner’s needs are important.
• Value. Do I even have to tell you this? Fair prices, generous portions, and quality food leave the diner feeling content. Does this mean that only cheap eats can qualify? Not at all! I’ve found great value in meals that cost $150 for a couple, and I’ve walked away feeling cheated from a $20 tab.

Let’s consider a handful of favorite spots around town – favorites of mine, favorites of friends who joined the conversation – and see if we can’t illustrate this elusive goal with a few good examples.

The local hangout

My Facebook friend Ed H. nailed this one, saying, “The local mom-and-pop pizza neighborhood place is a good one. People grow up, have parties, first teenage dates, first cold beers, and after work happy hours. It’s the place everyone knows your name like the TV show. … You can go an be casual, have food and drink, and maybe have memories. Those are the real happy places. In sports terms it’s kinda like having a restaurant as your home team. How many places do you go in that you know all the cooks and servers?”

Hmm, that sounds about right! I love pizza, and it’s no coincidence that a significant share of my social-media responses named pizzerias. That’s more, there’s hardly a better way to start a debate than to ask friends to rank their three favorite local pizzerias. I might name MozzaPi, The Post or Pizza Lupo just to get the discussion started.

Memories!

“The Bristol on Bardstown Road was the first nice, casual, affordable restaurant in my early adult years,” Corie N. observed on Facebook. “The first Fern Bar! And we still go there!”

I confess that I haven’t been back to the Bristol for quite a while. But when I remember the gang from The Louisville Times newsroom gathering there after work on Fridays and proudly claiming the front table in the window to share brews and green chile wontons, I realize that Corie is onto something.

Along similar lines, longtime Louisville destinations like Buck’s, Volare, Anoosh Bistro, Jack Fry’s, 211 Clover, Selena’s, The Pine Room, Brasserie Provence, La Chasse, Come Back Inn, El Mundo, and Irish Rover got multiple mentions, and I agree.

Steak Houses

High-end steak houses have a special character that appeals to many people. It’s a combination of a serious carnivorous bill of fare that’s pricey but worth it, coupled with a sense of local tradition that adds layers of comfort. Pat’s Steakhouse got multiple mentions, as did Le Moo and, for a serious blowout, Jeff Ruby’s. “Superb service and excellent food,” my friend David C. said of Ruby’s. “We go there for birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions.”

I could go on, and another day I probably will. At this point, though, I think we’re getting the idea: Just about any kind of eatery can comfort us. Doing things right brings faithful followers back.

The post Happy, cozy, magical, gemütlich: Why we love those special eateries appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Don’t stop me if I’ve told you this before, but breakfast is one of my favorite meals of the day, and I’m happy to enjoy it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

What’s more, Con Huevos is one of my favorite places for breakfast, although to my occasional sorrow, it’s open only for breakfast and lunch. If I want it for dinner, I have to get by with takeouts picked up earlier in the day.

What do I like so much about Con Huevos? As simply as I can explain it, it’s a happy place. Each of this growing local mini-chain’s properties is bright and colorful, and the people who work there seem to smile all the time. It specializes in breakfast, as I mentioned, but it does lunch too.

It’s Mexican, with the aromatic, attention-grabbing flavors of Mexican cuisine. If you speak only English, you have nothing to fear: The menu speaks your language, and so do the friendly folks who take your orders. But if you want to try a few remembered words from high-school Spanish, they’ll put up with that, too.

In short, the husband-and-wife ownership team of Jesus Martinez and Izmene Peredo does everything right, and that has helped drive the growth of Con Huevos from a tiny Clifton storefront to an expanded original shop and four more properties from a grab-and-go spot in the Omni Hotel downtown to a soon-to-open fifth shop in Norton Commons.

I have a special place in my heart for the Clifton location, having been a regular customer since it opened early in 2015. I like to check on its newer locations, though, and I’ve been happy to find their food and service right up to the quality of the original shop. This time we settled in at the Holiday Manor branch on US 42 and enjoyed an excellent meal

The bill of fare is divided into brunch, sandwiches, and Mexican classics lunch categories, but all items are available throughout operating hours. Menu prices have gone up a bit – a couple of bucks on most dishes – since I last got a curbside-pickup meal early in 2021. Considering the reality of rising food prices, I can’t quibble with that, and pricing remains well south of the special-occasion category. with virtually all dishes priced between $9.99 and $1.99.

I often get huevos rancheros ($13.99) here, but for a change of pace decided to fill up on a hearty ration of chilaquiles (pictured above; $13.99, or $4 for a small side dish). This classic Mexican dish, according to tradition, traces its roots to the Aztecs. It comes in many regional variations, but Con Huevos’ version is typical: Corn tortillas are cut into quarters and cooked in a bath of spicy salsa verde until they soften. Then this comfortable bed becomes a home for two bright sunny-side-up eggs, grated queso fresco cheese, stripes of tangy crema, crisp, pink pickled onions, and snipped chives. It’s quite a hefty combination, and I have to stop and think about how best to eat it – usually a mix of fork, knife, and fingers – but all the disparate flavors come together in an appetizing mix.

We considered an order of breakfast tacos filled with scrambled eggs, chorizo, and fried shoestring potatoes, but decided to stick with tradition via a trio of carne asada tacos from the lunch menu ($14.99). Each taco was served on a single corn tortilla, sturdy and thick models that held up the ingredients with no need for doubling. They were loaded with grilled beef cubes left pink at the centers, and topped with plenty of fresh cilantro and pink pickled onion dice. Lime wedges and spicy green and red salsas came alongside.

Just about every culture on Earth has some kind of sweet treat made with fried dough, from the elegant beignets of France (and New Orleans) to Indian balushahi, Chinese mahua, German Berliners (the pastry that got JFK into amusing linguistic trouble when he told a German audience that he was one), American state fair elephant ears, and of course our beloved donut, which history traces back to 17th century Dutch settlers in New York, er, New Amsterdam. Mexico’s entry in this genre is the churro, and Con Huevos makes a worthy version. Extruded as long tubes with many lengthwise ridges – the better to impart crispness – an order of six churros ($6.50) are dense and hyper-crisp, dusted with crunchy cinnamon sugar, and served with a cup of thin but deliciously sweet caramel-scented dulce de leche sauce.

With a Mexican Coke ($3.50) straight out of the bottle and a big mug of steaming, strong black Mexican coffee from Chiapas ($3.50) a filling and delicious brunch for two came to $45.03, plus a 20 percent tip.

Con Huevos
4938 U.S. Hwy 42
Holiday Manor Shopping Center
384-3744
conhuevos.com
facebook.com/ConHuevosRestaurant

Other locations: 2339 Frankfort Ave., 384-3027; 2125 Hurstbourne Pkwy., 384-2432; Con Huevos Craves in the Omni Hotel’s Falls City Market, 210 W. Liberty St,; and, coming soon, 10639 Meeting St., Norton Commons.

Noise Level: This place is popular, it’s usually full during brunch hours, and conversation can be a challenge. Average sound level during our visit was 76dB, roughly equivalent to a vacuum cleaner.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users, although the doors are a bit heavy.

The post Con Huevos, a favorite for breakfast or lunch appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

While I was power-walking a mile the other morning, I plugged in The Daily podcast from The New York Times and realized to my delight that they were interviewing one of my favorite food critics: The Times’ Pete Wells.

All right! That put a little more bounce in my step. I really like Pete Wells, and if I don’t exactly model my writing chops on Pete, I do like his work. I enjoyed hearing him chatting with The Daily’s host, Michael Barbaro, about his craft as a food writer, his love of food, and how everything changed when the pandemic hit New York City.

I thought about this, and I thought, “Hmmm.” I’m no Pete Wells. I don’t have Pete’s budget, and I’m arguably not as funny. Still, in the context of that interview, I had a thought: Why not share a few things you might not know about my approach to restaurant writing in Louisville?

Is it a full-time job? Nope.

One doesn’t get rich at this game, or at least I don’t. When I became restaurant critic at The Louisville Times in 1984, my weekly fee was near the lower end of the two-figures range. They did pay my dining expenses, though, for which I was more than grateful, and that continued, somewhat to my surprise, even after Gannett Corp. took over the newspaper.

Nevertheless, I left the building and restaurant column behind in 1990, blasting off for New York City and a job with a national non-profit. I free-lanced on the side; and when I returned to Louisville in 1994, I started LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

As a self-employed food writer I still fall well short of making a full-time living from this part-time gig. I pay my own expenses now, so considering inflation, I probably don’t make much more than I did at The Times in the ‘80s. But I love this job, and I hope it shows.

Pete Wells obviously loves his job too, but he’s doing a bit better in Gotham. “By the end of a week I will have signed off on some check that’s shocking, $600 or $700 or $800 or $900,” he told interviewer Barbaro. “It’s a very large sum … and that’s just how it’s going to be.”

It must be nice, Pete!

How do you decide where to eat?

Good question! People used to assume that publisher Barry Bingham Jr. sent down specific instructions, because people thought he told us how to cover the news, too. Nope. I make the picks. I listen to your suggestions. I keep an eye on interesting new places, so if I hear a buzz, I get over there ASAP and let you know what I found.

Thanks to a limited budget – even more so since the pandemic – I most often focus on good cheap eats. Fancy, high-end spots are harder to fit into my spending plan. Anyway, I’d usually rather explore a new taqueria or Indian spot or maybe something from a cuisine I haven’t sampled before. But every now and then I’ll find my way to a fancy new spot or pricey old favorite.

Do you dine anonymously?

Like most food critics, as much so as I can. I don’t wear disguises, or at least I’m not going to tell you if I do. I don’t reserve in my own name. I don’t use my photo on most social media. I don’t take notes or talk to a hidden recorder, and I’m grateful that I’m no longer the only person taking photos of my food in this age of Instagram.

I know that after all these years some of the city’s longtime chefs – and more than a few servers – recognize me. If I see someone I’ve met hovering nervously, I’ll gently advise them, “treat me like a normal customer. One sign of special treatment, and the review gets canned.” This usually seems to work.

Where did you learn how to do this stuff?

Like most restaurant critics – Pete Wells included – I’ve had no formal training. As a reporter at The Times, I came to the job as a reporter covering a story, and experience was the best teacher.

Having come of age in the era of Julia Child and James Beard, I liked to eat and I enjoyed cooking. I studied food, food policy, food history and more. And I pushed for local, organic, and healthy fare before those things were cool.

How often do you eat out?

Unlike Pete Wells, I don’t have the budget to dine several times before writing my review. But I dine with at least one companion, often more. We’ll sample main dishes, apps, a salad or side dish, maybe a dessert. If something seems really off, I’ll make a judgment call and either bag the review, come back another time, and, if the problem appears to be systemic and intractable, warn you off.

How much do you weigh?

Ha! I came to the job years ago as a skinny young reporter. That didn’t last! It didn’t take long to learn that I couldn’t eat all those restaurant meals without consequences. I’ve endured the familiar gain, diet, lose, gain, with a closet full of clothes in various sizes. During the last decade, though no longer either young or skinny, I think I’ve finally got that battle under control. My weight fits my height again with a body-mass index around 22. But it’s not easy.

I eat frugally at home and practice strict portion control while dining out. In my reviews I choose one vegetarian or vegan entree along for every carnivorous main dish, recognizing the growing audience for plant-based lifestyles. And I power-walk a mile every day before breakfast, on my way to getting 8,000 steps or more by day’s end.

Still think you’d like to be a food writer? Are you sure?

The post Our critic shares a few secrets of the food writers appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

If I’m going to go out for Mexican food, I’d really rather find my way to a taqueria or other small eatery run by immigrant neighbors. Someplace where the food is the real thing, where I need to be prepared to order in my awkward Spanish or by pointing at an item in the menu with a smile.

Someplace, in other words, like El Mariachi Restaurante Mexicano. This East End eatery, more than just a taqueria, has long been one of my favorite local spots for Mexican fare thanks to the quality of its food, the breadth of its menu, and its colorful, happy-making decor.

Not long ago, running an errand out Lagrange Road, I noticed to my surprise that things have changed. They’ve gotten better!

For years, El Mariachi and a cluster of other Latino shops – a carniceria (butcher shop), panaderia (bakery), and a supermercado (grocery) – had occupied the back leg of an L-shaped strip center, with a more North American string of shops (including a Mexican-American eatery) facing Lagrange Road.

Suddenly everything has changed! In December, El Mariachi moved into larger quarters in the front of the building. The entire structure is now painted the exuberant bright-adobe color that marks the properties of Mercado Guanajuato, a impressive immigrant-owned business that over the past 15 years has grown from this location into three Latino supermarkets and business clusters in immigrant-rich communities here, on Preston Highway, and on Bardstown Road in Fern Creek.

Naturally I got back as soon as I could, and I’m pleased to report that El Mariachi is just as good as ever. The new location’s two dining rooms are spacious, loaded with Mexican folk art (and even a couple of Dia de los Muertos images from Pixar’s movie Coco), with walls painted to resemble stone arches. There’s a short bar, a few flat-screens (two of them tuned to soccer, er, fútbol, at the time of our visit), and sturdy tables, booths, and chairs with their backs bearing molded images of stylized sombreros.

The large, colorful 10-page menu contains full English explanations for all the dishes, making it easy to enjoy the fare even if you don’t speak a word of Spanish.

It’s divided by type of dish – tacos, gorditas, huaraches, sopesitos, tortas, and more. Tacos. gorditas, and open-face sopesitos all go for $2.49 to $3.99, depending on filling (although you probably won’t eat just one). Even in the entree department prices top out around $19.99 (for a steak carne asada dinner plate or some of the fancier fajitas with shrimp or a shrimp, chicken, steak, chorizo and pineapple mix).

It’s almost impossible to stop eating the exceptional chips and salsa. Fresh-made corn tortillas are cut into triangles, fried to order, drained of excess oil, and served hot. The piquant salsa is impressive, too, a textured blend of red chiles and tomatoes, tiny diced jalapeños and cilantro.

A carnitas taco ($2 49) was made Mexican-style on a doubled corn tortilla, simply dressed with chopped onions and cilantro, with a lime wedge and squeeze bottles of red and green salsa alongside. The house-made tortillas are a bit thicker than your bagged commercial model, an advantage in building tacos that don’t fall apart. The carnitas was long cooked, pork falling into shreds, flavorful pork with a subtle mild red pepper flavor hovering in the background..

Gorditas are like a tortilla made of soft masa flour, split from one end, stuffed with filling and fried. We tried a meatless option, rajas con queso ($3.99), a mix of chopped mild poblano peppers and queso fresco melted together. It went very well with the corn flavor and crisp texture of the fried gordita.

Sopesitos are built open-face on an extra-thick corn tortilla that resembles a corn cake. It’s topped with choice of meat, queso fresco, chopped lettuce, crema, and more grated cheese. They’re $3.99 plus an additional charge for your meat choice. We ordered lengua (beef tongue), which added $1.50. The distinctly gamey tongue meat was soft with crusty charred edges. Its juices soaked into the thick corn cake.

A larger dish, chile relleno ($12.99), featured a large, dark green poblano chile pepper stuffed with queso fresco (ground beef is also an option), baked in a light batter, slathered with tomato sauce, topped with more grated cheese and a zig-zag of crema. It comes with excellent Mexican-style rice and frijoles refritos.

The pepper was mild but flavorful. The rice and beans were also exceptional. The rice grains were each separate and tinted orange by mild chiles and tomatoes. It was studded with veggies perhaps selected for their colors: Green peas; carrot,, red and green bell pepper dice, yellow corn kernels, and white onion bits. The beans were noteworthy, too, a rich, creamy puree topped with grated Mexican cheese.

At a $26.46 total for two plus a $7.49 tip, this was one of the best affordable lunches I’ve had lately.

El Mariachi Restaurante Mexicano
9901 Lagrange Road
413-5770
orderelmariachimexicanrestaurantky.com
facebook.com/elmariachimexicanres

Noise level: The large dining room was only partly filled, but the combined sounds of background music and a full-volume soccer match on the flat screen pushed noise levels to an average 69.3dB (pushing the limits for conversation) with peaks to 78.1 dB (a little too loud for comfort).

Accessibility: The restaurant and restrooms appear accessible to wheelchair users.

The post El Mariachi, a favorite, moves and grows appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

We lament a lot about all the restaurants we love that have closed during the pandemic. Heck, we lament a lot about all the restaurants we love that have closed before that, probably all the way back to the days when Louisville was just a growing river port town.

But we all know that the pandemic has made things worse. The loss of Decca, Harvest and Rye changed the face of the Nulu district forever. No, those spaces won’t stand vacant for long. But the look and feel of the neighborhood is changing, and that involves more than just new names on the signs out front.

Consider: Decca’s replacement is Lou Lou on Market. Rye’s replacement is the Olé Group’s Guacamole. To be perfectly clear, I’m not bashing those places. Good for them for stepping up. But neither Lou Lou (which bills its fare as “Southern food incorporating influences from New Orleans and Italy”) or Guacamole (“authentic Mexican cuisine with a modern twist”) attains either the price point or the creative spirit of their predecessors.

A worrisome trend

Suddenly there’s a worrisome trend: Some of the city’s fancier restaurants – our top tables – are disappearing, leaving behind vacant spaces or more modest successors.

The Brown Hotel’s English Grill and the Seelbach’s Oakroom are both closed for now, while the hotels’ more basic breakfast and lunch spaces remain open. Harvest’s space remains vacant, and so does the longtime home of Lilly’s Bistro.

Louisville is no outlier. Similar trends shadow the national and even the global scenes. This may be most notable in the well publicized plan to close Noma in Copenhagen. Arguably one of the world’s top restaurants, Noma is also among its most expensive, at $500 for a meal of 20 tiny courses, often ending with, um, reindeer-blood caramels.

In a recent New York Times story headlined “Dining Is Going Out of Fashion. As an Ex-Chef, I’m Relieved,” Noma’s chef René Redzepi told writer and former chef Genevieve Yam that “running a fine dining establishment at the highest level was financially and emotionally unsustainable. This seems to be realizing something most restaurant staffers have known all along: The business model that allows the world’s most exclusive restaurants to thrive was never viable.”

Despite our fierce pride in the local dining scene, few of us would claim that we have now, or have ever had, a restaurant at the level of Noma, or even at the level of top-tier eateries in Paris, London, or America’s coastal metropolises. But we’re good, and we know it. And if the kind of fancy, creative dining rooms that have made us proud do start going out of fashion here, it’s going to hurt.

Here’s where it gets murky: There’s a closer connection that one might think between Noma’s closing and the staffing issues that seem to be afflicting restaurant service around the world.

Some of her unnamed chef contacts, Times writer Yam disclosed, “found it laughable that Noma would rather close than figure out a solution to paying their staff equitably, while others were convinced that Redzepi wanted out before his reputation was tarnished by the ‘dirty little secret,’ as one person put it, that his restaurant had been run on a huge amount of free labor [unpaid interns] for most its life.”

Do pay and benefits drive worker shortage?

Not many restaurants – and none in Louisville, as far as I know – make their budget by relying on a staff of unpaid interns. But there’s little doubt that the current and ongoing restaurant labor shortage is driven by dissatisfaction with worker pay and benefits.

Thinking about my own restaurant visits since the pandemic – and comparing them with reports from many friends – it has become almost standard to enter a restaurant and find only one server handling every table. This is a practice that almost guarantees delays and customer frustration. So why is it happening?

Initially, the rather unlikely conventional wisdom was that laid-off servers weren’t coming back because the Covid-forced break had given them time to reflect on, and be soured by, server pay, lack of benefits, and daily pain. Now, though, I’m starting to sense another issue: As some restaurateurs begin offering higher pay and basic benefits to lure staff, they try to make the numbers work by using fewer but better-paid staff. Given the frustration I’m seeing, I wonder if this is a winning longer-term strategy.

Meanwhile, pulled by labor issues in one direction, restaurants face inexorably rising food prices in the other. If you’ve moaned at your grocery bill lately, imagine the pain for an executive chef trying to feed 80 diners during the dinner rush, pay servers and kitchen staff a higher wage, and, oh yeah, end up with a few bucks in their pocket at the end of the month.

Bumpy road likely to continue

It’s no surprise that, as Nation’s Restaurant News reported in its report on a National Restaurant Association survey earlier this month, “Restaurant operators expect a continued bumpy road in 2023.”

