All posts by LouisvilleHotBytes

Industry Standard

Now comes the lean season

On my first day of culinary school, the Basic Skills instructor warned that when we worked in restaurants, we would spend our holidays with co-workers, not our families.

“Get used to turning to the guy beside you on the hot line at midnight … to say ‘Happy New Year,'” Chef Graham said. “Get used to taking your wife out for Valentine’s Day some other day in February … Tell your mom you will be cooking her Mother’s Day feast on some other day of the week … Forget about seeing Churchill Downs on the first weekend in May ever again …”
Continue reading Now comes the lean season →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, World Food

Economy? What economy? Furlongs is back!

Baked oysters at Furlongs
Furlongs’ baked naked oysters are oysters made for the wary, served on the half-shell just like the real thing but cooked through for reassurance. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

One year slouches to a close, another draws near, and if any subject dominates the conversation, it’s the economy.

With the closing of a number of high-profile independent restaurants toward year’s end, including Primo, Melillo’s, Park Place and Browning’s, and Seviche’s suburban operation on Goose Creek Road, there’s been a lot of media coverage – and abundant speculation – about the recessionary economy taking down our beloved local eateries.

We’re not so sure. It’s certainly true that in hard times, more than ever, those of us who love good eats and the fine independent restaurants that cook them need to get out there and support the industry with our business.

But a closer look at the local industry over the past year suggests that Louisville’s independent dining scene is a far cry from the banking industry or Detroit’s dinosaurs. You’ll find few toxic assets on your dinner plate, and lemons turn up only with our fish entree or in our iced tea.
Continue reading Economy? What economy? Furlongs is back! →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, Pacific Rim

Harming no animals at Bombay Grill

Vegetarian plate at Bombay Grill
Vegetarian plate from the lunch buffet at Bombay Grill. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

If you’ll pardon a brief personal digression, I’ve been mournful lately following the loss of my beloved yellow cat Pepito, who died last month after a short, vicious bout with a virulent feline cancer. I held him in my arms and cried as the vet gave him the injection that eased his pain and took him from us way too soon. He was only 10.

To be frank, after having watched the light fade from the bright eyes of my best friend, I went through a period when I really didn’t feel right about making my meal on anything that had once been part of a living animal with a mommy and a face.

A vegetarian food critic? Appealing, but probably impractical in a general-audience newspaper, even one as eccentric as LEO Weekly. Continue reading Harming no animals at Bombay Grill →

$ Budget (under $30), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, Commentary, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown

Mazzoni’s is gone, but the rolled oyster lives

Rolled oyster
The original Mazzoni’s rolled oyster, now available only at Flabby’s. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

With the regrettable closing of Mazzoni’s last month after 124 1/2 years in local business, Flabby’s Schnitzelburg in Germantown – under the same family ownership – is now the only place in the world where you can still munch on the original Mazzoni’s rolled oyster.
Continue reading Mazzoni’s is gone, but the rolled oyster lives →

$ Budget (under $30), Commentary, Mexican, Cuban, Caribbean, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Roll out the (taco) wagon!

Tacos from Tacos Toreados
A taco dinner at home from Tacos Toreados. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

East Enders who’ve been jealous of their Buechel and Fern Creek neighbors over Las Gorditas, the Mexico City-style taco wagon that pulls up weekend evenings in the Eastland Shopping Center (LEO Weekly, May 28), can now relax: They have their own taco truck, Tacos Toreados, where the amiable proprietor Juan Deleon offers authentic delights served out the window of a wagon parked in front of Choi’s Asian Food Market in Lyndon.
Continue reading Roll out the (taco) wagon! →

$ Budget (under $30), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

That’s not tuna. This is tuna.

Napa Tuna Sandwich at Meridian Cafe
The Napa Tuna Sandwich, an awesome new menu item at Meridian Café. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

In last week’s column, I kvetched about Napa River Grill overcooking its tuna, something I didn’t expect a fine, upscale eatery to do. This week, I visited Meridian Café, one of my favorite casual lunch spots, and found an awesome new tuna dish on the menu. They cook it right, and they call it, koinkidentally, the “Napa tuna sandwich.”

