The simple black logo that adorns Louisville’s popular Grind Burger truck and its new sibling, Grind Burger Kitchen, speaks volumes about owners Liz and Jesse Huot’s brisk journey from corporate life to the uncertain joys of running a popular food truck.
Well … actually, Grind is not exactly a food truck. It’s a concession trailer towed by a pickup truck. And that, like the black, gear-like logo, is part of their story.
Continue reading The daily Grind pays off for Liz and Jesse Huot
I slurped a mouthful of fat white udon noodles. Slurping noodles is entirely appropriate in Japanese culture, you know.
I savored the aromatic brown broth, took a deep breath and sighed, full of happy.
“Mmm. Umami.”
Mary gave me a funny look. “I don’t think rap is your thing.”
“No! ‘Oo-mommy,’ not ‘Yo momma.’ It’s a Japanese word.”
Continue reading We savor the umami at Barcode 1758
If you’ve been reading my gustatory musings for any time, you know that I bring a strong locavore sensibility to this work. I like to eat local food, and I prefer to dine at local restaurants. When I do business with a bank, grocer, optician, investment adviser, newspaper and, most definitely, restaurant, I like to know that the owner herself is available for a conversation, will look me in the eye, shake my hand, and offer me a fair deal.
Continue reading This locavore makes an exception for Noodles & Company
Who’s up for a steak dinner? A juicy, sizzling chunk of cow flesh, pink and rare, with all the trimmings?
The “steak” part of this equation is fairly easy to fill. Start talking about “all the trimmings,” though, and things get complicated. Head for an executive-style steak house, and you can get a slab of cow on your plate with no muss or fuss. Choose your own sides.
Continue reading The ordinary becomes extraordinary at Corbett’s
There are just 28 days left before Election Day 2014 as you read this, and that means we must endure 672 more hours of television, radio, robo-call and Internet advertising time. In this market, a great deal of this mind-numbing noise will be devoted to Senator-since-forever Mitch McConnell and his feisty challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes.
Okay fine, I get it, that’s how the system works in 21st century America. Well, that, and limitless contributions by anonymous corporate interests, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.
I have made my decision and probably won’t stray from it, so I’m doing my best to tune out the constant drone. But sometimes it’s hard to ignore.
For instance, why in the heck do they keep talking about coal? Continue reading We enlist in the war for Coals. Pizza, that is.
Here’s a pro tip for restaurant servers: Don’t suck up. Even if you think you’ve spotted a food critic in the house, don’t do it. It can lead to no good end.
Or maybe you don’t reserve the obsequiousness for suspected food writers. Maybe you fawn over everyone who comes in the door, thinking that bowing and scraping like a rug merchant in a Middle Eastern bazaar will prompt everyone to shower you with big tips.
Take this clue: It doesn’t work. Or it sure as hell doesn’t work for me, anyway.
Continue reading Anoosh is back! Now, what is he going to do?
The news that Thai-Siam had closed after 25 years of dishing up Thai cuisine to Louisville-area diners came with more of a sense of nostalgia than loss, I’d say.
When it opened in 1989, I was beside myself with joy. Having discovered Thai cuisine in California way back in the day, I loved it so hard, and ached for it to make its way east. Continue reading It’s worth fighting the bridges to get to TanThai
We stepped into the high-ceilinged room that had housed De La Torre’s for so many years. It looks … different. And very cool. There’s wood all around, and glass and some brass, too, and a bar so long it goes back to there, backed by an awe-inspiring wall of wines housed in high-tech argon gas dispensers that keep the vino fresh.
Also, it’s loud, and by “loud,” I mean LOUD! as in “I can’t hear a frappin’ word you’re saying!”
Continue reading LouVino? LOUVINO? What? I can’t heeeaaarrr you!
What? The food guy is going Mexican again? Three weeks running, he’s ricocheted from Argentine beef to taqueria offal to fancified Chicano fare in the surfer tradition? ¿Qué pasa? Or, in the Queen’s English, what’s up with that?
Hmm. I suppose I could claim that I’m dining Latino-style out of solidarity with the flood of kids from Central America who are piling up at our border. I could say I’m doing it to take a stand in a national debate that prompts some Americans to yell that Lady Liberty lifts her lamp beside the golden door only for immigrants who look like us.
And those things could be true.
But to be honest, I mainly went to El Camino this week to check out the Sunday brunch Continue reading El Camino’s brunch wows us with Latino style
Folks in our Crescent Hill neighborhood have been watching with considerable anticipation as a crew associated with Louisville’s Bluegrass Brewing Co. sped through a major “gut rehab” of the old Darkstar tavern, converting what had been frankly a rather grim saloon into an airy, inviting temple to all things local beer and food.
Continue reading Craft House packing them in on Frankfort