Much of the pain, the survey revealed, came to nobody’s surprise in food and labor costs. Food costs were called a significant challenge by 92%, while 89% said the same for labor costs. Coffee and egg costs alone fired a 30% jump in breakfast inflation last year.

On the labor side, survey responses showed a 4% increase in restaurant wages and salaries and a 5% hike in benefits overall. “These are the most significant line items for restaurants, accounting for about 33 cents of every dollar in sales.”

The stark result, according to this report, was an 8.5% increase in menu prices nationally. Fully 87% of restaurants reported that they increased menu prices last year.

In spite of it all, the restaurant association observed, consumers so far remain willing to spend money at restaurants despite higher menu prices.

Our town has prized its restaurants since the 19th century, and we’ve faced challenges before. Neither of these things seems likely to stop.

The post C- c- changes … all around our dining scene appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

It’s not usually difficult for a restaurant critic to learn about new eateries around our town. Either the owner or chef clues me in with an email, text, or news release, or I’ll hear about it on social media or the Louisville HotBytes forum.

Now and then, though, an appealing new place will fly under the radar until, like Columbus “discovering” America, I stumble into it myself.

So it was the other day when I rolled into Holiday Manor, planning a quick run to Kroger, when I suddenly noticed a bright new storefront sign: “Bahn Thai & M.”

Wait a minute! That’s the space where Thai Cafe, one of my favorite local family-Thai eateries, had been turning out tasty Southeast Asian fare for almost 30 years, making it the oldest surviving Thai spot in town.

Hoping to learn more, I got in touch with my friend Vichan Snow, whose parents, Billy and Chavantee Snow, had owned Thai Cafe since opening day. “My parents sold it and they are no longer involved,” he said.

After all those years, the Snows deserve a happy retirement, and I hope they’re enjoying it. And my task was clear: Check out the new Thai place, see what I think, and let all of you know.

Bahn Thai & M, the host told us, is connected by ownership with another Bahn Thai restaurant in Fern Creek’s Glenmary Center. The Moundine family joins the Klomklao family in this new property, hence the added “& M.”

The Holiday Manor shop’s menu appears a bit more compact than the Fern Creek property’s bill of fare, but it still offers a good cross-section of Thai cuisine. Thai fare is one of my favorite cuisines. I love its bright, clear flavors that pop, and I’m smitten by its complex aromatics that speak for themselves yet also take inspiration from the cuisines of India to its west and China to its north and east.

Yum. I want to go back right now.

We found the small room almost full for lunch on a Friday. It’s been open since mid-November, and obviously has become popular via word of mouth alone.

“Bahn” means “home” in the national language of Thailand, and the menu offers a range of hearty, home-style Thai dishes. About 60 items include a short list of appetizers and app-size soups that range in price from $4.50 (for fried spring rolls) to $12 (for starter sampler plates).

Entrees are divided in many categories, including Thai dinner salads and noodle soups, fried rice, stir-fried noodles, seafood, Thai curry, and stir-fry entrees. Thirteen vegetarian apps and entrees are listed on a separate page. The entrees all seem reasonably priced, ranging from $12-$13 (for many entrees) to $20-$22 (for many of the eight seafood entrees).

There appeared to be only one server for the entire room, along with a host at the front desk. To her credit, she stayed friendly and welcoming under pressure.

Dishes are served on attractive, heavy white porcelain plates with stylish stainless service ware.

Four steamed vegetable dumplings ($6) were formed into purses in the standard way, filled with bits of tofu, rice noodle, onion and garlic, but then fashioned into tiny bowl-shape rounds just right to hold a few drops of tangy-hot chili soy sauce.

A bowl of ginger soup ($6), was steaming and aromatic. Fresh halved white mushrooms, strips of onion and julienned ginger, scallions and neatly halved baby corn swam in a delightful sweet, tangy, and deeply ginger-flavored broth. It was profoundly appetizing, and a perfect choice for a chilly winter day.

One of our main dish orders got switched in the kitchen. We had intended to order beef noodle soup ($13), but what we got was a beef noodle dish, apparently sweet soybean noodle pork ($14) but with beef in place of pork.

The server and the host both apologetically offered to exchange it, and I appreciated that; but we didn’t want to wait while our other entree cooled. The unexpected replacement looked good too, so we accepted the substitute. Wide, flat rice noodles, tender but al dente, were coated with a thin, slightly sweet sauce with a few tiny yellow soybeans scattered through it. Thin squares of well-cooked beef and crisp-tender, bright green broccoli florets were arranged in a circle around the dish, with intensely flavored bits of fried garlic on top.

Vegetable basil fried rice ($12) was stunning, a delicious entree very different in style from traditional Chinese fried rice. Every grain was separate, yet they clung together, united by an aromatic, umami-laden sauce, redolent of anise-scented Thai basil. The dish was loaded with bits of meaty pressed tofu, crisp stir-fried squares of onion, whole snow peas, broccoli florets, sliced carrot, baby corn, and garlic. All the flavors and textures united in a simple but wonderful dish.

A filling meal for two, with appetizers and entrees but only water to drink, came to $40.28, plus a $10 tip.

Bahn Thai & M
2226 Holiday Manor Center
365-2776
bahnthaim.com
Facebook: bit.ly/BahnThaiNM

Noise level: The room was crowded but the noise was generally bearable. Levels averaged 61.9dB (normal conversation) with peaks to 67.4 dB (requiring a little more effort to be heard).

Accessibility: The restaurant and restrooms appear accessible to wheelchair users except for a few booths.

The post Bahn Thai & M returns Thai flavor to Holiday Manor appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

If you felt a little annoyed about something going wrong during a recent restaurant dining experience and wanted to shout a complaint, you’re not alone. My recent 40-minute wait for a glass of water left me feeling crabby, for sure. Order one thing, get something different. Spotting wildlife on plates, tables, or buffets. And then there was my friend who got a mouthful of twist-tie in her fettuccine alfredo. Or another friend’s Band-aid on a breadstick. Ick. And so it goes.

Indeed, negative online reviews for U.S. businesses jumped by 3 percent between April 2022 and the end of the year, the industry journal Nation’s Restaurant News reported. Restaurants and bars saw the biggest upticks in negative reviews, followed by construction, education and hobbies and crafts.

Data from Trustpilot, a global business review platform based in Denmark with strong presence in the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Europe, revealed a 4% overall decline in positive reviews since April, equating to nearly 40,000 fewer positive reviews than during the same period in 2021.

That’s a lot of whining. Still, there’s a glimmer of good news, according to the publication’s source, Trustpilot’s quarterly Online Review Index: Around the world and in the U.S., there are still far more positive reviews than negative reviews.

Nevertheless, as the world emerges, sort of, from the depths of a global pandemic that’s still not really over, restaurants – like a lot of other businesses – continue struggling with supply chain and worker issues. That translates into diner frustration and a growing impulse to go vent about your annoyance on whatever social media platform suits you.

“Trustpilot cites a drop in service levels, inflation and supply chain issues as drivers of this shift,” Nation’s Restaurant News went on.

“The restaurant industry continues to navigate a bumpy labor market and remains about 400,000 employees short of pre-pandemic numbers. This shortage has pressured operations as consumers have more access points, such as curbside and delivery. Simultaneously, decades-high inflation has forced operators to increase menu prices by over 8% on average, and restaurants have experienced supply chain shortages on everything from lettuce to chicken to Sriracha.”

Do negative reviews matter?

Do negative reviews matter? You bet they do! A recent study from Northwestern University’s Medill Spiegel Research Center found that 94% of consumers say they have avoided a business because of a negative online review. In addition, 22% of consumers say they will not dine at a restaurant after reading just one negative review. On average, a single negative review could cost a business up to 30 customers.

In other words, when an owner or chef grumbles about bad reviews, that’s not just ego talking. It’s potential loss of operating income, and that’s not funny.

I mentioned a few specific, justifiable gripes at the beginning. Let’s take a closer look at a few common restaurant customer gripes.

Lack of cleanliness

Ever sit down to a sticky table or find food on your chair? Pick up a utensil that obviously didn’t get washed? I recently carelessly sat in a pool of pancake syrup at a local breakfast eatery, and didn’t realize my error until I realized that I was stuck to the seat. The server didn’t really express a lot of empathy when I pointed it out, either. A dirty environment is a particularly disgusting lapse, and it’s not just customers who object to it: Metro Louisville Public Health and Wellness doesn’t like it either, and with good reason: Sanitation lapses can spread illness. Metro Health publishes restaurant reviews as a public record. Check it out if you’d like to know before you go.

Waiting out the slows.

I already mentioned our 30-minute wait for drinks and 40-minute wait for food. Delays like this seem to be more commonplace in this time of worker shortages, and when one server is handling a busy room, at least you get it. The frustrating effect, though, is that by the time you finally get your dish it’s been cooked and cooling long enough that your hot lunch has turned into a room-temperature, congealing plate.

Not this one. That one.

Mistakes happen. We’re all human, and we make mistakes. But it can be very frustrating to order one dish and receive another. Do you hold up your group, or sit and watch your companions eat while you wait for a replacement? Or suck it up and accept the dish you didn’t want? That’s probably the default response for most of us, but yes, it’s frustrating. A language barrier may be the issue here, as it was when we got the wrong soup at an Asian restaurant not long ago. It’s hard to be angry with a new immigrant neighbor who’s working hard to learn our language, but still, you’re eating something you didn’t order, and it’s not a happy situation.

This and that

Sometimes diners are just really hard to please. On a national review site – no need to Yelp about which one – a frustrated oenophile complained about a family Italian eatery: “Bottle of red wine served ice-cold!!! We gave the place a try but it’s a one & done for us.” Panning another popular local eatery, an angry customer wrote, “If you want horrible service and to be ignored this is the place to be.” Thanks for the specifics, pal. Finally, unhappy with a poorly prepared dish at another popular spot, an angry customer shouted, “If they can serve such horrible food and not care about trying to correct it, let them go out of business.” Now, that’s a sick burn.

Here’s my advice

What can I tell you? Before you turn to a national or local site or Facebook or Twitter to shout out your rage, please try letting management know about your problem. Do it with kindness, not with anger, and more often than not they’ll make your problem right. If that doesn’t work? Rant on. But try communicating first.

The post Complaints: Who’s got ‘em? Just about everyone appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Not long after the turn of this century, I’m not sure that many of us would have predicted the rise of St. Matthews as one of the city’s most active bar and nightlife zones.

So I guess it shouldn’t surprise us that this suburban village has suddenly become a go-to zone for Asian eateries with estimable bars.

Say what?

Hear me out: Within walking distance of the nightlife zone’s epicenter on Shelbyville Road you’ll find two Vietnamese restaurants (Nam Nam Cafe and District 6 Gastropub), one popular Thai spot (Simply Thai) and a top Indian restaurant (Tikka House). And just a mile out the road sits Oriental House, the 60-plus-year-old OG of local Asian eats.

Five excellent Asian restaurants along a one-mile stretch? I’m not sure that the city’s South End Vietnamese eats zone is much more concentrated than that. Without digging into the statistical details, this development makes me happy.

Back to District 6 Gastropub

I’ll grab a meal at most of these places often, even when I’m not reviewing, so when I realized that I hadn’t returned to District 6 since shortly after its opening in the autumn of 2019, I knew it was time to go back.

We dropped in for lunch on a busy weekday and found the place already crowded and noisy at noon, filled with seemingly happy diners. Its bill of fare, according to the restaurant website, focuses on both traditional and modern dishes that “combine Vietnamese flavors and techniques with local and market-fresh ingredients.”

The bar, a prerequisite for this nightlife zone, offers basic selections of modest wines and beers, basic classic cocktails (all $10), and most interesting, a half-dozen “Vietnamese-inspired” cocktails (all $12). The Vietnam Smash seems typical: It’s a mix of Buffalo Trace bourbon, a Kentucky bourbon barrel beer reduction, Vietnamese honey simple syrup, fresh squeezed lime, and fresh mint.

A lunch special, available until 4 p.m., includes one side and one entrée plus a soft drink or iced tea for $12.75, but flip the menu page and you’ll find many of the same dishes available on the dinner menu. It offers a broad selection, and most of the 14 small plates, 18 vegan or vegetarian dishes, and five curry and noodle bowls are also priced at $12.75, or less for a few smaller dishes. Only the dozen signature dishes rise into fancy-dining price points: They range from $12 (for pan-fried sticky rice with chorizo, pork and shrimp, or Mama T’s spicy bacon, egg and cheese fried rice) to $28 (for steamed whole sea bass in banana leaves).

A long wait for lunch

We chose one lunch special and ordered a couple of other items a la carte. There appeared to be several servers at work in the busy room, but service was still a bit slow; we waited about 40 minutes for our food, which could be problematic for folks on an hourlong lunch break.

Our lunch special was beef pho and a spring roll, both of which I judged good but not great. They were competently prepared, but my socks remain firmly on my feet.

The spring roll was small – I actually didn’t see it at first, hidden behind a romaine leaf. Its pastry wrapper was fried crisp and sizzling hot. It shattered on first bite. The ingredients within – pork, maybe cabbage or green pepper, a bit of carrot – were finely minced together.

The pho almost filled a deep metal bowl, with the traditional Vietnamese side dish of fresh bean sprouts, lime wedge, sliced jalapeño and a few springs of Thai basil. A small plastic tub of something like hoisin sauce came alongside.

A great pho will be built on an intense, deeply flavored beef stock that simmered for many hours. This pho was good, but it was not like that. The broth was clear, with tiny flecks of fat floating on top, but its beef flavor was subtle at best. Plenty of tender rice noodles were mounded in the bowl, topped with about 10 very thin slices of beef, chopped fresh cilantro, and sliced white onion and green onion. Adding basil, sprouts and lime from the condiment dish kicked up the flavor as they melded into the dish.

Vietnamese spicy street corn ($6) from the small plates menu reminded me of Mexican elotes with a Vietnamese accent. I liked it a lot. A good-size cob of sweet corn was rubbed with garlicky aioli and a fiery chile sauce and garnished with crisp fried shallots and fresh cilantro.

An order of pagoda noodles ($12.75) from the vegetarian menu (pictured at the top of the page) was a close cousin to pad Thai. A generous portion of tender, flat rice noodles had been poured over plentiful crisp-tender cauliflower and carrots, a few cubes of fried tofu, and green onions, with scrambled egg bits, chopped peanuts, and cilantro on top.

With Vietnamese hot coffee ($5), strong and sweet with condensed milk melted in, lunch for two totaled $37.57, plus an $8 tip.

District 6 Gastropub
?3930 Shelbyville Road
?873-5561
eatdistrict6.wixsite.com
?facebook.com/EatDistrict6
instagram.com/EatDistrict6

Noise level: The sound level ebbed and flowed during a crowded lunch hour, occasionally hampering conversation during noise peaks. Sound levels varied from a noisy but doable 75.1 dB to a near-annoying 83.6 dB.

Accessibility: Except for tall stools along the bar, the restaurant appears to be accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Tasty Vietnamese fare and cool cocktails elevate District 6 appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

When The New York Times recently listed its 50 favorite restaurants around the nation for 2022, I was a little sad to notice that they didn’t even give Louisville a mention. Our neighbors in Nashville got two top-table mentions, but we were left with our hands empty, standing by the road in the gathering darkness, softly sniffling.

But the lack of big-city appreciation does not signify that there’s nothing good here. Our restaurants may not have impressed The New York Times, but quite a few specific dishes from places I’ve reviewed this year sure impressed me. Let’s do a quick review. If you like the sound of these delights, you may still be able to get most of them, either currently or when they come back into seasonal rotation.

First, though, what exactly does it take for a dish to impress me? This question may sit at the center of the food critic’s work. Obviously a four-star dish has to taste good. It should smell good. It should look good. It should feel good, not so much on our fingers as on our palates. That covers all the senses except hearing, and I could make a pretty good case for the auditory joys of sizzling fajitas or squeaky cheese curds.

What’s more, a top dish will show off the chef’s originality and creative skills, with extra credit for an offbeat ingredient or even a vegetarian dish so good that an obligate carnivore wouldn’t even miss the animal flesh.

Do I often encounter a dish that checks off all these boxes? Naah. But hit even a few of them and you’ve got my attention. Here, listed alphabetically because I enjoyed them all too much to rank them, are a few comments on eight dishes that wowed me this past year.

Mushroom risotto at Barn 8 ($27)
I’m a risotto nerd with high standards – I’d usually rather make my own – and I’m skeptical of restaurants that offer a dish that requires either a half-hour of nearly constant attention or else some shot-cutting. But Barn 8’s rendition hit the spot. It was rich, comforting and delicious, and a generous portion of crisply sauteed Frondosa Farm wild mushrooms, thinly shaved Parmigiano, and anise-scented Mexican mint marigold put it over the top.
–Barn 8 Restaurant, 10500 W. US Highway 42, Goshen, Ky., 398-9289

Jaeger schnitzel at Common Haus Hall ($16.50)
Common Haus makes this classic dish of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland right, using pork and your choice among six sauces. A huge Jaeger (“hunter”) schnitzel was pounded out 1/3-inch thin, so it spread out three times as large as its brötchen (small bread) bun. A sweet-sour flavor in the breading and a pool of rich, brown Jaeger sauce made it a winner.
–Common Haus Hall, 134 Spring St., Jeffersonville, Ind., (812) 590-1243

Smoked wings at Eden & Kissi ($12.99)
These huge, deeply charred wings were memorable. The smoky option offered a blast of char and smoke as you bite through the crisp skin to reveal perfectly cooked meat, tender and juicy. They’re pictured at the top of this page.
–Eden & Kissi, 3914 Bardstown Road, 384-9102

Creamy coconut daal curry at Hyderabad House ($13)
Dal is a familiar Indian dish, a soupy bowl of curried lentils. The creamy coconut daal curry at Hyderabad House is something special. Yellow lentils were bathed in a simmering bright-yellow curry-scented soup studded with a few bright cubes of tomato. The mild lentil flavor blended with coconut and turmeric scents with haunting back notes of mysterious, delicious Indian flavors.
–Hyderabad House Louisville, 12412 Shelbyville Road, 405-8788

Cold cucumber salad at Jasmine Chinese Cuisine ($6.99)
You might not expect a cold cucumber salad to make my list of top dishes, but Jasmine’s version is complex and striking, with vibrant flavors so compelling that I tried to replicate it later at home. Fresh cucumbers were seeded and sliced into long half-moons, then artfully assembled into a neat mound topped with a pile of lemongrass rounds, snipped green onions, and shreds of ginger, then drizzled with a soy sauce and chile oil dressing. The tangy-salty-spicy flavor combination was remarkably subtle and complex.
–Jasmine Chinese Cuisine, 13825 English Villa Drive, 244-8896

Roasted duck with steamed rice at Oriental House ($11)
This simple but memorable dish (No. 53 on the authentic menu) is a longtime favorite at the St. Matthews landmark, and one of the best meal bargains around. A sizable duck thigh quarter was coated with hoisin sauce and anise-scented five-spice and roasted dark mahogany, then chopped crosswise into chunks. They were served with a bit of lettuce that had been quickly softened in duck broth, with a generous scoop of medium-grain white rice. The skin was roasted and firm, not crackling crisp, covering a thick layer of juicy fat over succulent, tender dark duck meat.
–Oriental House, 4302 Shelbyville Road, 897-1017

Gnocchi parisienne at Pizza Lupo ($20)
A seasonal special for fall, these tender, cream-coated rounds were dead ringers for perfect bay scallops. These gnocchi were simple and pure, not made with the traditional potato-flour mix but pâte à choux, the feather-light dough that’s used for cream puffs and éclairs. They were so light that they could easily have lofted up to the clouds, but their rich and aromatic taleggio cheese sauce kept them safely tethered to Mother Earth. Crunchy pepitas and crisply fried sage leaves made grace notes in a subtle, creamy, and filling dish that made me want to jump up and cheer.
–Pizza Lupo, 1540 Frankfort Ave., 409-8440

Kibbeh at Simply Mediterranean ($6.99)
The chefs at this tiny spot get kibbeh right, and a lot of other Lebanese dishes too. Two pieces were filled with deeply browned chopped beef, pine nuts and tiny bits of onion, surrounded by a thick shell of bulgur and fried. It was crunchy and tasty and made us want more. That’s what a top restaurant dish ought to do.
–Simply Mediterranean, 2900 Brownsboro Road, 963-5577

The post Another year, lots more great dishes appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

“I recently had the pleasure of dining at North of Bourbon, a New Orleans-style restaurant in Louisville. From the moment I walked in, I was transported to the vibrant, colorful world of the Big Easy.

