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→
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!→
What does fine dining have to do with politics? Consider this: The post-election map of the metro’s voting precincts painted a telling picture of Jefferson County demographics in stark red and blue, and we’re not talking Cardinals and Wildcats. Inside the Watterson, the city’s liberal enclaves and African-American neighborhoods were solid Obama blue. The suburbs, in contrast, bled McCain red.
As a statistical generalization, the city and its suburbs are different, and that difference extends to dining preferences. There’s a reason why the ‘burbs are awash with chain dining while most of the independent local eateries that make Louisville weird are located in the People’s Republics of the Highlands, Clifton and Crescent Hill, plus enclaves in and around downtown and St. Matthews.
So, while I was really sorry to learn that Chef Anthony Lamas was closing Seviche A Latin Bistro, his suburban operation on Goose Creek Road, after just under a year in business, I was not surprised. Continue reading Seviche: And then there was one. That one!→
Sage Indian, which replaces the short-lived India Palace on Oechsli Avenue, has mostly kept its menu – featuring standard Northern Indian dishes – the same. Photos by Robin Garr
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
This week let’s make quick visits to a couple of St. Matthews-area eateries where you can fill the tank for a reasonable price and go away satisfied.
Shady Lane Café, a homey storefront nook in Brownsboro Center, qualifies as “old,” sort of, by local restaurant standards: Owners and cooks William and Susi Smith have been doing business in this location going on two years now, and they’ve built a following the old-fashioned way, earning loyalty through a savvy combination of high-quality, down-home fare at a price that’s right, even when there’s not a recession going on. (See my report in the post below)
Sage Indian makes the grade as “new,” sort of: It arrived last month in the quarters vacated by the amiable but short-lived Royal India, which put up the shutters well under a year after it opened last winter. Continue reading Something old, something new … sort of→
Shady Lane Café owners William and Susi Smith have been in business two years. Two excellent dishes are the meatloaf (left above) and the tomato basil soup. Photo by Robin Garr
This friendly East End spot has long been a favorite for breakfast and lunch; when my mother and sister arrived ravenous from Florida on a late-afternoon flight, I was delighted to learn that Shady Lane stays open for dinner Tuesdays through Fridays until 8 p.m.
The four of us presented ourselves for duty and had a hard time choosing from all the goodies on the blackboard menu. And fine goodies they are, priced for recessionary times. Sandwiches and specials range from $3.95 (for my mother’s choice, a classic grilled cheese sandwich, molten cheddar spilling over toast grilled to a mouth-watering golden brown) to $6.95 (for my sister’s pick, the cranberry, Granny Smith apple and walnut salad with blue Gorgonzola cheese and Dijon mustard dressing). Continue reading Shady Lane Café: Make yourself at home→
The grilled lamb with a spicy sauce is one of the many tapas available at De la Torre’s. Photo by Robin Garr
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
The next time you settle down to a selection of tapas and find yourself feeling grateful for small-plates dining, you might want to pause for a moment of silence in memory of King Alfonso the Wise of Castile.
Legend says that Alfonso, the 13th century monarch known for his smarts and taste for good eats and drink, invented the tapa as a get-well snack to be taken with good Spanish red wine when he was under a nasty illness. When he recovered, it is said, King Alf was so delighted with this healthy diet that he ordered taverns throughout the kingdom to serve it.
Another story traces the tapa to Andalusia, where Sherry bars developed the custom of serving glasses of the strong, sweet local wine with a slice of bread to serve as a cover or lid (“tapa” in Spanish) to keep the fruit flies out of one’s beverage. Soon a cagey entrepreneur dropped a few olives atop the bread; his competitor countered with a slice of Serrano ham, and before long, tapas had evolved. Continue reading Small bites add up to fine dinner at De la Torre’s→
Lunch Lady Land: Exteriors of two Antique Malls each containing a new lunch spot – the new mall at Jackson and Broadway that has the resurrected Colonnade Café inside (below), and Olivia’s in the Goss Avenue Antique Mall. Photos by Robin Garr
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Ladies who lunch and go antique shopping (and men who do the same) have an unprecedented wealth of options these days, as a series of moves and changes has expanded the antique mall circuit from one popular eatery to three.
Let’s summarize: When the Louisville Antique Mall on Goss Avenue announced plans last year to move from its hulking 19th century brick industrial building to a different hulking 19th century brick industrial building on East Broadway, its critically acclaimed lunch spot, The Café, went off on its own to open a free-standing restaurant just east of downtown.
Then, not long after the Louisville Antique Mall made its move to East Broadway, a new luncheon establishment on its fifth floor revived the name of the old Colonnade cafeteria downtown. The move didn’t leave the old building on Goss vacant for long: Soon the Goss Avenue Antique Mall opened in slightly different but overlapping quarters. And sure enough, it has a lunch spot, too, dubbed Olivia’s Restaurant. Continue reading Lunch and antiques, not necessarily in that order→
A closer peek at just one portion of DakShin’s expansive daily lunch buffet. Photos by Robin Garr
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Step into DakShin’s spacious, almost cavernous quarters, blink until your eyes adjust to the dim, and you might think you’ve found your way into an oddly named barbecue joint. Square, rough-hewn log walls frame heavy booths of oak; atop a wall at the back, looming above a large-screen television, rests the biggest canoe you have ever seen.
But take another look, and then a sniff. Elusive, aromatic scents of curry direct your palate away from barbecue. Check the television and you’ll find Bollywood-style MTV, piped in straight from India. The art on the walls is Indian, and so are the massive, colorful, Tiffany-look light fixtures that dangle from the high ceiling. Continue reading DakShin Indian: A taste of a different South→
Mojito Tapas Restaurant in the Holiday Manor center features small-plate Spanish tapas with a Cuban vibe. Chef-owner Fernando Martinez recently traveled to Europe and brought much of what he learned back home to kick Mojito’s menu up a notch. Photos by Robin Garr
When Mojito Tapas Restaurant opened in the Holiday Manor center early in 2007, it almost instantly turned golden. A stylish, upscale-but-affordable eatery run by the good folks who brought us Havana Rumba, featuring small-plate Spanish tapas with a Cuban vibe: What’s not to like?
And now it has gone platinum.
Chef-owner Fernando Martinez spent a couple of months in Europe last winter, taking a six-week intensive culinary program at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and traveling to Barcelona and environs in Spain to visit tapas bars. He’s talking about going back for more, but in the meantime, he brought much of what he learned back home and used it to kick Mojito’s menu up a notch … or several. Continue reading Sophisticated Mojito goes platinum→
It’s no secret that Louisville has an excellent fine-dining scene, especially for a city its size. Still, sometimes you just want to kick back with a good sandwich and a beer.
Enter Big Al’s Beeritaville in Clifton. With a cozy bar, front patio with tables and an outdoor beer garden complete with a horseshoe pit and cornhole, it’s a fun, laid-back place to spend a Saturday afternoon or a weeknight happy hour. LEO Weekly’s own Bar Belle, Sara Havens, wrote earlier this year that the bar at the newly made-over Mac’s is “like hanging out in a friend’s basement,” which pretty much says it all. Continue reading We kick back at Big Al’s Beeritaville→
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