By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com
I’m pretty sure I unleashed a small rant last autumn when the Delta variant was coming on, threatening to retreat into takeout dining until things blew over a bit.
I didn’t actually do that. I’m vaccinated, and now boosted too, so what, me worry?
But the other day, eyeing news reports about the Omicron variant and rising positivity tolls, I started thinking about takeout again. Continue reading Delicious tofu takeout at Heart & Soy
By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Back in the late winter of 1984, I did my first restaurant review for The Louisville Times. I enjoyed a great dinner at a short-lived Lebanese restaurant on Bardstown Road with a Lebanese-American friend who spent a short time at the city’s afternoon paper before moving on to bigger things.
Here we are, almost too many years later to count, and I’ve just finished a tasty repast from Simply Mediterranean, which I believe is the city’s first ethnic Lebanese restaurant since then. Continue reading Simply Mediterranean brings Lebanese flavor
By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Eggs are popular. Most people love them for breakfast, lunch, and even breakfast-for-dinner. So it’s no surprise that egg-centric eateries draw crowds in Louisville. Wild Eggs landed some 15 years ago; Con Huevos brought its Mexican flavors to our world of eggs in 2015.
Now Eggholic has come to town to tantalize us with delicious egg dishes in the style of the Gujurat region of Northwestern India. Continue reading Eggholic lights up egg dishes with Indian flavors
By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Everybody knows that I’m a huge fan of pizza, but I have my standards! I like pizza best the way they make it in New York City, or even Italy: It’s good bread, flatbread, with toppings added proportionately, not overloaded.
You want a thin but substantive crust, and you want a puffy browned edge – the “bones” – dotted with plenty of browned leopard spots.
Or that’s what I thought until I picked up a pizza to go from Derby City Pizza in Clifton the other day. Continue reading Derby City Pizza scores with pizza and pasta
Imagine yourself as the owner and cook at a popular short-order diner. Suddenly you look around and discover that the price of your cooking oil has tripled, and you can’t buy biscuits for love or money.
Those challenges make things tough when your customers are looking for breakfast all day and the many fried delights that make diner fare so delicious. And that’s just the beginning, says Gibin George, owner and chef at D. Nalley’s Diner. Continue reading D. Nalley’s owner gives an MBA’s-eye view of the supply-chain roller-coaster
Early in 2013 when Mussel & Burger Bar opened its first shop in Jeffersontown, I couldn’t help but make fun of this previously unimagined combination. “‘Let’s go get some burgers and mussels,’ said no person ever,” I wrote, chortling.
Now, 8 1/2 years later, Mussel & Burger Bar’s founders have moved on to other ventures, but Mussel & Burger Bar appears to be going strong under new ownership. My recent visit to the J’town operation for lunch with a group of friends satisfied me that it remains just as good as ever. Continue reading Mussel & Burger Bar’s wacky concept seems normal now
I fell in love with Indian food a mighty long time ago, when the curry houses that surrounded London’t Victoria Station offered me a delicious – and cheap – refuge while the very young me was seeing London on £5 a day.
But it took a lot longer before Indian food came to Louisville, a gap that Indian-food-loving friends and I had to fill, sort of, with occasional trips to the region’s only Indian eatery in Cincinnati.
That drought finally ended during the ‘90s, when Shalimar opened in the Hurstbourne Parkway quarters that it still occupies. As one of the first Indian restaurants in Louisville, it has earned a loyal following with consistent presentation of authentic Northern Indian cuisine. Continue reading Shalimar stands the test of time
Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com
I don’t guess it comes as a major surprise to disclose that I’m a huge fan of world food. Follow my foodie trail and you’ll usually find me checking out another Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Mexican, Venezuelan, African or other delicious immigrant-cuisine meal. That goes double during these pandemic-remnant times when simple economics have me looking for good, cheap eats.
But sometimes I’ve just got to have a good old-fashioned American repast like my mother used to make. Or maybe a little better. Sorry, Mom!
So it was this week when I happily eased into a comfy booth at Cheddar Box Too. Continue reading Simple, delicious American fare at Cheddar Box Too
By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com
I don’t review chain restaurants often. I’d much rather talk about Louisville’s great independent local eateries. But when a new corporate shop like Currito comes to town and people tell me the food is really good, I’m willing to take a look.
I believe the last time I did such a thing was in November 2018, when I finally got around to sampling the amazingly tasty fried free-range chicken at The Eagle on Bardstown Road, one of the first ventures of its Cincinnati-based corporation outside its home town.
Here we are, three years later, and I’m doing it again, this time at Currito. Continue reading Currito impresses with flavorful grains, greens, and more
By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Louisville has three all-vegetarian Indian restaurants, and to tell you the truth, the question isn’t why there are so many, but why it took them so long to arrive.
We have about 15 Indian restaurants now, and I’m happy to pull up to a table at every single one.
But all-vegetarian Indian? That’s new. Shreeji Indian Vegetarian Street Food opened in November 2018. Honest Indian Restaurant opened just about a year later, at the end of 2019. And somewhere in that same brief window of time – “three years ago,” the guy behind the counter told me – Sonals Kitchen Homemade Authentic Indian Vegetarian Restaurant popped up in a former Moby Dick shop on Chamberlain just north of Westport Road. Continue reading Sonal masters Indian vegetarian cuisine