“The atmosphere at North of Bourbon is lively and energetic, with good music, colorful Christmas decorations, and the smell of good food and spices in the air. The menu is filled with classic New Orleans dishes as well as more unusual offerings. The portions are generous, and the flavors are bold and spicy.

“But the real star of the show is the bourbon.”

Okay, hold it right there. I have to confess: I loved North of Bourbon, but those aren’t my words. I asked the new artificial-intelligence ChatGPT to write me a review in the style of Anthony Bourdain. He/she/it/they complied as a good robot should, without complaint.

This is kind of scary. Since I have no interest in an AI bot putting me out of work, it stops right here. All the rest of today’s words are mine. But I can’t deny this reality: ChatGPT got the basics right.

North of Bourbon, which opened New Year’s Eve in the heavily renovated Goss Avenue quarters that formerly housed Mr. Lee’s Lounge, is one of the city’s most popular tables now.

Bourbon, Louisville, and New Orleans

Pledging to blend “Bourbon, Louisville, and New Orleans into a unique  Southern experience,” North of Bourbon’s menu is inspired by the Louisiana and Mississippi roots of Chef Lawrence Weeks and the restaurant’s owners, leavened with other Southern classics that focus on the connections between Louisville and New Orleans.

If you go during the next week or two, you’ll find that Louisville-Cajun-Creole flavor further tempered by a substantial blast of … Christmas! It’s ho-ho-ho all the time during the season, with a flotilla of holiday lights hanging overhead, Christmas tchotchkes on the walls and tables, Christmas rock on the sound system, and even a gigantic blow-up Santa straddling the front door.

More permanent fixtures include four booths enclosed in gigantic bourbon barrels, and a bar that runs the length of the long, narrow room, framed by backlighted shelves showing off the restaurant’s 300-plus bourbon and rye selections.

Chef Weeks’ dinner menu offers a thoughtful selection of just 15 items, all clustered into a single list that includes appetizer-type plates, salads, and dishes more suited as entrees. Baked oysters are $4 apiece (or you can shell out $55 for a dozen with “champagne,” actually four 8-ounce pony bottles of Miller High Life). Most of the larger plates are priced in the $20s and $30s, with a full-pound 3D Valley Farm Indiana pork chop with horseradish creamed leeks, roasted turnips, spiced cane syrup glaze and puffed sorghum.

There are also lunch, happy hour, and Sunday brunch menus, plus extensive cocktail options and your choice among those 300 bourbons in 1-ounce or 2-ounce tastes.

‘Tis the season

Speaking of booze, during the Christmas season the restaurant’s usual craft cocktail list has given way to “Sippin Santa,” a Tiki-Christmas mashup. Oddly, and somewhat to my disappointment, only one of the holiday cocktails included bourbon, in a mix that didn’t appeal to me. I consoled myself with a Demarara rum-based “Sippin’ Santa” ($13), a Christmasy blend of rum, amaro, lemon, orange, and … gingerbread mix, served in a funny mug depicting Santa in surf attire.

We also enjoyed a 1-ounce taste of Knob Creek Rye ($6).

As we waited for our food and nibbled complimentary cups of spicy boiled peanuts, we became aware that our seating was, frankly, uncomfortable. Sit on a hard, bumpy, low bench with no back for two hours and see how that makes you feel! To the restaurant’s credit, though, only the two tables by the front windows appear problematic. Avoid them if you can.

But that was our only complaint. Once the food started coming, we weren’t even thinking about the seats.

Delta wet salad ($10), a classic from the Mississippi Delta country, was startlingly good. Little Gem lettuce, a tender variety of romaine, was generously drenched with a tart red-wine vinaigrette. Smoked tomatoes deliciously infused a smoky flavor, with crunchy cucumber dice for texture contrast.

Peppered catfish nuggets ($17), pictured at the top of the page, hit the spot too. Eight dark golden-brown, cornmeal-crusted strips were mounded on the plate, drizzled with hot-sweet tiger sauce, and sprinkled generously with thin rounds of green onion. A dollop of spicy mustard aioli puddled alongside.

Rouxed peas ($14), a vegetarian entree, was a beautiful presentation. Al dente green peas were cooked in a spicy black roux and topped with paper-thin rounds of shaved turnip, tiny, crispy mini-onion rings, and spicy orange pools of red-pepper cream.

A really excellent dinner for two, with two drinks, came to $63.60 plus a $15 tip.

North of Bourbon
935 Goss Ave.
749-3305
northofbourbon.com
facebook.com/NorthofBourbon
instagram.com/northofbourbonky

Noise Level: This popular place can get noisy enough to make conversation challenging when it’s full of happy diners and the sound of background music like Lindsey Stirling’s Snow Waltz. Decibel levels hit an average of 74.4dB with peaks to 80.6dB, approaching the level of a nearby large truck.

Accessibility: The entrance and dining room are wheelchair accessible, although wheelchair users may want to ask for a table near the front entrance; the large barrel-shape booths appear impractical for those with limited mobility.

The post You don’t need artificial intelligence to love North of Bourbon appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Here’s a funny thing about Louisville and all of us who love our city’s vibrant restaurant scene: We love things the way they are … and we complain about all the ways it could be better.

“We need a Greek restaurant,” we yell. “And a French sidewalk cafe! And where is our real Jewish-style deli!?”

The chant goes on, and to be honest, there’s probably more justification for our wailing than ever. As we go into the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the losses to our scene have been brutal.

Sure, it’s not all blackness and the slough of despond. Some great new places have popped up to counter all the losses attributable in full or in part to the pandemic. But still, for example, how will Nulu ever be the same without Harvest, Rye or Decca?

As we near the end of 2022, the pandemic is far from over. At the beginning of this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that 300 to 400 Americans continue dying from Covid every day, and fewer than 15% of us have received the latest vaccine booster. That’s a recipe for more trauma, in our lives and, specifically, on the restaurant scene. And it makes our long-time penchant for complaining about what we’re missing a little more real.

Hoping to take the civic temperature, and maybe get some good ideas, I polled the masses on my social media channels. My question was simple: “What’s your holiday wish for local dining? What would we like Santa to bring the local restaurant scene?”

Did I get responses? You bet I did! More than 150 responses, in fact. Some were favorites, repeated often: We really want that Jewish deli. A few were outliers, mentioned only once and, sadly, not likely to happen. I’m looking at you, Facebook friend who wishes we could get an eatery representing the Republic of Georgia.

Deli belly

Let’s take a look at some of the recurring themes. We might as well start with that Jewish-style deli. More people mentioned this than any other single desire, but I don’t really get it myself. Maybe I got deli’d out after living in New York City twice, but I don’t get the affection. Oh, it’s all right for a change of pace, but after getting to know Gotham icons like Katz’s and Sarge’s and Second Avenue Deli (don’t talk to me about Carnegie Deli, it’s for tourists), I’ve been there and done that. I can get a great pastrami on rye at Louisville-accented delis like Stevens & Stevens or Morris Deli is fine by me.

Greek Mythology

There’s a lot of hunger for serious Greek cuisine in this town, and people in the know aren’t just talking about gyros and some approximation of baklava. We’re looking for a serious Greek taverna with a range of traditional dishes ranging from souvlaki (grilled lamb) to avgolemono soup to saganaki (yes, the notorious flaming cheese, opa!), with a tumbler of pine-scented retsina wine to wash it down. As a practical matter, though, Greek cuisine has never been able to gain traction in Louisville. Perhaps Greek immigrant Nick Mastoras had the right idea when he named his multigenerational family business Masterson’s and focused the business on familiar American fare.

Upscale world food

One food-loving friend who enjoys dining well called for more upscale world food, along the lines of the excellent Italian fare we have at Volare and Anoosh Shariat’s international touch at Anoosh Bistro: “Fine dining in pretty much any cuisine that we don’t currently have locally: Japanese, Thai, Indian, Russian, Turkish, German.” That makes sense to me. The recent closing of Gasthaus took away our solitary sit-down, fine-dining German experience, although we mustn’t overlook Common Haus in Jeffersonville for its casual German-style fare and impressive German beers and other good things to eat and drink.

Rollin’ on the river

One friend made a very strong point: With a few good exceptions upriver toward Harrods Creek and Prospect (all right, Captain’s Quarters and the Pine Room) Louisville’s waterfront development may look like a great park, playground, and concert venue, but we’re falling way behind Jeffersonville across the Ohio in downtown waterfront restaurants. “We must have a restaurant on the waterfront downtown,” they said. “Within walking distance of the hotels, a la Captain’s Quarters or a docked barge.” Yep, I can’t quibble with this. Jeff has a ton of bars and eateries along its downtown riverfront. We’ve got … Joe’s Crab Shack?

Meat and this, and this, and this

There’s a lot of sentiment for “meat and three” restaurants. That concept isn’t widespread here by that name, although in my opinion this Nashville tradition – soul food eateries where one chooses a meat course and then picks three sides (plus cornbread and sweet tea) – is already widespread in practice if not in name. The pandemic hasn’t been kind to West End sit-down restaurants, but just about any local soul-food spot will give you a similar experience of tasty soul food and sides. Or stay downtown and visit Dasha Barbour’s at 217 E. Main St. for a sample.

Random random random

The ideas just kept on coming, all sounding delicious although some perhaps more practical than others: More farm-to-table dining. A restaurant with First Nations cuisine and Inigenous cuisine like Minneapolis’ Sioux Chef. Some seafood-boil spots distinct from the wave of Asian crab boils. Turkish döner kebab! In-and-Out Burger! The list goes on, and you’ve probably got your own ideas. Tell us about them on the HotBytes forum or on our Facebook Page!

The post Listen up, Santa! Put this on your restaurant list! appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Within less than a mile of each other on Poplar Level Road, two splendid new bakeries beckon the hungry pilgrim. Neither is a traditional Louisville bakery with its echoes of 19th century German immigrants, and that’s all right.

One – Maya Bagel Express – is turning out the best Louisville-made bagels I’ve tasted yet. The other – Smør Nordic Bakeri – offers a warm sense of Scandinavian hygge to surround its Nordic treats. We found our way to both on the same day last week, and I came home with a happy carbohydrate buzz that lasted for hours.

If you go – and I recommend that you do – both places are open only for breakfast and lunch; Maya opens every day while Smør serves every day but Sunday and Monday.

Maya Bagel Express

Located in a small shopping center adjacent to Norton Audubon Hospital, Maya Bagel Express is local and independent. It looks a lot like a corporate operation, though, in its slick and colorful logos and attractive lighted menu on the wall. I wouldn’t be surprised if owner and founder Murad Islamov, who came here from New Hampshire to bring us serious bagels, has expansion in mind.

Fine with me. If he opened a branch a little closer to my home, I’d be in there daily. Louisville has struggled to emulate real, quality, New York City-style bagels, and in my opinion Maya is first to fully crack the code. Fresh-baked, they show off the dark, shiny-glazed and blistered, crackly crust and gently chewy, faintly tangy interior that marks the real thing.

The menu is essentially all bagels, all of the time, plus coffee, but there’s plenty of choice in the bagel department: Eight breakfast bagel sandwiches and seven combos for lunch. Most cost $9, with a few departures from that norm for fancy ingredients like nova lox ($12). Bagels ($2) come in a dozen flavors including just about all of the NYC bagel-shop favorites.

We went with tradition and enjoyed a nova lox bagel sandwich ($12) and cream cheese on an onion bagel ($4.50).

The lox bagel, pictured at the top of the page, came loaded with goodies. Both halves of the bagel were prepared with a schmear of plain cream cheese studded with mild red onion and capers, then sandwiched with two thick slices of very fresh lox and a couple of tomato slices. We chose a tasty everything bagel and it came fresh from the oven.

The bagel with cream cheese ($4.50) was excellent. A fine onion bagel was generously spread with soft, spreadable cheese, and that simple approach was plenty to make me happy. A poppy-seed bagel ($2) to take home for later was just as good,heated in the toaster oven the next morning and simply spread with butter. (Pro tip: Fresh bagels don’t benefit from toasting, but it’s a great way to bring life back into day-old items.)

Peet’s coffee ($3.10) lived up to its reputation: Strong and fresh, slightly tangy and no more bitter than good black coffee should be.

Maya Bagel Express
3029 Poplar Level Road
883- 2333
mayabagelexpress.com
facebook.com/MayaBagelExpress

Noise Level: This is primarily a take-out shop and wasn’t noticeably noisy. No decibel reading taken.

Accessibility: The modern shopping center space appears to be accessible to wheelchair users, but bagel pickup is through a small window about five feet above floor level.

Smør Nordic Bakeri

Hygge, a Danish word that’s become a thing in English, is defined as a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being. Danes do it. We should, too. Smør Nordic Bakeri offers a good place to start.

Smør (the word is Swedish for “butter”) moved just last month from small quarters next door to its sibling eatery, Oskar’s Slider Bar, into a large room upstairs with access around the corner on the Trevilian Way side.

From its open spaces and gentle pastel colors to a grouping of comfortable armchairs and coffee tables around a picture window, to, of course, its display of Scandinavian-style pastries and dark Nordic rye and wheat loaves. Smør breathes hygge and feels relaxing.

Selections vary from day to day, but generally include a good selection of 15 Scandinavian pastries. Quite a few of them are knots, a Swedish pastry made from thin strands of dough rolled together and twisted into a knot-like bun that bakes with a light and tender crumb.

A hazel-knot ($4) pastry was scented with cardamom, a spicy character that’s hard to describe but easy to recognize if you think of it as “the way danish pastries smell.” This delicious item was fresh from the oven, soft and tender, layered with chopped hazelnuts and little pockets of dark chocolate, finished on top with a hazelnut-sugar streusel. Washed with egg and baked, it comes out a beautiful dark golden-brown.

Kringla ($3) is a soft and tender almond-scented pastry formed in an S shape. Remarkably light and airy, it almost seems to disappear in your mouth, leaving behind a distinct almond scent.

Smør Nordic Bakeri
1001 Trevilian Way
208-9517
smornordicbakeri.com
facebook.com/smorbakeri

Noise Level: Very quiet, with limited seating, this too is a quiet establishment. No decibel reading.

Accessibility: It appears to be accessible to wheelchair users throughout.

The post Please, sir, may I have Smør? And a Maya Bagel too? appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

We dived into Louisville Pizza Week with abandon and enjoyed more than a dozen tasty pies at local pizzerias. Then it was Thanksgiving, and we loaded up on turkey and all the traditional trimmings. So how are you feeling right now, Bubba?

What’s more, the holidays, that lazy, hazy time of good things to eat in joyous excess, are full upon us for the next few weeks.

So here’s the question: Is it even possible to eat well, dine out often – including plenty of pizza – and maintain our health and reasonable weight?

Well, maybe. Let’s talk about that today. And let’s start with pizza.

During Pizza Week more than two dozen restaurants in Louisville tempted us beyond endurance with select pizzas for $9 each, such a deal. Sorry, you missed the Nov. 14-20 event sponsored by LEO Weekly, but watch for it next November.

And, of course, enjoy pizza any time. Is it good for you, though? Well, maybe.

In a quirky Instagram post during the event, the sponsors pointed out: “HEY NOW don’t feel too bad about all the pizza you’re consuming this week. …The average slice of pizza is 25% protein after all!”

Fair enough. And then came the quirky meme, framed as a text exchange:

Okay, maybe you had to be there. The exchange reminded me, though, of a cover story about nutrition that I did for the old Louisville Times Saturday Scene magazine years ago. With a little pointed questioning I was able to get a U of L faculty medical expert to admit, a bit grudgingly, that a slice or two of pizza could be nutritionally sound.

Not too much of it, the expert warned. And watch those fatty toppings. Peppers or mushrooms, sure. Pepperoni rounds oozing with delicious grease, not so much.

But who sweats the details? Pizza tastes good!

The USA eats a lot of pizza

Pizza is popular, not that that says much about its dietary benefits. About 1 in 8 Americans consumed pizza on any given day, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Surveys Research Group reported in a 2012. That included more than 1 in 4 males in the 6- 19-year-old bracket, a figure that may surprise some because it seems low.

The British Broadcasting Company, apparently amused by those wacky Americans, based a story on the USDA report.

“In any given day,” the Beeb intoned, “more than 40 million Americans will eat pizza. It is considered the most popular meal in the world, and definitely one of the favourites in the US.

“The love for this food is such that the Department of Agriculture recently released a report on the levels of consumption. It described the meal as ‘a contributor of nutrients of public significance in the American diet, including total fat, calcium and sodium.”

“However,” the BBC asked rhetorically, foreshadowing our question: “just because it’s popular, does that mean it’s bad for you? Experts would argue that pizza as such is not bad for your health – the problem is when and how you eat it.”

Ruben Bravo, with the European Medical Institute of Obesity, was not amused. “This tells us about the diet in the US,” he huffed, “and that this could well be one of the reasons why this country has the highest numbers of obesity cases.”

Giuseppe Russolillo, president of the Spanish Association of Nutritionists, agreed with Bravo, adding his opinion that should be limited to a treat maybe two or three times a month.

“And it shouldn’t be part of the daily diet, even less for children,” he adds, “Because it is during that period of growing development that you have to provide a varied and healthy diet with lots of vegetables and fruit.”

Bravo, however, unwittingly made a point that is critical to us: He assumed – probably with considerable justification – that most of the American consumption involves “a pizza factory product, high in carbohydrates and saturated fat.”

Yes, healthy pizza is possible

Yes, you can make healthy pizza at home, he said. And we would add that local, artisanal pizzerias can make healthy pizza for sale. As my source at U of L pointed out all those years ago, make good choices – thin crust, reasonable amounts of cheese, healthy yet tasty toppings – and you can enjoy a healthy pizza without too much fear of health catastrophes or breaking your scale when you step onto that infernal device in the morning.

I’ve been there and done that. My weight and waist size have varied quite a bit over my years as, among other things, a food-and-drink writer. I like to think I’ve got my body-mass index under control now, mostly, thanks to a combination of portion control and exercise, but it’s not an easy task, whether we’re looking at pizza in particular or restaurant food in general.

So yes, it is possible to dine out regularly and keep your weight and health under control, but it may not be easy. In an article earlier this year headlined “16 Healthy Eating-Out Options That Are NOT Salad,” Cosmopolitan magazine told eager readers, “You deserve better than iceberg lettuce.”

But Cosmo’s recommended dishes at national fast-food chains fail to inspire. A short stack and a veggie omelet at IHOP? Zoodles in favor of noodles at, um, Olive Garden? Or an egg-white delight muffin at Mickey D’s!? Hard pass. I

Watch your weight. Exercise reasonably. And enjoy a meal now and then at your favorite local places. I’d much rather enjoy huevos rancheros at Con Huevos than gag down that egg white muffin, but maybe that’s just me. How about you?

The post Can pizza be (gasp) bad for us? Yes and no. appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Last summer, 110 years after Hauck’s Handy Store opened as a neighborhood grocery on a Schnitzelburg street corner – and three years after it closed following the death at 100 of owner and patriarch George Hauck – this local landmark returned as a restaurant and bar.

In 1912 you could buy a baloney sandwich on white bread at Hauck’s and get change from a dime. Today, a century and $1 million in renovations later, you can still get something like that, but they spell it “bologna” now, and it will cost you $14.95 for a thick-cut, smoked slice perched on a brioche bun with stone-ground mustard, pimento cheese, pickles, and an over-easy egg.

Hauck’s Handy Store may be best known to the wider community for its annual dainty contest in July, a game rooted in Schnitzelburg in which mostly older guys compete at batting a small stick with a larger stick. Hauck’s Corner had its soft opening in July in order to host the dainty fun.

There was nothing particularly dainty about our food, though, and I say that in a good way. The fare at Hauck’s Corner mirrors the tradition of a Schnitzelburg corner grocery, but gently melds it with the more gentrified vibe that lights up the 21st century neighborhood.

What’s more, the restaurant’s kitchen is actually a food truck backed into the patio with a single chef working within (at least at lunchtime), so expect hearty and casual fare but not elevated cuisine.

