Mary’s dish towered on her plate, an architectural construction of mashed potatoes, beef tenderloin, Cabrales blue cheese and a nest of sweet potato curls, piled high and reaching for the sky.
My entrée lay flat enough to slide under the door, a long, oval flatbread topped with shredded duck, goat cheese and green herbs.
“Hey!” someone in our group said with a laugh. “We’ve got horizontal and vertical food.”
Continue reading Small plates add up to big meal at Mojito
Even amid our town’s evolution toward ethnic diversity over the past generation, the stretch of Bardstown Road in Buechel stands out. Within a few steps of Six Mile Lane, you’ll find an Asian market run by a Korean family, a European market run by a Russian family and a string of Bosnian businesses, including a restaurant-market and a bakery.
Recently joining the mix is Petra Mediterranean, a family-run spot that offers the cuisines of the eastern Mediterranean and southwest Asia, with accents from the proprietors’ homeland, Jordan.
Continue reading A taste of Jordan at Petra Mediterranean
Back in the early ’90s, I had occasion to visit Austin a couple of times on what was then my day job, and got to know and like the capital city of Texas and home of the Lone Star’s state university.
Austin was a good-size town, busy and fun, not only loaded with the innovative non-profit groups that had brought me there but blessed with a noteworthy music scene, the world’s first Whole Foods Market, and maybe best of all, dozens of eateries serving some of the best Tex-Mex food I had ever tasted. Continue reading Chuy’s says “¡Hola, Amigo!” to Louisville
Poutine. Pronounce it “Poo-teen,” as the Canadian French do. Say it in a cardiologist’s office and hear the alarms go off. Utter it in a restaurant in Montreal, and you’ll be delivered a bowl of classic Quebeçois blue-collar fare.
And now you can have an offbeat version of poutine at the Holy Grale, a cozy little shrine to quality beer and international street-food snacks with a twist.
Continue reading Praying for poutine at the Holy Grale
The demise of Flabby’s Schnitzelburg in July 2010, following on the heels of its sibling eatery, Mazzoni’s, which failed in the autumn of 2008 at the ripe old age of 124, seemed to spell the death of a great Louisville culinary tradition — the “rolled” oyster.
Continue reading This rolled oyster hits a Home Run
Local historians argue to this day about whether the Harrods Creek community (“Harrod’s” Creek before the U.S. Postal Service deleted the nation’s apostrophes) takes its name from Capt. William Harrod, one of Louisville’s first settlers in 1779, or James Harrod, the pioneer explorer who founded a fort at what is now Harrodsburg, Ky., in 1774.
Continue reading J. Harrod’s — comfy dining in Prospect
Nearly 20 years after its opening as a pioneer on the Frankfort Avenue restaurant row, the Irish Rover has settled in to its neighborhood setting so comfortably that it feels as if it’s been there as long as the 150-year-old brick building it inhabits. While it’s as authentically Irish as a pub in Limerick, maybe, or Killarney, the Rover makes a perfect fit in Clifton. With its dark but cozy bar and its sunny, lace-curtained dining rooms, it’s almost two pubs in one, both as Irish as can be.
Continue reading Irish Rover’s winter menu offers seasonal comfort
So, what kind of restaurant is this new Majid’s St. Matthews? Is it Iranian? Yes. Mediterranean? Sure. Is it American? That, too. Majid’s is affordable, but you can go pricey. It’s a great bar, and it’s a classy dining room. It’s casually dressy and upscale casual. In short, it comes about as close to being all things to all people as a restaurant can.
Continue reading Have it your way at Majid’s St. Matthews
Its massive Cruvinet wine unit, the largest made, dispenses wines from 54 well-chosen bottles; an additional wine list raises options to 100 or more. You can order by the bottle, by the 6-ounce glass, or — best of all for the hobbyist — in 2-ounce tastes to line up into a flight.
But what if you’re not a wine connoisseur? Is there anything here for you?
Well, if you’re open to learning about wine, the abundant selection and affordable tastes — not to mention the guidance of savvy staff — can make your learning experience easy. Tastes start as low as $2.25, not for jug wine or blushy white zin, but offbeat options like Argentine Bonarda or a Grenache blend from Catalayud in Spain.
Don’t like wine? Enjoy an artisan beer or a cocktail. Even teetotalers can feel at home here: The well-fashioned American bistro fare goes very well with coffee, tea or Louisville pure tap.
Time flies when you’re having wine, and it’s hard to believe it’s been more than seven years now since L&N opened in its historic brick building — once a farmhouse — in the distinctly urban precinct where Butchertown meets Clifton.
Our friend Cynthia came through town the other day. She’s a wine geek and so are we, so L&N was the obvious destination. Just like that we were ensconced in comfortable seats at a good-size table in front of a fireplace, with wine glasses and appetizers lined up before us.
We noshed through crispy flatbread topped with Capriole cheese and fresh arugula ($8), deviled eggs kicked up with Fiedler Farm bacon, smoked paprika, cornichons and radish shoots ($6), cream-puffy gnocchi with mushrooms and butternut squash ($16), a juicy house-smoked pork chop perched on creamy mashed potatoes and topped with a sweet-tart compote of apples and mission figs ($22), and the always reliable L&N Burger, one of the best around ($11). A well-made crème brûlée and a scoop of house-made ice cream rounded off a memorable meal.