Chef Mike Ross mounts nicely seared tuna with a bright-pink interior on grilled brioche, dressed with Bibb lettuce and avocado and a hot-sweet chili sauce. It’s $9.25. I like! (Actually, I like just about everything at Meridian Café, where Ross’s eclectic and affordable bill of fare offers winning options for both breakfast and lunch.)

Meridian Café
112 Meridian Ave.
897-9703

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Bistros, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Cruisin’ down the (Napa) River

Ahi Cornucopia
The Ahi Cornucopia appetizer from Napa River Grill. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

The landscape of Louisville restaurant history is littered with the dry bones of eateries whose owners thought it would be a really good idea to move to a new location and expand to a larger space.

The most recent victim, Mazzoni’s, fell just one year short of celebrating its 125th birthday. The home of the “rolled” oyster, it had survived several moves over the years before landing on Taylorsville Road in the 1980s. A move to shopping-center quarters in Middletown last year proved its undoing.

Similar fates befell Greek Paradise, which moved from a small, homey spot near Radcliff, Ky., to a hulking hall in Butchertown that proved more than it could handle; Hoosier standard Frank’s Steak House when it expanded into larger quarters in Louisville; and the last owners of Lentini’s, whose aggressive expansion plan yielded three eateries that all shut down fast.

Napa River Grill seems to be breaking the spell. Continue reading Cruisin’ down the (Napa) River →

Industry Standard

Your table is now available

Before I joined the restaurant industry, I often felt awkward when I was being seated at a restaurant. Is it OK to request a specific table? Is it OK to ask for a four-top when there are only two of us? Would it be OK to ask to sit by the fireplace? Good news: It is, it is and it is! The key to getting the table you want is knowing the basics of how tables are assigned to guests in most dining rooms.
Continue reading Your table is now available →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Bistros, Frankfort Ave., Clifton, Crescent Hill

Varanese: A most wonderful bird is the turducken

Turducken at Varanese
For the birds: Varanese’s turducken features turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken stuffed with Cajun stuffing and topped with a clear duck velouté. Photo by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

If you’ve never heard of the wondrous holiday bird called turducken, you just haven’t been paying attention. If you’ve ever seen and actually tasted one, you fall into a much more exalted category, as this Cajun feast is so difficult to prepare that it’s almost as rare as the dodo bird.

Purportedly the invention of Paul Prudhomme, the rotund chef at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans, the turducken is a combination of a partially deboned turkey that’s been stuffed with a deboned duck, stuffed in turn with a deboned chicken. Spicy Cajun stuffing is piped into the inner spaces like tasty grout; the hulking combination is roasted, sliced crosswise into impressive rounds, and served with a spicy Cajun sauce.
Continue reading Varanese: A most wonderful bird is the turducken →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Chinese, Frankfort Ave., Clifton, Crescent Hill

Secret to a great Chinese banquet: Cook for me, chef!

Table topper
This table-topper at Red Pepper Chinese Cuisine featured cranes carved from daikon radish, perched on “rock piles” made from yams, decorated with what looked like taxus yew sprigs from the bushes out front. Photo by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Are you the kind of adventurous diner who has always wanted to experience an authentic Chinese banquet but have despaired after too many meals of sweet and sour pork, fried rice and the like at chopsticks houses and Asian buffets?

Here’s good news: With a little advance planning, a willing spirit and a smile, you can enjoy a Chinese spread right here in Louisville that will take you surprisingly close to what you’d be served in Shanghai or Beijing.

All you have to do is get together a group of like-minded foodies, drop in on your favorite Chinese restaurant and ask the management’s assistance in organizing a special banquet.

This approach probably won’t work at a fast-food Chinese eatery or buffet. It requires a quality Chinese restaurant with a highly skilled chef. Louisville boasts several of these, my current favorite being Red Pepper Chinese on Brownsboro Road, where Sichuanese Chef Shen Hong Huang boasts restaurant experience in Chicago and in Chinese embassies around the world.
Continue reading Secret to a great Chinese banquet: Cook for me, chef! →