The bones of the old two-story house and store remain very much in view, including that landmark red sign that towers over the street corner. New structure surrounds the Texas Avenue side of the building, making space for additional dining rooms within.

There’s a large patio at the back, now partially enclosed and heated for winter. The old building has been made wheelchair-accessible thanks to attractively sloped sidewalks connecting several entrances. (Take care, though, when you step from the dining area into the patio to pick up your meal at the food-truck window: There’s a long step down, and no sign on the door to warn you.)

The menu starts with a dozen shareable appetizers, ranging in price from $2.50 (for a deviled egg) to $14.95 (for Hauck’s nachos). Seven sandwiches are priced from $10.95 (for a bratwurst with grilled onions and sauerkraut) to $14.95 (for most of the items, including that not-so-traditional bologna). A couple of salads, a host of wings and chicken tender dishes, and a four-item taco bar round out the bill of fare, which also includes three dishes for the youngsters, a selection of 17 extra sauces ($1 each), and a single dessert option, Oreo churros ($8).

The full bar offers a range of libations, as one would expect of a Schnitzelburg watering hole. In homage to the community’s Germanic roots, there’s a good range of craft beer selections, from Weihenstephaner Dunkelweiss and Reisdorf Kölsch (both $7) to Hauck’s American Pislner ($6), made by neighboring Monnik Beer Co.

We ate our fill and then some.

Hauck’s chili ($6.95) was a thick bean and ground-beef mix that was fiery in both temperature and spicy heat. It seemed complex and smoky in flavor, but its five-alarm heat made it difficult to be certain. It contained at least three kinds of beans along with chunks of burger meat, canned tomatoes, and chopped onions. Shredded yellow cheese and pickled jalape?os came alongside.

Deviled eggs ($2.50 each) are basic but tasty, and may be improved to your liking with pickled red onion, mustard seed, chili crunch, or bacon jam as garnish. My choice, Chinese spicy chili crisp, elevated the simple eggs to a new level.

Who ever heard of a taco built with soyrizo vegan chorizo and potatoes ($11.95)? Not me! I had to try this strange fusion, though, and I wasn’t sorry. The chewy crinkle-cut fries were a bit odd, but the fiery crumbled meatless chorizo was excellent, and garnishes of avocado cream, chipotle aioli, and pickled red onions kicked it up another notch. Two tacos were wrapped in doubled corn tortillas that had been fried to a crisp, chewy texture.

A smash burger ($13.95), pictured at the top of the page, turned out to be something like breakfast and lunch in one. Two Angus beef burgers, each thin, very crisply fried and irregular in shape – you get that when you smash a burger – were cooked well-done, placed on a large grilled brioche bun and stacked with two large, thin strips of hickory-scented bacon, a square of yellow American cheese, a dab of innouous Hauck’s sauce, and a medium-hard fried egg.

Crinkle fries on the side were sadly lackluster, apparently straight from the vendor’s bag and served, chewy, at room temperature. Optional sides of sweet potato fries or coleslaw might have been a better choice.

Lunch for two, with appetizers and entrees, came to $40.12 plus a $10 tip.

Hauck’s Corner
1000 Goss Ave.
384-9374
hauckscorner.com
facebook.com/hauckscorner
instagram.com/hauckscorner

Noise Level: We had no difficulty chatting even with a large party nearby and ’80s tunes on the sound system. Average sound level was around 65dB, the range of normal conversation.

Accessibility: They’ve done a good job of arranging alternative routes for wheelchair users to avoid steps and bumps. Watch out, though, for that high step down from the dining room into the patio.

The post Hauck’s Corner returns, dainty and all appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I was expecting good cheap eats. I was delighted to find something more: A delicious old favorite that tickled my taste buds with memories of times past: Quang’s traditional yellow noodles ($11.50).

Why the nostalgia? This Vietnamese-flavor dish can stand on its own as a meal-in-a-bowl worth celebrating. Served in a large metal bowl, it assembles a wealth of appealing colors and tempting flavors. At the bottom it gently rests on a bed of crisp fresh lettuce – you could even call it a salad, but that would be seriously misleading. “Noodle bowl” might be a better description, as the next layer is a pile of golden-yellow, turmeric-scented Southeast Asian rice noodles similar to rice noodles.

But wait, as the saying goes. There’s more! Crisp, chewy pressed and fried tofu – Heart & Soy makes its own in a shiny machine on the premises – crunchy squares of rice cracker, shredded carrots and bean sprouts, plenty of chopped peanuts (which can be left off on request), and a tub of soy-scented, umami-rich Vietnamese sauce to be used as dressing. Stir it all together, dig in, and you won’t be sorry. (This dish is pictured at the top of the page.)

But here’s the thing: Not only is this a tasty treat if you’re just now discovering it. But come back to it as an old favorite and it will warm your heart as it does mine. This dish, you see, has been a favorite at Heart and Soy – and at its predecessor, Zen Garden on Frankfort Avenue – since Zen Garden opened around the turn of the turn of the millennium.

The joy of rediscovering an old favorite

There’s something especially heart-warming, and tummy-warming too, about a dish that you’ve enjoyed many times over the years and still smile when it turns up on your plate.

Quang’s traditional yellow noodles is one of those dishes and we celebrate it today. Let’s talk about a few more old favorites that have stood the test of time.

One such specialty, although to be honest I haven’t enjoyed it for many years, is the decadent dessert item mocha dacquoise, which was a favorite at 610 Magnolia back in the 1980s and has since turned up at other local high-end eateries including Cafe Metro (R.I.P.) and Buck’s Restaurant & Bar in Old Louisville, where it’s still on the menu at $12.

Created originally by Gerard Hampton, who started as a busser and dishwasher at 610 but rose to pastry chef thanks to his skills and later took it with him to other local dining rooms, mocha dacquoise has become a Louisville standard. The description on Buck’s menu gives us the basics, but only a taste will properly introduce it. “Mocha butter cream and Chantilly rum crème layered between baked almond meringue, dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with chocolate.” Yum!

No survey of this type would be complete without a song of praise for the menu item codes as K8 (or its vegetarian sibling, VK8) at Vietnam Kitchen. One of the restaurant’s spicier dishes (although you can request the heat level you like), it falls in the “stir-fried noodles” menu category, but its comforting soft, white, spaghetti-like rice noodles are just the beginning. They’re joined with a contrasting portion of crisp bean sprouts to offer a crunchy contrast. The noodles and sprouts are bathed in thick, savory-spicy brown saté sauce scented with lemongrass and topped with broccoli florets and chopped peanuts. The $14.95 dish is finished with your choice of bite-size bits of beef, chicken, or pork, or tender cubes of tofu.

Mmm, fried cod on rye

Louisville loves its fried cod sandwiches, and you don’t have to wait for Lent to enjoy them. Dozens of shops around town offer this favorite, and you’ve probably got your own go-to spot. We’re going to miss the memorable sandwich at Sal’s Pizza Pub when it closes next month, and the pandemic and supply chain issues have been rough on Moby Dick, which has seen a few of the local chain’s properties close and others falter recently in quality and service. But plenty of excellent options remain, and in my view it’s hard to beat The Fishery, where on my last visit the 10 ounce fried Icelandic cod platter brought three hulking fillets, white, flaky, and mild, perfectly fried with cornmeal breading.

Meanwhile, Louisville may remain short on traditional, old-school New York City-style delis, but for quite a few years we’ve had the pleasure of Stevens & Stevens, which I like to describe as a New York-style deli with a distinct Louisville accent. Its extensive menu features more than 60 deli sandwiches, many of them named after New York and Hollywood celebs. You can certainly get your Gotham on with corned beef, pastrami, or go the fusion route with novelties like the New York-Vietnam fusion pastrami banh mi! I’m a fan of the Woody Allen, a classic smoky, peppery beef pastrami sandwich piled high on rye. It was estimable pastrami, good enough to take my memory back to the Lower East Side or maybe Queens, and good enough to go back and enjoy time and again. Which has kind of been the point of today’s journey.

The post We sample some old favorites that never go wrong appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I did a quick double-take when I heard that Pizza Lupo had won “Best Pizza” honors in LEO Weekly’s Reader’s Choice awards.

Not that it isn’t worthy. Lupo’s wood-fired, leopard-spotted pies with their quality toppings are a go-to for me whenever I have pizza in mind. After all, “Pizza” is the restaurant’s first name.

What’s more, one of the first things you see when you enter the charming dining room of this renovated 160-year-old red-brick Butchertown building is a towering stack of takeout pizza boxes.

But in contrast with many of the region’s other top pizza spots, Lupo offers much more. It’s a top-tier pizzeria. And it’s a splendid Italian/international eatery with an impressive kitchen and, by the way, an exceptional bar. It’s a winning combination, and it makes Lupo one of my favorite restaurants. 

I didn’t even go with pizza in mind the other day. Nope. Lupo’s Facebook Page nabbed me with its post, “Colder weather brings richer dishes back to Lupo. Gnocchi parisienne in taleggio cream with sage from our garden and roasted pepitas.”

Can you say “yum,” boys and girls? I thought you could. So we came for the gnocchi, but of course we got pizza, too: Not just any random pizza but a beautiful Neapolitan-style pie loaded with local mushrooms and fine Italian cheeses.

Lupo’s menu doesn’t go on for pages. It’s a simple sheet with food on one side and an impressive selection of reasonably priced artisanal beverages on the other. Rest assured, two pages allow plenty of room for a selection of excellent choices.

On the food side, the first column offers eight wood-fired sourdough pizza options. These 16-inch pies range in price from $21 (for a classic margherita or vegan marina made with soleggiati sun-dried and milled organic tomatoes) to $26 (for a cheese-stuffed pizza fiore, available only Mondays through Thursdays). Add cheese, meat, or veggie toppings from an extensive list for $1 to $6 each.

Column Two, “From the Kitchen,” adds a choice of ten items including entrees, small plates, and a single artisanal gelato dessert ($7), ranging in price from $6 (for a plate of Castelvetrano olives with house-made fennel pollen togarashi spice) to $20 (for a seasonal gnocchi dish or spaghetti and meatballs made with 3D Valley Farm beef).

The gnocchi parisienne ($20) came out in an attractive, high-sided blue-gray dish, and for a minute there I thought they’d made a mistake and brought us scallops instead. Fourteen inch-wide rounds, thick and flattened and browned on top, were dead ringers for perfect bay scallops right off the day boat.

They were the real thing, though, like little silken no-meat scallops. Gnocchi parisienne are made not from the traditional potato-flour mix but from pâte à choux, the feather-light dough that’s used for cream puffs and éclairs, most likely poached, then seared. They were so light that they could easily have lofted up to the clouds, but their rich and aromatic cheese sauce kept them safely tethered to Mother Earth. 

The gnocchi and earthy Northern Italian taleggio cheese sauce worked together with crunchy pepitas and crisply fried sage leaves to yield a dish that was subtle, creamy, and filling. You really could not pick out one single dominant flavor from an orchestral chorus that made me want to jump up and cheer.

And then we got into the pizza, which demanded a second ovation. Normally I’m a pizza traditionalist and prefer pizzas built with the customary tomato sauce and cheese. Indeed, the last time I reviewed Pizza Lupo, not long after its 2017 opening, I went straight for the classic margherita and rated it “toward the top of Louisville’s pizza derby.”

This time, though, the lure of roasted locally grown mushrooms from Frondosa Farms in Simpsonville drew me in, along with an imposing four-cheese mix of that creamy, funky taleggio plus mozzarella, buttermilk ricotta, and Parmigiano-Reggiano

A resounding success, it was one of the best pizzas I’ve met recently. The crust didn’t offer me a distinct sourdough flavor, although you can find hints of sour scent if you pay attention. You’re given ample puffy edges that open to reveal a pure white interior with large bubbles that suggest a wet, well-cured dough. Pale-tan on the exterior, its traditional dark-char “leopard spots” reveal the work of the wood-fired oven.

The mushrooms – oyster mushrooms, I believe – were earthy, in a good way, and sang the melody line of this culinary chorus. The combination of cheeses worked nicely, too, making a thick and much more fascinating topping than just-plain mozzarella. Tiny amber puddles of olive oil and a few crinkly crisp basil leaves added subtle complexity.

With a generous pour of Esencia Rural Pampaneo Arién, a natural “orange” wine from Spain ($10 for a glass, $38 for a bottle), a lovely dinner for two came to $58.30, plus a 25 percent tip. Pizza Lupo is open seven days a week, evenings only.

Pizza Lupo
1540 Frankfort Ave.
409-8440
pizzalupo.com
facebook.com/LupoLouisville

Noise Level: The dining room wasn’t crowded early on a week night, and background music didn’t hamper conversation. Average sound level was a mellow 60.9dB.

Accessibility: Two short steps bar wheelchair access to the main entrance. Wheelchair users may park at the rear of Lupo’s parking lot, where there’s a separate wheelchair ramp.

The post Lupo’s pizza is tops … and that’s not all appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Here’s a great way to start a noisy debate: Ask a group of friends what they think about tipping. How much? On what? Should we have to do it at all? Ask ten people, get eleven opinions.

And that was before the pandemic.

After Covid-19 shut down indoor dining at Kentucky restaurants in March 2020 and a handful of operations went out of business, there was a lot of talk about how those of us who love the local food scene could help. “The region’s restaurants are struggling against this gut punch, and they deserve all the help we can give them through carryout, curbside, and home delivery, I wrote in a column a couple of months later. “Not to mention generous tipping.”

I’ve always tried to support restaurant servers well, as a matter of personal ethics and, in my reviews, to set an example. I usually tip 20% on food and drink, rounding up from there if service was exceptional. During the pandemic I tried to add a bit more still, and at less expensive places to forget the percentage rule entirely. If your meal at a modest diner cost $7, why not tip $7 more? I can’t think of any reason not to.

Are people getting tired of tipping?

But … it had to happen … as the nation, including Louisville, goes through a lull following the last Covid variant spike and hopes there won’t be another spike, people are getting tired of tipping. And that’s not even talking about the people who never did approve of the practice.

“Americans tired of leaving big tips,” the centrist political journal The Hill trumpeted this past June. “Experts say there is a perfect storm of factors, including inflation and lack of Covid-19 incentives, leaving increasingly ‘cranky consumers’ waiting for exemplary service before shelling out a little extra at the end.”

To get a sense of the local temperature, I queried social-media friends and didn’t get much sense of tip fatigue among some 100 responses. This may have been a non-representative audience of foodies and industry people, but none of my friends seem to be punishing restaurant workers for the faults of the economy right now.

“I despise tipping. But I do.”

“I despise tipping. But I do,” responded one friend in Louisville. “Sit=down full-service, 15–25% depending on the service and total bill. (I tend to tip a higher percentage on a lower bill).”

“20 – 25% for average service in a sit down restaurant,” a California-based friend chimed in; “30-50% for exceptional service.”

A friend in the local area offered this top-notch summary of what appeared to be the consensus: “For me, rising costs mean eating out less often, but still being generous with tipping when I do. 20% is the bare minimum, even when service was not at all good. I understand that so many places are running short-staffed, and I know servers’ jobs were already not easy before the pandemic. These servers and line staff are out there busting a hump to serve us. They still deserve to be thanked and treated with dignity, expressed through making sure they’re paid enough to take care of themselves.”

I can’t think of a thing that I’d add to that!

Let’s wrap up this week’s discussion with a few pardon-the-expression tips for you about navigating the tipping scene in the third year of this ongoing pandemic. These are my opinions. Feel free to push back in the comments!

How much should you tip for a sit-down restaurant? Takeout? Delivery?

In my opinion, 20% is the minimum, and, as I noted, I’ll increase that percentage at, well, diners, drive-ins, and dives where the tap is so light that 20% amounts to only a couple of bucks. I do try to tip the same amount on takeout, and I would do the same on delivery, although I don’t do delivery for reasons I’ll be glad to discuss some other day.

Did the pandemic change your tipping habits?

Yes, I try to tip a little more generously than before.

Did the pandemic change your restaurant dining habits?

Certainly during the early stages I went over to takeout only, preferably with no-touch curbside pickup. Once vaccinations were available, I went back to indoor dining.

Do you leave a larger tip at a diner or other inexpensive eatery?

Yes. Wanda at Joe’s diner works about as hard as Pierre at Le Snoot. It’s hardly far to leave Wanda a $2 tip while Pierre pockets $20. (Yes, I understand that Pierre may have to dip into his stash to tip out bussers and others who help, but he’s still coming out ahead.)

Would you ever leave a zero tip, or a penny, to “punish” bad service?

No. But I might talk to the server, or to the manager or owner.

Would you change the American tipping system if you could? What exactly would you change?

I’d like to see it change, but the system is so entrenched that it’s hard for me to see where change might begin. Labor organizing and unions in corporate chains might be a good starting place, but I’m not sure how independent local restaurants can make the numbers work without substantial, traffic-crushing increases in pricing.

Still, the rest of the industrial world has found a way, so it’s … odd … that Team USA can’t do it. A British friend following my social-media conversation was gobsmacked by this Yank-centric conversation. “I’m staggered by this,” they said. “As a Brit I expect waiters and delivery people to be properly paid. If the meal’s been good or the service excellent I leave a few quid on the table. … Across Europe it’s usually made clear that tax and gratuities are included in the price, so I usually just round up the change to the nearest Euro. We really don’t have a tipping culture here, and I’m glad of it. It’s demeaning to expect employees to live on random handouts from clients; it’s the employer’s job to pay properly and price accordingly.”

I can’t disagree.

The post Pandemic prompts a fresh look at the way we tip appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

When Oriental House posted the news of its reopening on social media earlier this month, it made me so happy that I wanted to “Like” it twice!

“We just want to thank everybody for the patience, love, and support throughout this journey,” the owners wrote. “This will be our first time opening our dining rooms to the public since the pandemic, so please continue to stay patient with us! Takeout will still be available as well.”

This was huge for me. I’ve been a fan of Chinese cuisine since, well, most of my life. Oriental House was not only one of the city’s longest-standing Chinese spots, it was a favorite stalwart of old-style Chinese-American fare since back in the ‘60s. What’s more, under new management in 2006, it became one of the first local eateries to offer Westerners full access to an “authentic” menu in both Chinese and English.

Yes, I was a fan. I went often, and when management shut down indoor dining at the beginning of the pandemic – and stayed closed for the next 2 1/2 years – Louisville’s Asian options just didn’t feel the same.

So I’m celebrating, and I hope you will too, the return of Oriental House in bright, pretty, beautifully renovated yet utterly familiar quarters.

Naturally I had to go. I skipped opening day to avoid the crowds, but held out for only a couple of days before rushing in. There was a good, not overflow, crowd, for lunch, and service was better than I really had any right to expect so soon in the re-launch of a popular place. And the food? Oh, yeah! It was good!

The renovated dining room won’t seem unfamiliar to old-timers. The old-school look of Oriental House (like its old-school name) remains unchanged. But it’s all shiny and sparkling, inside and out. The old, dark front entry passage is gone, now built into the building with easy access. Even the exterior, that exuberant Chinese-look building, appears to have been scrubbed and freshly painted. Inside, the floors, tables and chairs are all sturdy and new. The familiar round moon gate between the rooms and the pillars flanking the doors to the kitchen are bright and fresh, and pretty red-fabric lighting fixtures hang in rows overhead.

The menu appears essentially the same, with well over 200 items, including an 85-item “Authentic Chinese” menu that remains a built-in part of the huge bill of fare. That includes about two dozen dim sum snack dishes available at all hours.

While a few fancy dishes can range upward to $29 (for braised sea cucumber and shiitake mushroom on the authentic menu), most entrees are in the lower to middle teens, while many dim sum plates are $4.50-5.50. Depending on your tastes, you can go fully authentic with something like pig ear or pig stomach (both $9) or old-school with chow mein, chop suey, lo mein or fried rice ($11-$13), or pretty. much any level in between.

Everything we tried was very good, starting with fresh, steaming, and plentiful jasmine tea ($2 for a plentiful hot pot and two porcelain cups).

Egg drop soup is a good test dish for any Chinese restaurant, and Oriental House’s bowl ($4) passed with my “delicious” rating. It was warm and soothing with abundant quick-scrambled egg in a tasty, simple broth.