Dinner for three, including about 10 tastes of wines from around the world, came to a reasonable $114.75, plus a $25 tip. The share for two would have been around $70, plus tip.
L&N Wine Bar and Bistro
1765 Mellwood Ave. • 897-0070
www.LandNWineBarandBistro.com
Robin Garr’s rating: 92 points
MOVED. Funmi’s closed at this location, but re-opened in August 2012 in a new location farther out Bardstown Road. Watch for a new review soon!
Funmi’s Café
3028 Bardstown Road
454-5009
funmiscafe.com
facebook.com/funmiscafe
It is a state endowed with oil, offering potential riches and massive corruption to a few and poverty and disease for the rest — not a pretty sight, although to Nigeria’s credit, it has opened the 21st century under its first lasting civilian government, and with a sense of optimism for the future.
But that’s not the real Nigeria. To visualize the country’s richer heritage, one must look to the Yoruba, the dominant people of its West African region. For several centuries beginning in the 1100s, when Europe was in the Dark Ages, fighting plagues, wars and ignorance, the Yoruba enjoyed a golden age of political domination, rich culture and art, creating works still sought after by museums.
The Yoruba also evolved an impressive cuisine — colorful, spicy and flavorful, taking advantage of the lush tropical region’s bounty of meat, seafood, vegetables and fruit. Adding tomatoes, rice and other ingredients brought by traders and, later, conquerors, Nigerian food brings the colors and flavors of West Africa to your dinner plate.
And now you can enjoy it in Louisville with the recent arrival of Funmi’s Café in the Highlands. Funmi’s (it’s pronounced “Foon-mee’s”) takes its name from the owner and cook, a friendly Nigerian woman who’s proud of her Yoruba heritage. She told us she has lived in Louisville for seven years but only recently became “bold enough” to open the restaurant she had always wanted to have.
My only question is, why did she wait so long? Everything we’ve tried from the short but interesting and authentic menu has been delicious, and its arrival, joining Chez Seneba (Senegal) and Queen of Sheba (Ethiopia), adds one more option to the city’s tiny niche of African eateries. It’s a worthy addition to the eclectic Bardstown strip.
In a small, freestanding building on Bardstown Road, Funmi’s is only a few doors south of Jack Fry’s but satisfies an entirely different craving. It’s also right next door to Homemade Ice Cream & Pie Kitchen, suggesting the possibility of a progressive meal — following your Nigerian repast with a cooling scoop of vanilla to soothe the burn from the Scotch bonnet (habanero) peppers that infuse just about all of Funmi’s dishes.
The room is a bit larger than it appears from the outside, extending back through two levels of a bright, neat and rather sparse venue with walls the colors of butternut squash and pumpkin. Undraped blue-gray tables, black dinette chairs, simple flatware wrapped in paper napkins and a few African-themed paintings complete the decor.
The menu, as mentioned, is relatively brief, but it offers a good introduction to Nigerian cuisine, and the friendly and competent server — and Funmi herself — are eager to answer questions.
The dodo appetizer, fried plantains with spicy sauce, was $6.99; or, for $9.99, try the suya, beef kebabs in peanut sauce. Entrées range from $9.99 to $14.99 ($9.99 for a more limited lunch list from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.), and include a vegetarian bean stew, Nigerian-style rice dishes, and stews with molded rounds of starches, including tuwo (corn flour), iyan (yam flour) or eba (roasted cassava grains).
Bring a little patience: Funmi does much of the cooking to your specific order. It takes a little more time than microwaving prepared portions, but the proof is in the tasting. Everything we tried was excellent, spicy but not burn-your-mouth fiery, infused with subtle, surprising flavors. When she starts working on your dinner, the room will fill with elusive, delicious aromas that don’t smell quite like anything in your spice rack.
We enjoyed a shared order of a remarkable black pepper soup ($9.99), a clear, well-made broth that unites the unexpected aromas of fragrant black pepper and fresh-cut mint. It’s a warming potion with fish or, our choice, flavorful stew beef. Most main dishes come with your choice of goat, fish, beef or chicken, or the non-traditional meatless options of tofu or mushrooms.
We chose our Nigerian-style Jollof rice ($12.99) with chicken, and were rewarded with two scoops of reddish-tinged, tender rice that looked like Mexican rice but carried an African accent, imparted by Nigerian spices and a jolt of Scotch bonnet pepper. They were accompanied with a savory mix of tender boneless chicken bites fricasseed with onions and tomatoes and a little more habanero heat.
Eba eforiro ($14.99) was perhaps the most fiery dish of the evening, a combination of Mary’s meat option, goat (tastes like lamb!), stewed with spicy collard greens and tomato sauce, with a couple of starchy balls of steamed cassava on the side.
Dinner at Funmi’s is not quite as cheap as KFC across the street, but it’s a heck of a lot better: We left stuffed, with plenty of leftover eba eforirio for lunch the next day, for a reasonable toll of $40.25 plus a $10 tip.
Funmi’s Café
1043 Bardstown Road
454-5009
www.funmiscafe.com
Robin Garr’s rating: 86 points