Another appetizer, vegetable spring rolls ($2.50), was rendered in Chinese as Shanghai rolls (thanks to Google image translate). An order included three slender, exceptionally crunchy fried-pastry rolls, served sizzling hot, Within they bore a payload of finely shredded cabbage and a bit of carrot, a whiff of anise and a hint of ginger.

One of our favorite dishes here is a simple but memorable plate of roasted duck with steamed rice, No. 53 on the authentic menu. A sizable duck thigh quarter had been coated with hoisin sauce and anise-scented five-spice and roasted to a dark mahogany color, then chopped crosswise into chunks. They were served with a bit of lettuce that had been quickly softened in duck broth, with a generous scoop of medium-grain white rice. The skin was roasted and firm, not crackling crisp, with a thick layer of juicy fat cloaking rich, succulent, tender dark duck meat. It was a substantial serving, and a startling lunch-hour value at just $11. It’s pictured at the top of this page.

Another favorite, one of the few meatless dishes on the authentic menu, and a hearty, warming dish for a chilly autumn day, was No. 33, eggplant with garlic sauce ($14). This is Yu-Shiang eggplant, a classic Sichuanese dish made with a spicy-sweet, intensely garlicky sauce whose name literally means “fish fragrant” because it’s said to go well with fish. Or eggplant! Long strips of eggplant were salt-marinated, then stir-fried until very tender and bathed in ample dark-brown Yu-Shiang sauce.

A hearty, delicious Chinese lunch for two came to $35.51, plus an $8.50 tip.

Oriental House
4302 Shelbyville Road
897-1017
orientalhouselouisville.com
facebook.com/orientalhouselouisville

Noise Level: The room was crowded, but never ear-shattering. Conversation was easy at an average sound level was 72dB.

Accessibility: The attractively renovated dining room and rest rooms appear fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Oriental House returns, just as good as ever appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Here comes another winter, the third since the global pandemic started early in 2020, and – talking mostly about the restaurant, food and drink scene here – where in the heck are we?

For a lot of us, things are feeling pretty good. Sure, quite a few of us have at least one Covid encounter for ourselves or a friend or loved one to spin tales about, But things are looking better now, right?

Better at least than at this point in 2020, when restaurants were figuring out how to make outdoor dining doable with torches and igloos; or even in 2021, when vaccines were available but the latest Covid variants were ramping up contagion.

This year? Jefferson County is in the green zone, a new, potent bivalent booster is available (even if relatively few people have had it yet), and there’s no sign of a seasonal spike on our charts. (England? Europe? Don’t be a buzzkill.)

Is the worst over?

Well, that sounds good. So does this mean that after two years of constant pain over the loss of beloved eateries and bars to Covid and Covid-related strain? Umm … not so fast.

The conventional wisdom during normal times is that 20% of restaurants fail in their first year. It’s a tough business. The pandemic made it worse, obviously, and shuttered a lot of established restaurants that otherwise might have made it. To be honest, a lot of the places that closed since March 2020 faced multiple strains, each one tearing things down in its own way.

Take the much-loved Decca, which closed last month after more than 10 years of service. Was it a victim of the pandemic? They didn’t say, but it’s hard to imagine that 2 1/2 years of soul-sucking contagion and its related stresses wasn’t a factor. But so, surely, was the departure of its founder and name chef, Annie Pettry, last March. What’s more, I’m told, landlord and lease issues came into play, as they so often do. Decca didn’t say, giving a month’s notice in an extended Facebook farewell “To our valued customers, employees, artists, musicians, vendors and friends,” with many thanks, “You will never know what it has meant to us and how you have impacted our lives. After 10+ years we will be packing up and moving on.”

So was it the pandemic? Not entirely, I’d say, but would things have looked different if Covid had never come calling? You tell me.

Looking back, another beloved NuLu eatery that didn’t make it through was an early victim, Harvest. Harvest’s backers were a bit more forthcoming, spilling a lot of detail in its September 2020 farewell. Kentucky restaurants and bars were then still operating at 50 percent capacity restrictions to allow social distancing, severely crunchig eateries that depend on dine-in traffic to make margins work. With the first Covid summer ending and cooler weather coming on, it was hard to imagine going through a winter with no vaccine then available.

“A brutal trade”

“The restaurant business is, in a word, a brutal trade,” the Harvest team wrote. “Funding is but one part of starting one, but the investment of time and emotion into such an enterprise is something few understand. Profits made in the restaurant business are modest, even under the best of circumstances. And when you commit, as we have, to buying the best ingredients possible, as locally as possible, costs rise even higher and margins narrow in step. A pandemic as we’re enduring now has made operating profitably largely impossible. Hardly an American anywhere needs any further explanation of how this has affected us and our employees. It has been an emotionally challenging year, and to have to write this letter announcing our closure only worsens it for us.”

It’s the same the whole world over, it seems, or across the U.S. anyway. As restaurant trade journal Plate magazine writer Lauren Mowery wrote in an October 11 report, “A global pandemic, labor shortages, supply-chain snags, and now inflation. Though different markets have micro-trends, every restaurant and wine bar operator in the United States has dealt with an endless barrage of calamities. How do businesses, many running on razor-thin margins, manage to stay afloat? Unfortunately, few great solutions exist beyond raising prices, shopping around, and accepting calculated losses – though some have turned to creative strategies with pricing and product selection.”

According to the restaurant industry app Seated, a sample of 50 small restaurants in major American cities revealed that two-thirds experienced decreased sales due to inflation. Just over three-quarters of restaurants in the survey increased menu prices. Others sought business or cut costs with discounts and promotions, reduced operating hours, reduced staff, or deleted lower-margin items from the menu.

The pressure continues

The pressure continues. As of August, the consumer price index was up 8.3 percent; the food index was even higher at 11.4 percent. And, reports the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer prices for beer, wine, and spirits at bars and restaurants were up 6.4 percent, 7.1 percent, and 4.2 percent, respectively, over the previous year.

With many of us facing similar increased prices on groceries and other necessary goods, it’s easy to understand the challenges that restaurants still face. Even if there’s not another Covid variant or surge.

As Yogi said, it ain’t over until it’s over. And at last glance, both Harvest’s and Decca’s former properties appear to remain vacant. In the meantime, perhaps the best thing we can do is keep on supporting local eateries with our dollars and our kind words. I’m up for that!

The post As winter nears, restaurant stress is about more than Covid appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Why, yes, I did get Covid last month, after 2 1/2 years of artfully avoiding the pandemic. And no, I am not recommending this to you as one of Louisville’s best things to do in 2022.

But Covid did teach me some useful things about eating. I didn’t have a lot of appetite while recovering, but a man’s got to eat, so I treated myself to local restaurant fare to fascinate my appetite. In this and the following two reports, I’d like to share with you my nominees for the best breakfast, lunch, and dinner (for me), when recovering from Covid.

Best breakfast when you’re recovering from Covid— Huevos Rancheros at Con Huevos

You need a good breakfast to start your day, and I can’t think of a better dish to jump-start my system when I’m not feeling it than the Huevos Rancheros at Con Huevos ($12.99). Yes! I’m feeling better just thinking about this gently spicy, crunchy yet soft combination of rich egg flavors and chile spice.

Literally “ranch eggs,” this is a hearty, filling dish that, in olden times, set up hard-working farm workers for a long day in the fields. Two glowing golden sunny-side-up eggs perch fetchingly atop crisp corn tortillas folded over creamy refried black beans and dressed with spicy salsa ranchera, avocado, and mild yet gently funky queso fresco.

Desayuno de campeones, I tellya … breakfast of champions!

Con Huevos, 2339 Frankfort Ave., 384-3027, conhuevos.com
Another location: Con Huevos Holiday Manor, 4938 U.S. 42, 384-3744

Best lunch when you’re recovering from Covid — Margherita Pizza at Coals

Pizza has always been comfort food for me, since I was a little kid, and my infatuation only got worse after living in New York City for a few years and making frequent trips to Italy after that.

Naturally, when I was recovering from Covid and still felt short on appetite, pizza was one of the most tempting foods I could imagine. Must. Have. Pizza.

But where? Louisville is rich with pizzerias, and plenty of them are worthy. Heck, a good half-dozen favorites could call my name on any given day. But Coals Artisan Pizza always makes my top five with the tasty leopard-spotted crusts that emerge from its coal-fired oven; and Coals’ branch in St. Matthews’ Vogue Center is handy.

Best of all, its “St. Matthews” pie – Coals’ moniker for the classic Neapolitan pizza Margherita – is a perennial favorite. Simple, perfect, its three toppings of fresh tomato, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil reflect the red, white, and green colors of the Italian flag. Indeed, it was first created in Naples in 1889 and named in honor of the newly unified Italy’s first queen, Margherita.

The St. Matthews ($14.50) mirrors the original and ups the ante with fior de latte mozzarella and Coals’ tangy sauce. (You can even make it a breakfast pie, adding two eggs over easy and Nueske’s applewood smoked bacon for $2.50 more, but naah. Authenticity matters.)

Coals Artisan Pizza, Vogue Center, 3730 Frankfort Ave., 742-8200, coalsartisanpizza.com
Another location: 11615 Shelbyville Road Suite 106, 253-0106

Best dinner when you’re recovering from Covid — Dal Makhani at Tikka House

The current Covid variants don’t usually completely demolish one’s senses of smell and taste. I’d have hated that. But Covid did tweak my taste buds. My whole tasting system was just off. Nothing tasted quite right. Bitter tasted more bitter, and spicy tasted like fire. The overall impact made me lose my appetite.

What could I do? Go for the dishes that make up my idea of comfort food: Huevos Rancheros, a traditional margherita pizza, and maybe best of all, to round out a day with a hearty, rich dinner, Indian daal makhani.

Daal in its many forms comprises spicy Indian lentil soups and stews, and you could call daal makhani the king of daals.

Makhani means “buttery,” and this rich, consoling dish from Northern India’s Punjab wraps a combination of long-simmered black lentils and red kidney beans in a rich robe of butter and cream. Reserved for special events, it’s often served at wedding feasts and other parties. And, of course, as an appetite kick-starter when I’m not feeling great.

The daal makhani at Louisville’s Tikka House ($13.99) is one of my favorites among many contenders, and two large pieces of tender, puffy garlic naan ($4.49) and long-grain basmati rice made it a filling meal.

Subtle, complex and harmonious spicing elevates Tikka House’s rendition, a thick, dark soup of black lentils and kidney beans – tender, flavor-loaded legumes – swimming in that thick, savory cream-and-butter sauce.

Tikka House, 3930 Chenoweth Square, 749-4535, tikkahouseindianrestaurant.com

The post Best restaurant eats when you’re bouncing back from Covid appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

The post The ORIGINAL Taste of Louisville appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Covid-19 has been rough for NuLu restaurants. The pandemic has taken at least partial blame for the loss of Harvest, Rye, and most recently, Decca.

For the Martinez family’s Olé restaurant group, though, challenges create opportunities. They opened the Cuban restaurant La Bodeguita de Mamá in July 2020, early in the pandemic, in the former headquarters of Creation Gardens at 725 E. Market St.

Señora Arepa came next, opening in the spring of 2021, serving Venezuelan street food in the smaller building behind Bodeguita at 721 E. Market St., once the home of Ghislain on Market.

They made it a trifecta early this year, moving their popular Mexican eatery Guaca Mole from the eastern suburbs to the former home of Rye.

It might be about time to re-brand NuLu as Olénulu. Works for me!

I’d like to try all three of these spots, and count on it, I’ll get there soon. For the first look, though, they had me at “arepa.” I’ve loved this street-food delight since sampling them from Colombian street vendors along Roosevelt Avenue in New York City’s Queens borough.

So what, you ask, is an arepa? It is a thick, crisp cornmeal cake that originated among indigenous tribes in the mountains of what now make up Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama, long before Columbus and the colonizers came.

It’s still popular in those countries and beyond, but with a differnence. In Colombia they generally dress the corn cake with butter or cheese and call it a day. But Venezuela has made the arepa a culinary icon. They’ll slice into a steaming corn cake and stuff it with, well, just about anything: meats, cheese, avocado, salad, vegetables, even dessert!

Señora Arepa offers a taste of Venezuela in a menu that offers 16 different full-size arepas, along with smaller appetizer and dessert arepitas and other Venezuelan dishes too, with quick counter service in a pretty indoor-outdoor setting that gets you in a Venezuelan mood.

The patio feels cool even in mid-August, and on a bright summer day it was so, so blue. The light from the clear sky was blue, and even the gray granite table tops were tinted light blue. It was like being under water, or on a Caribbean beach anyway. It also shifted my food photos toward a bluish hue, so apologies if the images with this article seem a little off. It’s not the food.

The menu centers on 16 arepas that range in price from $9.99 to $12.99. There’s also eight cacharas (Venezuelan corn pancakes topped with goodies, $14.99-$17.99); five pepitos (Venezuelan sandwiches akin to tortas, $13.99-$14.99); and a half-dozen platos (dinner plates with black beans, rice, and fried plantains, $15.99-$17.99).

We started with an Amazónica salad ($10.99) and received a tropical mixture based on torn bits of fresh romaine plus cilantro, arugula and chives, tossed with shreds of carrot, beet and red onion and corn. It was topped with lightly-roasted cherry tomatoes, several inch-thick rounds of hearts of palm. It was finished with a fresh, citrusy passionfruit vinaigrette that didn’t overwhelm but pulled the disparate flavors together.

The arepas here are hefty, wrapped in paper to make them portable but big enough to require two hands for eating. A single arepa could make a light meal, but we shared three.

I meant to order the caprezolana salad ($12.99) but got the less pricey caprezolana arepa ($9.99) instead. Fine by me! More arepa, less veggies. It’s a Venezuelan take on the classic Italian caprese salad, with the traditional tomatoes (a fresh slice and some roasted cherry tomatoes too), cheese (creamy Venezuelan queso de mano), pesto in lieu of fresh basil, and romaine and arugula to make it a salad. All this stuffed into a crispy, subtly corn-flavored arepa made it more than a mouthful.

The menu here is so cheese-heavy that I thought about nick-naming the place Fernando’s House of Cheese. However, one option, the vegana arepa ($9.99) is free of either cheese or meat, as the name implies. More than just a salad in a corn cake, it was loaded with tender hearts of palm, crisp-fried plantains, black beans, and avocado wedges, with a small tub of bright-green, garlicky chimichurri on the side.

Around the ring of the Caribbean, people do amazing things with pork, marinated in citrus and spice and long roasted until it’s falling apart. The pork used in arepa de pernil ($10.99) was amazing, butter-soft and succulent. Six big chunks were tucked into a single arepa, so many that some of it fell out on the plate. The edges were crisp, crunchy black, and the meat fell apart at a touch. The cheese, queso Guayanes, resembled stretchy, fresh mozzarella, with a delicious fresh milk flavor. The pork was dressed with avocado wedges and a thick round of tomato

An excellent Venezuelan meal for two came to $44.48, plus a 22% tip.

Señora Arepa
721 E. Market St.
795-3995
senora-arepa.com
Facebook: bit.ly/senora-arepa
Instagram: instagram.com/senoraarepa_louisville

Noise Level: Happy Latin music filled the patio space but didn’t hamper communication. Average sound level was 74.2dB, the level of normal conversation.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears to be fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The post Señora Arepa serves delicious Venezuelan street food appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

How can you tell when a trend has run its course? Yogi Berra had the right idea with his memorable observation, “Nobody goes there any more. It’s too crowded.”

Restaurant and culinary trends are sort of like that, too. A great new concept takes hold, catches fire, and before long everyone is doing it, some in slavish imitation, others adding their own riffs. And then everyone tires of the idea and we move on.

Except when we don’t. A month ago I devoted this space to a rant about culinary notions that would have been better left uninvented. Today let’s look at some restaurant trends that delighted us in their time, but that may (or may not) be past their best-by date by now.

Quick pickled red onions

This all came to mind recently when I was enjoying an excellent dinner at Barn 8 Restaurant (LEO Weekly, August 17). Just about everything was outstanding, but I was briefly taken aback when a beautiful salmon fillet came out garnished simply – very simply – with a casually strewn dab of neon-pink quick-pickled red onions.

Let’s be real: Pickles have been around since the rise of civilization in Mesopotamia some 4,500 years ago. Pickling vegetables in vinegar or brine was a great way to preserve them in those days before refrigeration. And pickles are delicious! It’s no wonder that just about every culture has pickles and loves them.

When refrigerators finally came along, it wasn’t long before someone invented refrigerator pickles, a process that sped the process to get us from raw veggie to taste pickle much faster.

Even more recently than that – it may or may not have been Martha Stewart who fired off the concept in 2016 – quick-pickled red onions appeared as a garnish on restaurant plates. The trend took off from there.

They’re pretty, tasty, and oh so pink. They’re easy and quick to make, an advantage in the restaurant kitchen. And now that the excitement has worn off, they’re a little boring.

Which brings to the point of this essay: Dishes that trend (a bit like Twitter threads that trend) are popular and fun, until they are not. Let’s take a look at a few more food trends that lighted up the Louisville dining scene for a while, and maybe still do.

Shrimp and grits

It would be easy to assume that shrimp and grits is a Louisville-born treat. The dish has been popular here for 27 years, and you’ll still find it on plenty of local menus, usually with each chef’s particular spin.

It’s not part of our local heritage, though. We can trace that origin date back to 1995, when Shawn Ward, then the executive chef at Jack Fry’s, brought it home from South Carolina’s seaside Lowcountry, where it really is a historic tradition.

Originally a simple staple of poverty cooking, making good use of cheap and readily available ingredients, on our restaurant scene it became an upscale appetizer, adding fancy sauces, garnishes and extra ingredients to its simple basics of grits, shrimp, maybe spicy sausage and cheese. It became so locally popular that, when a group of local foodies organized a shrimp-and-grits fund-raising throwdown in 2009, they got 15 chefs to participate, each with their own variation.

It’s still popular. It’s still good. And you can find it everywhere, the sure sign of a trend that has become a tradition.

The Hot Brown

Look up “traditional Louisville dishes” in any reference, and you’re likely to find the Hot Brown listed right there with Modjeska candies, Benedictine spread, and the cheeseburger. That’s fair, since its origin story can be traced all the way back to the Brown Hotel as a post-dance midnight snack in the 1920s.

Chef Fred Schmidt’s original was a simple preparation, but it already had the basic heart-attack-on-a-plate ingredients that make the Hot Brown popular: Turkey, bacon and Mornay, the classic French cheese sauce, atop toast points. The old Brown deteriorated, then closed in 1970, then served as the old Louisville Board of Education office for a decade before returning, restored, under a series of national chain operators.

Of course the Brown continues to serve the Hot Brown, publicizes it eagerly as the hotel’s own invention, and its chefs have twice defeated Food Network’s Bobby Flay in Hot Brown throwdowns. Now scores of local eateries offer individual takes on the Hot Brown, including a worthy Hot Brown pizza (Danny Mac’s) and an excellent vegan version (V-Grits).

Will this trend ever die? As this classic Louisville dish approaches its centennial, I think not.

Brussels sprouts

Pity the poor brussels sprout. Hardly anyone loves it. What is there to love about a miniature cabbage the size of a plum? Yet for some reason that it is difficult for me to discern, brussels sprouts became a gourmet treat at local restaurants some time during the first decade of the new century.

I think the secret to success in a fancyfied brussels sprout dish is to mix it with something that people love more than brussels sprouts. The short-lived Hog Father Pizza, for instance, crisped them up with pork belly. At Fork & Barrel, a brunch dish shredded sprouts and doused them with a smoky, unctuous mustard-sherry-bacon vinaigrette plus mild goat cheese and marcona almonds. (It’s pictured at the top of the page.) Bar Vetti, in its original 800 Building location, crisped them up in a veggie fritto misto.??Those all worked to improve brussels sprouts, I’ll admit that. But the only one that ever really convinced me was a sliced, roasted, caramelized delight slathered in fiery Korean spice at the late, lamented Rye.

Brussels sprouts. They may be trendy, but I’m hard to convince.

I could go on … there’s truffle oil and eggs in unexpected places and bacon or eggs where they really don’t belong. But those are just trends. They too shall pass, right?

The post Dining trends come and sometimes go appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

If you haven’t made your way out to Barn 8 Restaurant at Hermitage Farm in Goshen, take my advice: You ought to give it a try soon. You’ll be glad you did.

Walk in the front door of the black, red-trimmed former horse barn on U.S. 42, and one of the first things you see will be a small painting of local art enthusiast and 21c hotel founder Steve Wilson, showing a big smile and his trademark red glasses.

Yep, Barn 8 is related by family to Proof on Main, 21c’s much-lauded downtown eatery. I might not call Barn 8 “Proof East” or “Proof in the countryside,” but it’s fair to point out the similarities, and there are plenty of them.

Both restaurants give more than lip service to regional farm-to-table dining, particularly to respected local farms for meats and produce. Both restaurants also reach beyond the local area when it makes sense to seek out quality, such as Proof’s ?ra King salmon from New Zealand and Barn 8’s Riverence farmed trout from Idaho and Washington State.

You’ll find plenty of Steve Wilson’s beloved art pieces at Barn 8, too, although it’s not as much of an eatery-in-a-museum spectacle as is Proof. Barn 8’s revamped horse barn, with private rooms in former stable stalls and design by Bittner’s, is art enough in its own right.

It’s about a half-hour drive out to Goshen from Crescent Hill or the Highlands, but it’s a pretty drive on a long summer evening, straight out US 42 through fancy suburbs, forests and rolling farm fields. When you pass Francis Parker School (the just-renamed St. Francis School), watch out for the Hermitage Farm – Barn 8 sign on the right. Turn in between two large, intentionally rusted Corten steel sculptures by French artist Jean Dupuy, one reading “Here” and the other “Where.”

We summoned a couple of refreshingly bitter, light Campari-and-sodas ($9 each) to begin a celebratory anniversary dinner, and enjoyed the scene while checking out the current summer menu.

The 13-item menu doesn’t distinguish among appetizers, small plates, and main dishes, but it’s easy to make them out as sizes and prices increase as you go down the page.

Seven starter-type choices range in price from $11 (for a local greens salad) to $17 (for a fancy cauliflower puree). Six main-course-type choices are priced from $19 (for mushroom risotto) to $39 (for a pork chop from Groce Family Farm in English, Ind.)

The extensive bar menu includes nearly 100 bourbons, an interesting wine list, and short selections of creative cocktails and craft bottled and canned beers.

We started with a shared heirloom tomato tartine appetizer ($14), pictured at the top of the page. It was a daily special too attractive to resist. This seasonal chef’s whim started with a thick slice of house-made sourdough drizzled with olive oil and painted with intensely garlicky Lebanese-style toum sauce, then loaded with perfectly ripe, dark reddish-purple tomato wedges garnished with tiny basil, mint, and beet-leaf microgreens. It was just about perfect, and a shake of salt on the tomatoes added the final touch.

Mushroom risotto ($27) hit the spot, a rich, comforting and delicious Northern Italian-style rice dish. A generous portion of crisply sauteed wild mushrooms from Frondosa Farm in Simpsonville, Ky., made it a special treat, further elevated with thinly shaved Parmigiano slices and an anise-scented gremolata of minced Mexican mint marigold, an herb akin to tarragon.

I’m generally wary of farmed salmon and trout. But Riverence trout, from a sustainable, organic trout farm on Idaho’s Snake River, has won a “Best Choice” rating from the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch and other gurus of sustainability.

A good-size, skin-on fillet Riverence steelhead trout ($31) was a salmon-colored trout, seared until the silvery skin was crisp and crunchy. It broke easily with a fork. It was fresh, firm, and easily flaked; its flavor was distinctly stronger than the mild taste that some associate with trout.

It was garnished with fresh-pickled pink onions and sat atop a small ration of butterbeans and a salty sauce described as salsa verde. The six or eight beans were tasty but variably cooked, ranging from soft to almost underdone-crisp.

We didn’t order dessert, but our skillful server, Lynsey, presented an anniversary gift: A small but delicious portion of salty caramel crème brûlee garnished with spicy popcorn. It was a real treat.

A splendid dinner for two came to $95.40, plus a $22.50 tip.

Barn 8 Restaurant
10500 W. US Highway 42
Goshen, Ky.
398-9289
hermitagefarm.com/food-bourbon/barn8-restaurant
facebook.com/Barn8Restaurant
instagram.com/Barn8Restaurant

Noise Level: Conversation was generally easy, except for occasional bursts from nearby tables and the open kitchen ebbs. Average sound level was 78.7 dB (your washing machine at work), with peaks to a near-deafening 87.4dB (electric lawnmower doing its job).

Accessibility: The dining room appears accessible to wheelchair users, although uneven spots in the brick floor could be an issue. More significantly, the main parking lot is up a long flight of concrete stairs from the dining room. I suggest checking in advance or stopping at the Hermitage Farm welcome center if you anticipate a problem.

The post Barn 8 delivers culinary treats in a delightful farm setting appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Covid, Delta, Omicron, BA.5, bah! Sometimes it seems as if the pandemic will never end. In fact, the experts say, it’s more likely to shift from pandemic to endemic status, which isn’t much better since it’s essentially acknowledging that it will always be around, like the flu or common cold.

While in some ways the pandemic has shown the resilience of the restaurant business, I sometimes wonder, too, how long that can last. We’ve lost too many favorite places, and those that remain are struggling with rising costs and shortages of both labor and food. Everyone is tired of Covid. Hardly anybody wants to wear a mask any more.

And yet, with the latest variants pushing Louisville back into the scary red zone, it’s all too tempting to skip dining out for a while, or at best to grab takeout or have something delivered to the relative safety of our homes.

It’s not a happy scene, and rather than dwell on it further – we all know too well what’s going on – I decided to spend some time this week escaping Covid-driven frustration with a trip down Memory Lane.

What was I doing on the restaurant scene 10 years ago this month? Perhaps revisiting my views of Louisville dining back when the biggest worries on our minds were, well, continuing recovery from the Great Recession and whether Obama could old on for a second term. At least those things weren’t contagious.

Gas prices were only about $2.60 that summer, which may explain why road trips were on my mood in August 2012. That month I reported on a day trip to two roadside stands in Southern Indiana and an overnighter to Shakertown at Pleasant Hill. I enjoyed re-reading snippets from those reports, and I hope you will, too.

Road Food Road Trip In Southern Indiana!

I know this is hard to believe, but a couple of generations back, when our parents and even our grandparents were young, a road trip took some planning. There were no Interstate highways and nothing like McDonald’s, Wendy’s or Burger King. What was a hungry traveler to do in those days of winding two-lane highways and no familiar burger logos glowing in the distance? As it happens, though it may have taken longer to get to your destination, but our forbears arguably enjoyed a finer, tastier and better quality of road food in those days gone by.

Let’s take a road trip to Southern Indiana this week, where it’s still possible to get off the Interstates, onto the “blue highways,” and within a very short trip from Louisville get a taste of something akin to the goodies that Granddad and Grandmom enjoyed when they fired up the old Rambler and hit the road.

Head west on I-64 from Louisville on the freshly renovated Sherman Minton Bridge. Drive through New Albany, haul the long Floyds Knobs hill, and a couple of exits later hop off at the Georgetown exit, Indiana Hwy. 64. Here you face a delightful decision: Head to the right for a delicious gyros at A.J.’s Gyros? Or hook left under the highway for ice cream delights at Polly’s Freeze, celebrating its 60th anniversary in business this year?I highly recommend doing both.

(I still do recommend Polly’s, although sadly A.J’s closed several years ago.)

Peace, Calm And Good Eats At Shaker Village

Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, also known as Shakertown, may be my No. 1 favorite spot for a quick getaway road trip with a quiet, calm and peaceful rest at the destination. And, by no means least, good things to eat.

Shaker Village, pictured at the top of the page, is a beautiful, peaceful place where you can stay overnight in the original 19th century buildings and dine very well indeed in the Trustees’ House building that has been offering rest and restoration to weary travelers since the early 1800s. I’ve been visiting Shakertown since I was a teen-ager and think of it as a very special place.

This memory made me shed a wistful tear, as I’m still mourning the loss of Palermo Viejo, which closed in 2015 but was still going strong when I reviewed it in August 2012:

Back Home Again In Argentina At Palermo Viejo

Think globally, eat locally: I can hardly think of a better place to do both of these things than Palermo Viejo, Louisville’s only Argentine restaurant and a perennial favorite among ethnic eateries.

Where is Argentina? If you answered “Down past Mexico somewhere,” you’ve probably come closer than many Americans, sadly, to locating this major nation that runs down the southern part of South America, below Brazil between the Atlantic Ocean and the Andes mountains.

Let’s take a bold step toward geographical literacy through a fine dinner at Palermo Viejo.

Over on the HotBytes forum, one viral post dominated the August 2012 conversation:

Papa John says he’ll pass along Obamacare costs to consumers
So “Papa” John, not long after hosting Mitt Romney to a little at-home fund-raiser at his Anchorage manse, is now declaring that the cost of providing his employees Obamacare will require him to pass along the costs to those who consume his pizza, in order to protect the shareholders’ interests?

I find this fascinating, first because of his apparent priorities: Shareholders first, employees second, and his customers, it seems, dead last. But it’s also curious because of his apparent limited command of simple business economics: Raise prices, sales drop off, shareholders suffer all the same.

Deliver a quality product, John, and shareholder profits should follow.

Whoa, I was salty that day. Thanks for joining me on this little nostalgia trip. It you enjoyed it, let me know, and we’ll do it again sometime.

The post A stroll down restaurant Memory Lane appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Thoughts inspired by a recent meal at Louisville’s Tandoori Fusion restaurant: Fusion cuisine has been around for centuries, going back as far as Chinese restaurateurs coming up with chop suey to please western consumers in 1850s California, and maybe even to Marco Polo and his noodles.

But the concept didn’t get a name until the 1980s, when chefs like Roy Yamaguchi and Wolfgang Puck began to intentionally combine flavors from different cultures. Before long, just about everyone was chowing down on Pacific Rim cuisine and Thai pizza, and calling it “fusion.”

The concept became hugely popular – I loved it too – as it invited chef-driven creativity to come up with, well, “new original cuisines which could be called true artistic creations … artistic dishes never seen before.” Yeah. the original Japanese Iron Chef took fusion to a new level.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Hawaiian pizza: People started asking questions about cultural appropriation. “Many white cooks and chefs have been called into question after presenting audiences with dishes from which they have no culinary connection,” food-culture expert Sylvia Tomczak wrote in Canada’s RestoBiz magazine last April. “This is problematic as ethnic ingredients are rebranded to be trendy, cool, and relevant for Westerners while sometimes totally disregarding culinary histories.”

Uh oh. Does this mean that we need to strip our pantries of international delights like Laoganma hot chile crisp, and even [gasp] pasta? Naaah. Even Ms. Tomczak eases up a bit at the end of her piece. “While it’s inevitable that our pantries will see more unique international goods going forward, we must be respectful of their origin and not claim to be anything other than inspired by another culture.”

So what about Tandoori Fusion? Well, for starters, it’s owned by folks of Indian origin who live in Kentucky now, so no one can question their cultural authority. What’s more, it musters an admirable farm-to-table approach. Many of its ingredients come from local farms, including the Veering Creek farm in Smithfield, Ky., founded by Tandoori Fusion’s owner Purna Veer.

Tandoori Fusion specializes in traditional south and north Indian cuisine, but it earns the fusion moniker with a selection of culturally hybrid dishes ranging from chicken tacos and dosadillas (yeah, quesadillas wrapped in South Indian dosa pancakes), and even pizzas with your choice of tikka, spinach palak, or a traditional margherita. That’s fusion, all right. Just about everything on the 14-item fusion menu page is priced from $9.99 to $12.99.

The main menu’s two large pages are filled with about 130 Indian dishes (and a handful more fusion items mixed in). Just about all the entrees range in price from $11.99 to $15.99, with a few extra-large tandoori roasted dishes rising to $21.99. A dozen summer special appetizers and entrees are currently available, and a dozen lunch combination plates are priced from $9.99 to $14.99.

We paid homage to the fusion notion with the Japanese charms of blistered shishito peppers ($7.99 on the menu, but only $6.99 on our tab). Eight tasty, two-bite pale-green peppers were lined up on a heavy, rectangular white plate. Just gently piquant, they were dotted with a few black spots from a quick encounter with the grill, dusted with salt and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. A dish of soy sauce on the side made a pleasant flavor boost.

Back on the regular menu, I ordered a masala dosa ($11.99), but got the bad news that they were out of potatoes for the filling. Our server suggested an onion dosa instead, and it was all right. This South Indian speciality is based on a large, thin pancake made with rice and lentil flours, quickly griddled, rolled around a filling, and served with a thick brown soup called sambar and spicy chutneys. It wasn’t bad, although the portion of finely diced, gently sauteed red onions was a bit puny. The dosa itself isn’t spicy, but my requested spice level four (out of five) definitely lit up the sambar and what appeared to be horseradish and mustard chutneys.

Goat kheema biryani ($17.99, pictured at the top of the page), from the summer special menu. was a huge portion, enough to provide leftovers for days. Served in a black bowl with yogurt raita and an orange chutney on the side, it was made with very long-grain basmati rice flavored with an aromatic mix of Indian spices and fat that unctuously coated every grain and each bit of crisply fried minced goat meat. We had requested low-heat spice level 1 for Mary’s sake, but the dish we got was incendiary … and delicious. It was topped with a sliced hard-boiled egg, a thick round of red onion, two lime wedges, and chopped cilantro.

With a couple of iced, yogurt-based salty lassis to beat the heat ($3.99 each), our meal for two came to $45.95, plus an $8.77 tip.

Tandoori Fusion
4600 Chamberlain Lane
255-2590
thetandoorifusion.com
facebook.com/AuthenticIndianfusionfood
instagram.com/tandoorifusion_ky

Noise Level: The large room seems to absorb noise, and high-backed booths provide a quiet (and socially distanced) refuge. Conversation was not a problem.

Accessibility: The restaurant appears accessible to wheelchair users, but much of the seating is in booths save for a few free-standing tables toward the back of the room.

The post Tandoori Fusion offers artistic Indian creations appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

When a new friend or neighbor finds out that one of my jobs involves writing restaurant reviews, their first response is usually something like this: “Wow! You get to eat out at a different restaurant every week? That must be great!”

Why yes! Yes it is! It’s fun to try new eateries, and the older ones too. We’re fortunate in this food-loving city to have a restaurant culture that understands what diners want and knows how to deliver it.

I can hardly remember a place that really disappointed me. No, wait, now that I mention it I can remember a few, but let’s set that aside for now. I don’t think I’ve had to write a really negative review in the past five years or so, not since that short-lived Mexican eatery on the riverfront.

Every now and then, though, during an otherwise excellent dining experience, I’ll come across a dish that just doesn’t work. I’m not talking about something that I simply don’t like but others do … I’m looking at you, pineapple on pizza … but outright flaws or poor decisions on the part of the chef or menu planner. In short, I’m talking about efforts that defy the old saying, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

I will absolutely tell you about blips like these when they happen, within the context of an otherwise positive review. Fair is fair. So, more out of sorrow than anger and in the spirit of offering useful advice, let’s use today’s space to talk about a dozen slips and slides that I’ve run into lately.

• If the first words out of the server’s mouth are an invitation to buy a drink, this gives me a hint about the restaurant’s focus, and it’s not about the food. Let me have some ice water please, and plenty of ice. Oh, and let’s have salt or pepper on the table, mmm-kay? I’m sure Chef knows best, but individual tastes vary.

• One of the most frequent, annoying, and easily avoidable issues comes on the salad plate. Please don’t just grab a handful of mixed lettuces from the big box labeled “washed and ready to serve,” dump it on a salad plate and send it out without picking over the greens first. Those slimy black bits of rotted leaves are there, whether you want to believe it or not, and they are distinctly unappetizing.

• Speaking of salads, if you want to make me cranky, just take a traditional dish that’s perfect in its simplicity – like a caprese salad – and drizzle balsamic vinegar all over it. As I wrote in a 2017 review of an eatery that I won’t name at this late date, “I’d gently suggest that less is more, particularly when it comes to classic dishes like this iconic salad from Capri. Caprese is perfect as a simple, balanced presentation of fresh basil leaves, juicy fresh tomatoes, and fresh, creamy mozzarella, drizzled with olive oil and a little lemon juice. [Redacted[ fancies it up with dabs of oily, tart pesto and a decorative criss-cross balsamic design … the culinary equivalent of a little too much eye shadow and mascara.” ‘nuff said.

• A lot of people get irritated when the menu discloses the farm of origin for meats and produce, but I like that. Support our local farmers! I’m not so smiley, though, when the menu goes on to enumerate all the interesting ingredients of the dish … without mentioning the main ingredient. Why describe a salad as “cucumbers, zucchini slices, cherry tomatoes and hearts of palm” without mentioning that it’s primarily lettuce?

• Speaking of menu annoyances: If the chef decides that it would be a good idea to add fiery spice to a dish that’s not customarily hot, I’m fine with that. Gimme heat. But some people aren’t as enthusiastic. Do it if you want to, but please let us know!

• According to Cornell University’a Alliance for Science, about 10 percent of Americans over 18 consider themselves vegan or vegetarian as of January 2022, and that number is growing. Restaurants are responding to this market, and that’s good. But it makes sense for the chef to devote the same creativity to one or two vegan entrees as to meat, poultry and fish. Offering a platter of side dishes won’t cut it, and neither will striping a grilled portobello with, yup, balsamic. Create a few actually interesting plant-based appetizers and main dishes. Ten percent of your clientele will thank you.

• If you’re going to offer risotto as a main course, do it right. This classic Italian rice dish is best if it’s cooked to order. Unfortunately, this is at least a 30-minute process, which is problematic at a restaurant. A good chef can make a decent risotto ahead and finish it to order, but I’ve seen pitiful risotto impersonations made with long grain rice and cream. Just say no.

• Speaking of main courses, it’s possible that some people like their savory entree made course made sweet, because America is in love with sugar. But really? Burgers slathered with tomato “jam”? Scallops in honey vinaigrette? Brussels sprouts in a peach juice reduction? Naah. Please don’t.

• Timing matters. It can be tough to stay on top of this in a business with labor issues, but please try to move the finished dish along. Get the steak out while it’s hot, and before carryover heat cooks it past that lovely medium rare. Get that ice cream treat out quickly too, before it melts into a sweet but gooey mess.

• Finally, when it’s time for dessert, why rush it out but then make us wait 20 minutes for coffee to go with it? Some people want coffee with dessert. Ask, please!

Okay, rant over. Don’t get me wrong: I still love this work and the good folks in the business. But there’s always room for improvement.

The post Just because you can doesn’t mean you should: Menu edition appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Saturday, July 30. noon – 6 pm
Louisville Water Tower Park
3005 River Road

Free Admission!

Parking: $6 in advance (purchase here)
$8 at the gate, bicycles free.
Parking is one of the ways LIBA raises funds to continue our Buy Local/Keep Louisville Weird campaigns.
Sorry, no animals (besides service animals) allowed.

The Buy Local Fair features all local businesses, including food & drink vendors, artists and craftspeople, farmers and more! Thanks to our sponsors for making it all possible.

Check out the Water Tower as it undergoes an historic renovation! More info here.

So many ways to love local at the Fair:

• Enjoy your local favorites at the ValuMarket Craft Beer & Heaven Hill Bourbon Tent
(We’ll also have margaritas from Crowler Catering.)
• Liquor samples and bottles for sale at the
Cox’s and Evergreen Liquors Tent
• Enjoy your meal from one of our local eateries in the shade of the Four Pegs Smokehouse & Bar Dining Tent
• And lots more! For more details see the Louisville Independent Business Alliance’s Buy Local Fair page!

The post Buy Local Fair Louisville July 30! appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I’m not going to say I’ve solved the ancient riddle about whether the chicken or the egg came first, but I can tell you that we enjoyed both those good things and more in a delicious brunch at Chik’n & Mi.

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the fare is excellent at Chik’n & Mi, as it’s the only local eatery I know of where both owners/chefs – the husband-and-wife team of Jason McCollum and Aenith Sananikone McCollum – are graduates of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.

Chik’n & Mi has earned considerable popularity in its relatively short run of five years or so. It arrived in March 2017 in a small building on Lower Brownsboro that had housed a long string of short-lived eateries. It moved into its current larger quarters in the spring of 2020, when the pandemic forced Jason McCollum to close his other restaurant, Hearth on Mellwood Eatery, after less than a year of operation.

Chik’n & Mi appears to be thriving in its new location where Clifton meets Butchertown, a historic farmhouse that for many years housed L & N Wine Bar, Bistro 1860, and Hearth on Mellwood.

It’s open for dinner only on weekdays, brunch and dinner on Saturdays and brunch on Sundays, with an attractive shady patio in addition to the old-house space and comfortable bar inside, which features an extensive sake collection, craft beers and creative cocktails.

In the land of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a host of down-home eateries that offer country-fried chicken, Chik’n & Me charts a bolder path. Drawing on Aenith McCollum’s Laotian heritage, it features Laotian-spiced fried chicken. There’s also a variety of “Asian-inspired comfort foods” across China, Korea, and Japan (ramen is a specialty), and on to a world-spanning range of other delights through Mexico to the U.S.A.

The weekend brunch menu is similar to the dinner menu but a bit more concise. It offers nine brunch starters and ten brunch dishes, along with its regular range of three ramen bowls and Asian fried FreeBird brand chicken.

Most of the brunch appetizers are $8 to $9, save for fried calamari ($15) and oysters on the half-shell ($15 for a half-dozen, $29 for a dozen). Brunch dishes range in price from $12 (for chilaquiles) to $16 (for fried chicken and waffles).

Miso pork, chicken noodle, or vegetarian ramen are all $16; add a dollar for the spicy or garlic lovers’ option. The Asian fried chicken is priced by size, from $8 for a chef’s choice trio of thighs, legs, or wings, to $15 for a large order of breast-meat nuggets. You’re also welcome to order a traditional breakfast a la carte with two eggs, bacon, or sausages for $4 each plus other traditional fixings.

Everything we tried showed off the kitchen’s skills. There wasn’t a sour note in the entire meal.

A cherry ginger salad ($9) featured a delicious, complex, faintly smoky cherry-ginger vinaigrette. Noodle-thin julienne strips of zucchini, yellow squash, and watermelon radish added flair to a fresh, clean and flavorful salad greens mix, with a generous portion of thin-sliced toasted almonds on top.

Tofu lettuce wraps ($8) offered plenty of neatly diced firm tofu mixed with thinly sliced red onions, julienne carrots, chopped cilantro and mint, piled high atop large, bright-green bibb lettuce leaves. A dish on the side bore a seductive, creamy spicy peanut sauce and bright-orange sweet-hot chili sauce. I wondered for a minute if iceberg lettuce would work better as I struggled to wrap tender bibb leaves around the filling to make a taco-style wrap. But the flavor and texture combination made the effort worthwhile.

Asian fried FreeBird chicken ($8 for a three-piece dark-meat order) was very tasty, firm and mild flavored. We were hard-pressed to detect anything that made it clearly Asian – perhaps an elusive hint of anise-scented “five spice” – but it was delicious all the same, fried with a pale-tan crust so crisp that it cracks when you bite into it. Perhaps it’s intended as a fresh palette to bear choice of sauces – sweet soy, hot Laotian jeaw bong, or X-tra hot. We chose the naked option, free of sauce, with house-made mild peppercorn ranch on the side.

From the chicken to the egg: We crossed to the Americas to enjoy a Mexican brunch favorite, huevos rancheros ($13). This dish would do credit to a taqueria. A pair of delightfully crunchy tostadas made a sandwich around two very runny eggs and a deeply flavored black-bean puree, drenched under a bath of spicy salsa roja and striped with creamy queso fresco and a cilantro garnish. It came with a small dish of fresh fruit and a bowl of spicy home-fried potatoes.

A delightful, filling brunch totaled $40.28, plus a $10 tip.

Chik’n & Mi
1765 Mellwood Ave.
890-5731
chiknandmi.com
facebook.com/chiknandmi
instagram.com/chikn_and_mi

Noise Level: Crowd noise ebbed and flowed during a busy Saturday brunch. At its peak, spikes to 85dB made conversation difficult at times.

Accessibility: The entrance and dining areas appear accessible to wheelchair users, but closely spaced tables could make wheelchair navigation tricky.

The post We enjoy the chicken and the egg at Chik’n & Mi appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I’ve often joked that Louisville’s effort to build bourbon tourism as a gigantic revenue source looks like a plan to turn Louisville into an urban version of the Napa Valley.

Since the late 1800s, Napa has lured tourists to come visit wineries, learn about wine, taste the stuff, and not incidentally, spend time and money at local eateries, taverns, and hotels. Who could blame our city government and business leaders for wanting to do something like that too, only with bourbon?

Great concept. But is it working? I wasn’t sure until I met Mark Joseph Carter, owner of California’s Carter Cellars at Envy Winery. Carter is a Napa wine maker who came to Kentucky to make bourbon.

Carter, a native of Eureka, California and host of the highly regarded Carter House Inns there, got into the wine business around 20 years ago. Working with respected wine maker Nils Venge, he sourced grapes from top Napa Vineyards to blend a rich, strong, double-oaked and barrel-aged Carter Cellars wine that earned leading wine critic Robert Parker’s 100-point rating. That sent Carter Cellars wines into the popularity and price stratosphere.

Carter comes to Kentucky

“It’s been quite a journey,” he said. Along the way, he had made a Kentucky connection through the innkeepers’ trade. Traveling the country years ago as head of an innkeepers’ trade association, he met Chuck Dedman, then owner of Harrodsburg’s historic Beaumont Inn.

“Chuck used to talk about how they once made a bourbon, Kentucky Owl. But the government took it away during Prohibition, destroyed all the bourbon, and they never got a plugged nickel. When I heard that story I never forgot it.”

After Chuck Dedman died, his son Dixon Dedman took over Beaumont Inn as its fifth generation owner. Dixon Dedman asked Carter if he would produce a house wine for sale in the Beaumont Inn’s dining room, but Carter had a better idea.

“I told Dixon, ‘I’d do that for him and his family, but your dad told me we used to make bourbon. Why don’t we bring your brand back?’ He said, ‘can we do that?’ I told him we can do anything we want to. We’re used to doing this with wine, we know how to be in compliance with federal regulations.”

So working together, seeking out and blending choice barrels, they brought to bear some of the same methods that had impressed Robert Parker in Carter Cellars’ wines: “The first thing we did was double oak and more char. We got the barrels and made our first Kentucky Owl in 2016.”

Carter wanted to grow the brand, but then came a knock on the door. Someone wanted to buy our brand.” Carter said he wanted to turn down the offer and nurture Kentucky Owl, but Dixon, 30 years younger and newly a father, chose to sell to the Stoli Group, take the money and invest in his family’s future.

“I agreed to sell for Dixon,” Carter said, “but I could start another brand. So in 2017 I bought some barrels and started over.” He used the same format, doubling the usual oak treatment. He located good older barrels of bourbon aging in rick houses around the state to blend with new bourbon that he distilled in Frankfort and Danville. “We’re blenders primarily,” he said, “but we do some distilling too.”

Now in the process of restoring three adjacent 19th century buildings on Market Street just a block south of Whiskey Row, he says he has produced nearly 100 separate “expressions” of very-small batch bourbon and rye under the Old Carter name, with labels designed by his wife Sherri, an artist and writer and whiskey maker.

Meanwhile, they’re learning to love Louisville. “It’s a great community and has really accepted us,” he said. “I’m sure bourbonism is going to grow. It’s good for the community, young people in Louisville are embracing it, and people are proud of what they’re producing. A lot of new jobs have opened up. For us, we want to do a premium product always, do the best we can and do it with integrity.”

Sniffing and sipping

I was able to spend a few minutes sniffing, sipping, and savoring a little taste of Old Carter Very Small Batch 1-OC straight bourbon whiskey, a warming potion indeed at 117.6 proof barrel strength. It’s definitely an impressive bourbon, lofting up abundant caramel, raisin, and sweet fruit scents.

At an average U.S. retail price of $595 according to the online database at Wine-Searcher.com, this potion is well above my budget. If you’re interested, though, Old Carter distributes to seven states including Kentucky, and can be found, while it lasts, in local liquor shops and back bars. Or watch Old Carter’s Facebook and Instagram pages for announcements of occasional “pop-up” sales of new bottlings.

?The Main Street shop isn’t open to the public for tasting or tours, but if you’re a serious fan, there’s still space in the Old Carter Social Club. For $100 a month, members are given a locker in Old Carter’s comfortable tasting rooms, first preference to buy at least six new releases annually, and the opportunity to taste the new releases with club director Brian Booth.

How does making bourbon compare with making wine? “In some ways I like it a little better,” Carter said, “because with bourbon you don’t have to wait for that one day a year that’s perfect to make wine, and Mother Nature can slap you down hard. You don’t need to worry about bud break or harvest or fire season.”

Reminiscing over a tiny portion of his potion in a tasting glass, Carter smiled and said, “I have been very lucky to be able to enjoy my work and have fun while I’m doing it!”

The post Napa wine maker comes to town to make bourbon appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told you before that pizza is one of my favorite foods. I can’t think of a one of Louisville’s 60-some pizzerias that I would flatly reject. Well, possibly some of the national chains, unless I was really hungry.

I mean, what’s not to like about pizza? It’s relatively healthy, a thin base of bread that, excepting the occasional deep-dish pie, imparts barely enough carbs to bother anyone. A layer of delicious tomato sauce, a layer of delicious cheese, some tasty meats or veggies of your liking on top … why, you’ve got all of the food groups on your plate!

So what’s my favorite pizza in town? I get that question a lot, but I don’t have an easy answer. Coal-fired and wood-fired pizzas appeal, but a proper gas-fired or electric pizza oven with a brick or concrete deck can absolutely get the job done.

Of course I love thin-crust New York City or Italian style, but I won’t say no to a slightly thicker crust, or even, on occasion, for the deep-dish styles of Chicago and Detroit.

A great pizza, after all, is as much about the bread as it is about the sauce, the cheese, and the toppings. To make me truly happy, pizza crust should have the heft, the bubbly texture and crisp exterior, and the good wheat flavor of an artisanal loaf. If you don’t have that excellent base, the rest of the pizza can hardly excel.

When it comes to great bread in a Louisville pizza, it’s hard to beat MozzaPi, happily reopened post-pandemic in its original quarters on the east side of Anchorage. Describing itself as an artisan pizzeria and bakery, MozzaPi takes pride in making its breads and pizza dough with sustainable, organic, locally farmed ancient grains freshly stone-milled in house. It’s tough to get more serious about your bread than that.

“The new pizza paradigm is all about balance,” MozzaPi declares on its website. “Artfully balancing the crust with the toppings, balancing the flavors with the textures, balancing local with seasonal ingredients. It is really about taking natural, healthy ingredients and preparing them in a way that is simple and satisfying.”

Yum! Just reading that makes me want pizza right now.

The current menu is about as simple as it gets: Seven speciality pizzas, all nine-inchers, all $14; or classic build-your-own pies with cheese ($11), pepperoni, or sausage (both $12), plus $2.50 per meat topping, $1.50 per veggie topping, 75 cents for extra cheese, and $2.50 if you need a gluten-free crust. A dinner-size house salad or a stunningly good kale salad are $13 each. A side of excellent foccacia is $5, a side salad $6, and for dessert, a cookie fresh from the oven is $3.

I made a healthy choice, right, with MozzaPi’s spinach and ricotta pizza ($14), pictured at the top of the page. A beautiful crust, golden and covered with leopard spots from the oven, was coated with just enough spicy, fresh-made tomato sauce and red-pepper flakes, topped with a thick blanket of fresh baby spinach, and finished with rounds of mozzarella and creamy ricotta cheese. The spinach didn’t wilt, so it was almost like a spinach salad pizza with cheese.

I would definitely try it again, but before I get back to it I’ve got to try some of the other offbeat topping combos first. Sweet onion marmalade pizza, for instance, with blue cheese, andouille sausage, bourbon cherries and rosemary. Or spicy giardiniera pizza with pepperoni, roasted red peppers, onion and celery, and spicy serrano peppers. Or .. or … yeah, I love these pizzas.

Kale salad ($13) was perfect. Plenty of chopped kale was gently massaged with olive oil and lemon dressing, then garnished with grape tomatoes, toasted walnuts, sunflower seeds, and Parmesan slices. Fresh-baked rosemary focaccia on the side added a welcome touch.

A side house salad ($6) had potential, too, a good concept marrying mixed spring lettuces and baby spinach with cherry tomatoes, graded carrot and chopped cucumber and slices of parm, with an appetizing Dijon mustard and lemon dressing. That’s a lot to like, but it was flawed by a pet peeve: Blackened edges on a few lettuce bits that should have been discarded.

For what it’s worth, though the owner and a staff of three were extremely busy handling the register, the kitchen, and running food on a very busy day. They got so much right under trying circumstances that I can’t fault them much for this small slip.

We finished with one of favorite cookies, a sweet, coarse-grained corn cookie ($3) made from fresh-ground yellow cornmeal and baked to order. It was so good that I ordered two more to go.

Our meal for two was $38.16, plus 22 percent tip.

MozzaPi Pizza
12102 La Grange Road
890-4832
mozzapi.com
facebook.com/MozzaPi
instagram.com/mozzapi

Noise Level: The dining room was almost full for a Saturday lunch, and with songs like Katy Perry’s Firework on the sound system, noise levels peaked at 78dB, about the level of a home vacuum cleaner.

Accessibility: The dining room is level and appears accessible to wheelchair users, but the main entrance door is large and heavy and sticks at the bottom.

The post MozzaPi’s pizza remains near and dear to my heart appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

I’ve liked food for a long time. Coming of age in the time of Julia Child and James Beard and culinary stars like that, it didn’t take me long as a young adult to get interested in cooking and dining out.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the restaurant critic’s mic: The more interested I became in food and cooking, the more I wanted to learn about food. Where does it come from? How does it grow? How is it distributed? And maybe most of all, why is it that some people on this green Earth have so much food that they can throw it away, while others might want to fight for those scraps?

In other words – and these are words that I’ll share with anyone who asks about food and drink – I believe that anyone who really wants to know food does best to learn not only about the culinary arts but also food distribution, hunger and poverty, and what needs to happen to get food on everybody’s plate.

Food justice: What it is

In short, I came to believe in food justice, the simple but important principle that everyone on Earth deserves access to nutritious, affordable, and culturally-appropriate food, and that those who work to get us our food, from the farm through processors, distributors to the grocery store, have a right to a living wage and and safety on the job.

I’ve tried to put my money where my mouth is. I covered the early days of the farm-to-table movement. When I left the downtown newspapers I did a quick pivot to work for a New York City-based nonprofit that worked in hunger and poverty (and published a book about that experience in 1995). I’ve stayed involved, supported farmers’ markets, and helped organize the big monthly food pantry at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in 2010. (It’s still going on, by the way. If you need food, show up and get a trunk load of groceries from Dare to Care at 9 a.m. every third Saturday. No ID needed, no questions asked.)

Am I bragging? No, not really, or not much anyway. All this is by way of explaining why I jumped up from my chair with a whoop when I ran across the LouFoodGuide: A Louisville Guide to Local (and Free) Food & Farm Resources, last month.

The LouFoodGuide: What it is

This Google Drive spreadsheet is a crowdsourced directory that serves as an aid to people who need food, people who want to help provide food, people who’d like to support a food-helping organization, and just anyone interested in food justice.

Its 96 entries (as of this writing) include directories of services, local farms, locally owned groceries, farm-to-fork catering companies, sources of emergency and free food, local food and agriculture organizations, national food and farmworker organizations, and other community resources. Every entry includes the organization’s name, website, phone and/or email, and brief description.

I loved this neat, comprehensive, and well-kept list, but I had so many questions! Who made it? Who is it for? A quick dive through an email address at the top of the page led me to Andrew Kang Bartlett, associate for national hunger concerns at the Presbyterian Hunger Program. Bartlett is involved with The Food In Neighborhoods Community Coalition (FIN), a 10-year-old community food policy council.

Food In Neighborhoods

What’s a FIN? Get ready for it. It needs a few words to spell out its mission: “FIN has been committed to creating a space where all have a voice in shaping a just and resilient food system, with special emphasis on perspectives, expressed needs, and solutions emerging from the neighborhoods that are most directly and negatively affected by the dominant food regime. FIN supports local efforts and initiates collaborative projects in urban agriculture, food and agricultural policy and advocacy, and food justice and food access in Louisville, Kentucky.”

Among other things, that includes the evolution of the LouFoodGuide that I found. The LouFoodGuide is intended to help anyone interested in these services to find food pantries and hot meals; find farmers and farmers’ markets, and find food advocacy organizations and other food-related community resources. Want to check it out? Here’s a shortened link: https://bit.ly/LouFoodGuide

I’m handing the mic to Bartlett to wrap this up with a little more background on FIN, its aims and intentions:

“FIN occupies a unique place in Louisville and bridges many essential parts of Louisville’s food system. FIN brings a justice and equity lens to food, which we consider a universal human right. …

“FIN is committed to creating a space where all voices are heard in shaping a just and resilient food system, with special emphasis on perspectives, expressed needs, and solutions emerging from the neighborhoods that are most directly and negatively affected by nutritional and food insecurity.“

How we can help

So how can you and I get involved? For starters, urban farmer Ariel Gartner at Fifth Element Farms, a pretty pollinator garden and greenhouse that grows foods for its South 26th Street neighbors, told me kindly but firmly: West Louisville’s new urban farmers don’t need well-off white folks from the East End coming down to tell them what to do. Fair enough.

But the organizations working for food equity and justice – see the LouFoodGuide for details – can use our donations and help. The FIN Website (foodinneighborhoods.org) offers more great resources and ways to get involved.

And if you see your local Metro Council rep at the grocery store? Collar them and tell them to be very cautious about the proposed West End Tax Increment Financing (TIF) plan. A lot of West End residents remain unenthusiastic about another big project from outside. And while you’re at it, ask them to do a rethink on weed-control ordinances that make it difficult for urban farmers to grow food and pollinator flowers on their city lots.

The post Like food? Learn about food justice. This form can help appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

China’s $1.4 billion population in 2022 is roughly four times the size of our 335 million people, and all those hungry Chinese enjoy, depending on where they live, at least eight major regional cuisines dating back thousands of years.

So why is it, if we don’t think twice about enjoying the varieties of American fare – Southern chow, Cajun cuisine, Texas barbecue and so many more of our own regional cuisines – that most Americans for many years assumed that all Chinese food was summed up in the menu at the local chop suey house?

Years ago, this narrow vision started to change a little. We got a few fancy Chinese places offering dishes that we thought were authentic. Then came some regional spots offering the spicy dishes of Sichuan and Hunan, often combined in a single eatery. The cognoscenti started to sniff and look down their noses at chop suey and fried rice and such confections that we considered mere “Chinese-American.”

You can still get those dishes around town, of course, at a neighborhood Chinese eatery or even buried in the extensive menu of a fancier place. Lots of people love it. Let’s not shame them.

It comes down to this: There are probably more Chinese restaurants around Louisville these days than ever. Many are immigrant-run fast-food Chinese spots that seem to set up near just about every supermarket in town.

But Louisville’s heyday of serious regional Chinese eateries with skilled chefs who came from Taiwan, Hong Kong, or the Chinese mainland seems to have crested years ago, perhaps marked by the 2008 closure of the fabled Red Pepper Chinese.

Now that it’s easy to find fast-food Chinese just about everywhere, and now that our growing crowd of immigrant neighbors offers us a wider choice of world cuisine than ever before, it seems that we don’t often think about going for serious Chinese anymore.

But when I do crave a memorable Chinese meal that goes beyond the standard shopping-center menu, I’ll happily make the long trek out past Middletown for an outstanding meal at Jasmine Chinese Cuisine.

Breaking with the old tradition of offering two menus, one for Westerners and another, featuring more “challenging” dishes, for Chinese patrons, Jasmine brings it all together with about 200 dishes on the Chinese menu, each dish described in both Chinese characters and English.

If you’re in the mood for old-school Chinese-American fare, you can find it here in dishes like chicken or pork fried rice ($9.99), chicken or pork foo young ($10.99), or chicken moo goo gain pan ($10.99). At the other end of the scale, rarities like Sichuan-style beef maw and tendon ($10.99), pig ear ($8.99) or salt and pepper beef tongue ($9.99) are yours for the asking. Most entrees are $8.99 to $12.99 and fall between those extremes. Daily lunch specials range from $7.59-$8.99.

Jasmine also offers an extensive list of sushi specialties including about 50 makizushi rolls. But it’s really hard for me to come to Jasmine and order anything but Sichuanese.

We started with cold cucumber salad ($6.99), which sounds simple but is anything but. Fresh cucumbers had been seeded and cut at an angle into long half-moon slices, then artfully assembled into a neat, pale-green mound, topped with a pile of lemongrass rounds, snipped green onions, and shreds of ginger, then drizzled with a soy sauce and chile oil dressing. The tangy-salty-spicy flavor combination was remarkably subtle and complex.

Tea-smoked duck ($19.99), is made with a multi-step process. It involves a dry-rub marinade of Sichuan pepper, salt, ginger and garlic, followed by a quick dip in boiling water, then a few minutes of smoking over black tea leaves in a closed wok, and finally a deep fry to crisp the skin.

What appeared to be a whole duck was chopped into chunks through the bones and neatly arranged on a white oval platter. The skin was as crisp as fatty duck skin can get, reminiscent of pork cracklings, and the meat was juicy and delicious. The tea-smoke flavor is more subtle than forward, but the complex mix of smoke and astringent Sichuan peppercorns make this dish memorable. It comes with a small tub of thick, sweet hoisin sauce for dipping.

Another characteristic Sichuanese dish is mapo tofu ($10.99), a dish that purportedly originated in Chengdu, Sichuan, in the 19th century and got its name – literally “pock-marked grandmother’s tofu” – from the restaurateur’s wrinkled face and the similar dots of red chile flakes and black beans against snow-white tofu. That description fits Jasmine’s version, which cloaked about 16 inch-square cubes of tender silken tofu in a glossy, cornstarch-thickened sauce scented with Sichuan pepper and loaded with spicy chiles, tiny black beans, and strips of green onion.

Our meal for two, with plenty of leftovers, came to $40.25 plus a $9 tip.

Jasmine Chinese Cuisine
13825 English Villa Drive
244-8896
jasminelouisville.com
facebook.com/jasminechineselouisville

Noise Level: We shared the large room with only a few other diners during a late lunch, and the sound levels were as quiet as our living room.

Accessibility: The modern shopping-center space appears fully accessible to wheelchair users.

The post For a top-notch Sichuanese meal, call J-a-s-m-i-n-e appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

Appetizers! There’s something about simply hearing the name that gets your taste buds working, or mine, anyway. It even sounds so much more appealing than the hoity-toity French “hors d’oeuvres,” am I right?

So what is an appetizer, anyway, and where did this idea of offering a small, tasty bit before the main course come from?

This is where things start getting a little complicated, so stick with me. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines appetizer as “a food or drink that stimulates the appetite and is usually served before a meal.”

Sharon Tyler Herbst’s New Food Lover’s Companion concurs, mostly, calling an appetizer any small, bite-size food served before a meal. It may be finger food or a first course served at the table with knife and fork.

The word “appetizer” first appeared in English around 1820, but it became popular in the U.S. and England around 1860, perhaps because nobody really know how to spell “hors d’oeuvres.” Curiously, I discovered to my confusion during a couple of trips to Australia and New Zealand a while back, folks down under don’t use the word appetizer at all. They call that preliminary course an entrée, which is accurate French but quite confusing to a traveling Yank.

Do apps really “whet and excite the palate”?

So what is it about appetizers that delights us so much, anyway? To start with, I’m going to question the conventional wisdom that the name implies, “to whet and excite the palate.”

How does that even work? If you’ve ever filled up on all the delicious free chips and salsa at your favorite Mexican restaurant and got too full to finish your main course, you know that the human system isn’t really designed to work that way.

A cynic might suspect that the appetizer tradition simply affords the restaurant an opportunity to charge you for an additional dish, but there are no cynics on this bus. Let’s just agree that the enjoyment of dining out is only enhanced by having one more tasty treat on the table.

But here’s a twist on the narrative: If I go out to dine and I’m being thrifty, or just not all that hungry (perhaps thanks to a ration of chips and salsa), I’ve been known to order a comparatively hearty appetizer instead of a main course. I save a few calories compared with a larger entrée, save a few bucks, and still get to enjoy the chef’s skills and the restaurant experience.

Another approach: Build a meal with two or three appetizers as small plates, and enjoy a tour of the chef’s work.

Does dining on apps make you seem cheap?

Don’t worry about being seen as a cheapskate. In my experience, restaurateurs are happy to have you do this. Consider adding a substantial bump to your tip to make up the difference to the server, though. The server will be happy, and you’ll still come out ahead.

Curious to find out if I’m the only one who thinks this is a good idea, I asked Facebook friends if anyone else ever orders a starter or salad as a main course. The answer: Do they ever! At least three out of four responses said “of course!”

I also invited social-media friends to tell me about their favorite appetizer at a local eatery, and hoo boy did they want to talk. A few highlights:

• • The clear crowd favorite was green chili wontons at the Bristol Bar & Grille, which drew raves from a half-dozen stalwarts. Also garnering multiple nominations were fried tofu squares at Heart & Soy with three mentions.
  • Undervalued vegetables take center stage as chef-driven appetizers like the pickled beet salad and the sweet chili vinegar glazed brussels sprouts at Fat Lamb; beets and ricotta at Bar Vetti; fried brussels sprouts at Scout & Scholar Brewing in Bardstown; fried brussels sprouts salad at Village Anchor; brussels sprout salad at Four Pegs; and cauliflower salad at Chik’n & Mi. Who knew that those veggies that Mom made you eat could taste so good?
  • Fried calamari is another crowd-pleaser, with Chik’n & Mi and Porcini coming in for favorable mention.
  • And so it goes, from the simple (El Molcajete’s chips and salsa) to the fancy (daikon fries with curry-honey mayo at Dragon King’s Daughter or duck confit flautas at Guaca Mole).
  • My favorite? It’s a tough pick, but when Seviche offers blistered shishito peppers on its appetizer menu, I can. not. resist.

Good apps demonstrate the chef’s skill

Here’s a fun fact about appetizers: In a good kitchen that takes pride in its work, that price won’t show only in the main dishes. The small plates, salads and sides, too, will show close attention to creativity, quality and flavor.

So it was with our recent visit to Common Haus Hall, where a $10.50 order of sauerkraut balls demonstrated the skills of Chef Jonathan Exum’s kitchen. A half-dozen perfectly fried portions of sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and Bavarian cheese got up-close and personal within a perfectly fried, golden-brown crust.This demonstration of frying skill signaled, if we had been in any doubt, that a main-course schnitzel would be a safe bet.

Another great appetizer that I enjoyed this year is Vietnam Kitchen’s Vietnamese crepe (VA17 Banh xeo chay, $9.25, with tofu, or A17 Banh Xeo, $9.50, with shrimp. This item is absolutely filling enough to serve as your meal, although it’s hard to stop with just one dish at VK! It looks like a giant omelet folded over sizzling ingredients, but it’s actually made with rice flour and coconut milk, tinted yellow with turmeric. It’s quickly cooked in a wok, then folded over bean sprouts, grilled onions and either tofu or shrimp.

I could say more, but it’s your turn. There are tons of great apps around town. Get out there and start eating, and don’t be shy if you want to make an appetizer your meal. Or two or three.

The post Everything – well, some things – you wanted to know about appetizers appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

The beloved German restaurant Gasthaus closed last month after nearly 30 years of delighting us with delicious schnitzel sauerbraten and more. So what are we going to go now, when we’re hankering for wurst or some flammenkueche or even a giant German pretzel?

Good news! A quick trip across the Ohio will bring you to Common Haus Hall, an outstanding recent arrival on the local dining scene.

Common Haus Hall is a sibling to New Albany’s Pints & Union, and it’s easy to see the family resemblance between both eateries in concept and style. But where Pints & Union brings the vibe of a British pub and curry house to the table, Common Haus Hall, as the name suggests, evokes a Bavarian bierstube.

Be aware, though, that while Common Haus will absolutely satisfy a German-food crave in the space left by Gasthaus, there are significant differences.

Gasthaus was authentic German, run by a German immigrant family. Common Haus is a German-style eatery and pub run by a couple of Hoosier gents who love food and drink. Both Common Haus and Pints & Union spring from the creative mind of restaurateur Joe C. Phillips with Roger Baylor as beer consultant.

“We don’t claim to be German or traditional at all,” Phillips said. “We are influenced by Bavarian range foods. We want to bring our version of Bavarian classics along with modern, approachable Indiana-based items as well. We’re focused on old and new, the past and present. Hence, schnitzel sandwiches!

Be that as it may, Common Haus feels an awful lot like a Bavarian bierstube to me. The old three-story brick building just north of the Ohio offers three floors and a stack of decks with views of the Louisville skyline.

Pick your floor, settle in with a good German beer and a Bavarian-inspired bite, and you will immediately feel a sense of Gemütlichkeit, the barely translatable German word that encompasses coziness, contentment and warmth, and well-being.

The main-floor room accomplished that for me. Warm and friendly service, a Germanic feel in the dim red-brick setting and dark-wood bar, random wall decor a bit more offbeat than the traditional German tchotchkes, culminating in a life-size wooden statue of Francis of Assisi, holding a checkered fedora in his outstretched hand.

Despite the casual feel, Common Haus boasts a serious kitchen run by Executive Chef Jonathan Exum, a Culinary Institute of America grad who was executive chef at Jack Fry’s and worked at Wiltshire Pantry Bakery and Cafe and other local kitchens. This is a serious resume, and it shows in Common Haus’ fare.

Exum’s two-page menu covers the Bavarian basics, including shared appetizers($10.50-$17.50, Haus sandwiches *$7.50-$16.50). and house specialties like spaetzle with mushrooms, onions, and white asparagus ($20.50) to sauerbraten or a five-sausage sampler ($28.50).

The Common Haus beer list features about a dozen German and local craft brews on tap and another couple of dozen in cans and bottles. I enjoyed a refreshing, relatively low-alcohol half-liter of Paulaner Pilsner from Munich ($7.25).

Sauerkraut Balls ($10.50) got us off to a tasty start. Six golden cubes the size of ping-pong balls of tangy sauerkraut, creamy mashed potatoes and blended Bavarian cheeses were cloaked in a perfectly fried, crunchy bound breading, with a tub of bright-yellow, sinus-clearing curry mayo alongside.

Schnitzel, a classic dish of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, is a slab of meat pounded tender and cloaked in a bound fried coating. Common Haus makes a splendid version using pork with six sauce options, all $16.50.

Our Jaeger (“hunter) style schnitzel (pictured at the top of the page) had been pounded to about 1/3-inch thick, but it was huge. Served on quality brötchen (small bread), the schnitzel was three times as big as the bun. The well-made breading boosted the flavor with a piquant sweet-sour note. A dollop of Jaeger sauce, a rich brown onion and mushroom gravy with a rich flavor. that married well with the schnitzel.

“Stadium-style” grilled sausage ($7.50) is available with choice of a half-dozen sausages: bratwurst, frankfurter, weisswurst, knockwurst, Hungarian gyulai sausage, or vegan brat. We tried the vegan brat ($1 surcharge) and found it a dead ringer for the real thing, especially topped with sauerkraut and spicy beer mustard on a toasted roll.

Sandwiches come with beer-battered fries, but we upgraded to two premium sides ($1.50 each):

Six long, thin spears of white asparagus were grilled just enough to impart a delicious smoky note that went beautifully with a light, sweet-sour dressing.

Haus Spaetzle also offered a good representation of this classic German side: Tiny bits of egg noodle dumplings were tossed in a sweet-sour dressing and sprinkled with chopped herbs.

With one beer, dinner for two came to $48.96, plus a $10 tip.

Common Haus Hall
134 Spring St.
Jeffersonville, Ind.
(812) 590-1243
commonhaushall.com
Facebook: https://bit.ly/CommonHausHall
instagram.com/commonhaushall

Noise Level: The sound ebbed and flowed, but the noise in the long, narrow, brick-walled space can get ear-shattering when the room is full.

Accessibility: The front entrance is accessible to wheelchair users, but access inside is limited. The main room is down a short step, the upper floors and decks are served by stairs.

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It may be true that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, or at least that a free lunch rarely comes without a quid pro quo. But half-price wine? Now, that is a thing!

Locally and around the nation, a surprising number of restaurants choose at least one evening per week to offer all or part of its wine list at half-price, usually with the purchase of a meal. A few, like Louisville’s Volare Ristorante, go a step further with half-price wine seven days a week for patrons dining at the bar.

These deals go beyond the traditional happy hour, with its half-price offerings on beers, well drinks, and wines by the glass, by allowing the diner to choose an interesting bottle of wine to enjoy with a partner through the entire meal. And if a whole bottle is too much for you to finish at a sitting, Kentucky law now allows you to take your leftovers home to enjoy another day.

“It’s a great thing,” says Josh Moore, executive chef and managing partner at Volare. “With one or two of the small plates that we have on the bar menu, or pizza, and a half-price wine, you can get a really nice meal for an affordable price.” (Moore is pictured at the top of the page, Instagramming a fresh, sustainably caught black grouper from Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. that was Volare’s fish special on Derby weekend.)

It should be obvious that half-price wine night has its appeal for diners who enjoy wine. “We had a good restaurant nearby that had a happy hour, appetizer half price and reduced price for wine,” said Facebook friend Frank D. “We went several times, and otherwise we rarely visit restaurants.”

What’s in it for the restaurateur?

But what’s in it for the restaurateur? That gets a little more complicated, but it does make sense. “We’ve been doing this for more years than I can say. A long time,” said Volare’s Chef Moore. “We do other promotions over the years, but the half-price wine at the bar we’ve always done. It’s great, it makes sense. There’s no labor in a bottle of wine so it’s easy to to do.

Half price appetizers or cocktails are harder to justify,” he said, because you can’t cut the labor costs of preparing those items. But half-price wine “makes sense for us and the guests love it. I think a lot of our patrons come in for the half-price wine.”

Volare offers about 55 bottles on its half-price list at the bar, Moore said. At half price they range from $20 to 65 for a bottle. What’s more, on Wednesday evenings, the entire dining-room wine list is half price, excluding only the high-end reserve list.

The math of wine markups

What Moore isn’t saying out loud is the simple truth about alcohol’s place in the restaurant business: Markups on wine, in particular, are so high that it’s easy to offer substantial discounts and still come out ahead.

The numbers are simple: A bottle of wine that’s priced at $12 wholesale might sell for $18 at your local wine shop, but it turns up with a $25 to $35 or even $40 price tag when you order it from a restaurant wine list.

Restaurants operate on tight overall margins, more than ever now that server and kitchen wages are gradually becoming a bit more fair. Food prices are rising, and it’s hard to cut costs there. But alcohol sells well, and that’s where restaurant managers turn to make their numbers work.

Wine by the glass, in particular, is a category that makes the owner smile. It’s standard practice to set the price for a glass at the wholesale price for the bottle. Sell one glass and you break even; the rest is profit.

Bottle pricing isn’t quite so spectacular, but many restaurants still set their wine-list prices at triple the wholesale price. That allows plenty of room for discounting – yes, even half price – and the restaurant still comes out well ahead.

From the server’s point of view

“When I was waiting tables before grad school,” recalled former server Brian Smith, “my restaurant had a half-price bottle night. I found that while it didn’t necessarily drive more business (we weren’t necessarily busier on that night than other nights during the week and I doubt we were busier on that night than we would have been absent the deal) it did make for higher check averages. Whereas a couple might normally just each get a glass of wine, they instead opted to get a nicer bottle since it was half off.”

Cindy Franklin, another former restaurant server, agreed. “I have not worked in service for many years, but as a consumer I have not minded raising the total bill by purchasing a bottle on sale. It feels like a good deal, and you can be more generous pouring for your guests.”

Ready to go get a half-price bottle with dinner? You won’t have a hard time finding such a deal. A list posted on the HotBytes forum in 2019 listed more than 75 local restaurant half-price specials. Wednesday was the big day, with plenty more on Mondays and Tuesdays, an apparent move to bring in traffic on traditionally slow evenings.

Find half-price wine? An easy reference

One easy reference, the Louisville Mom Collective maintains an extensive list of local restaurants with half-price wine offers. It’s not hard to find deals at your favorite spots on your own. Simply follow the Facebook and Instagram pages and websites of your favorite eateries and watch for announcements. And then put on your going-out-to-dinner clothes and enjoy a dinner with wine. Cheers!

The post Half-price wine, what a deal! appeared first on LouisvilleHotBytes.com.

“We do not have cats,” a sign in the front window of Alley Cat Cafe’s little dining room warns, perhaps to ward off disappointment from visitors expecting to delight in a cat cafe with cute kittens jumping on the tables.

There are, in fact, a few ceramic cats on a tchotchke shelf in a corner. But Alley Cat Cafe is best known as a destination for delicious, affordable breakfast and lunch, attracting crowds on Middletown’s old Main Street for 21 years.

It’s been almost that long since I last reviewed Alley Cat Cafe, and looking over my 2003 review, it appears that hardly anything has changed. The casual, homey decor is about the same, most of the menu selections remain unchanged. The room is as neat as a pin, with a big green Health Department “A” and a 100-point score on the wall to prove it. Even the prices haven’t gone up as much as 20 years of economic turmoil might suggest.

“I’m hard pressed to think of any other local eatery that offers food of this high quality for a price this low,” I wrote at the end of that review. “Highly recommended.” From 2003 to 2022, I wouldn’t change a word of that.

Alley Cat Cafe is open daily except Sunday for breakfast and lunch, beginning the day with basic breakfast dishes and continuing through early afternoon with a selection of soups and sandwiches plus a few entrees, many showing a faint Italian accent. Everything on the breakfast menu is $9.99 or less, and the same is true for all the lunch items except three entrees that top out at $13.25 (for salmon sauteed in lemon caper sauce).

The Cafe is also famous for its homemade cakes, which are on display in a glass-front case to tempt you through your meal.

When we arrived, the polite server let us know that she was working alone in the crowded room, so service might be a little slow. That’s a smart move: It’s much easier for me to relax when I know there’s going to be a delay than to be irritated with an unexpected wait.

As it turned out, our meals didn’t take that long anyway, and the noonday crowd thinned out while we waited. We took advantage of the Cafe’s lunch special, which offers half of any panini or sandwich and a cup of soup or a salad for a thrifty $7.59. (The only asterisk to this deal adds 50 cents if your package includes a caesar salad, or a roast beef or sausage sub sandwich.

A hot roast beef sandwich ($9.49 on the regular menu, , $7.99 on the half-and-half special) piled several evenly sliced pieces of warm roast beef with crisply seared dark-brown edges and a single slice of melted provolone on a standard hoagie roll. A small tub of salty beef bouillon came alongside for optional dipping.

A portion of southwest caesar salad ($6.49 small, $7.99 large on the regular menu, 50 cents extra on the sandwich-and-salad combo) was a good one even though a couple of the cut squares of romaine looked a bit brown on the edges. All the romaine was crisp, not wilted, though, and a good, savory Caesar dressing was a definite plus. A few bits of artichoke heart, diced red and green bell pepper and shreds of Parmesan added color, and the crisp croutons were excellent.

A Milano panini ($8.49 on the regular menu, $7.49 with the half-and-half special) was excellent, and it boasted distinct Italian flavors. Roasted rounds of Italian eggplant, slices of portobello mushroom, a beautiful tender lettuce leaf and bits of Brie were pulled together with the distinct basil scent of pesto mayo on sliced toasted Asiago cheese bread. It was an excellent sandwich, and in retrospect I could have eaten a whole one.

The soup of the day – asparagus portobello – also showed off the chef’s creative skills. Cream-based and rich, it contained fine-chopped asparagus as well as bits of sliced mushroom and long-simmered asparagus spears. The flavors worked exceptionally well, with the mushroom imparting a subtle note almost like truffles.

A huge slice of Italian wedding cake made a delightful finish. It was wonderful cake, a highlight of an already good meal. Three layers high, with a mix of coconut and pecan bits to add texture to its yellow-cake base, it was finished with a thick, succulent cream-cheese icing studded with pecans. Please, sir, may I have some more?