Category Archives: BY LOCATION

BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, BY PRICE FOR TWO, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

This drink’s for Fido

Tyler Dorsett
In a rare display of common sense, Kentucky recently made it OK to take home an unfinished bottle of wine from a restaurant. Tyler Dorsett of the Bristol-Downtown shows the first step, re-corking the bottle … Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Wine doggy-bagging, Cutting Board Café, Aldi’s)

You order an excellent wine to go with your restaurant meal, and when dinner is done, the bottle is half empty. Or half full, depending on your worldview. What do you do?

Common sense would dictate that you poke the cork back in the bottle and take it home to enjoy another day. But common sense, by and large, does not inform alcoholic-beverage-control laws. In Kentucky, restaurants are generally not licensed for “package liquor” sales and, historically, have risked a fine or loss of their drinks license if they permit customers to carry out wine.

In a rare display of common sense, however, Kentucky’s legislature this year passed a new law allowing consumers to take the partially consumed bottle home. The law requires that restaurant staff re-seal the bottle, place it in a closed bag and provide a dated receipt. The consumer must keep the bottle in the trunk, a locked glove compartment or other place “inaccessible to the driver” during the trip home, a rather bureaucratic set of requirements apparently aimed at ensuring that thirsty motorists won’t slug their Chateau Gotrocks right out of the bottle while speeding along the Watterson.
Continue reading This drink’s for Fido →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Bistros, Chinese, Coffee Shops & Desserts, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Chains – Was Mr. Marx right?

P.F. Chang's
Long waits were common when P.F. Chang’s opened in Louisville last year. Photo by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(P.F. Chang’s, Cheesecake Factory)

“Unite,” Karl Marx urged the workers of the world. “You have nothing to lose but your chains.” And speaking of chains, my experiences with dining at the franchised variety too often remind me of another Marx – Groucho – who famously said, “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”

Please note that I’m not simply bashing all chains, sight unseen. I’ve had splendid meals at quite a few, and published glowing reviews. But whether you’re looking at a restaurant chain like Cheddar’s or a newspaper chain like Gannett, simple logic argues that when corporate bean counters rule spending, corner-cutting and diminished quality are likely to follow. Chains simply operate under different constraints than an independent local business run by an owner-chef whose passion drives him or her to excel regardless of costs.

This seems to work, most of the time. Consider the popularity of the Louisville Originals restaurants and similar locally owned eateries: You’ll find few chains knocking the locals out of any critic’s list of Top 10 places to dine.

And yet … some chains clearly do something right, because hungry crowds fairly knock down their doors. Take the suburban culinary meccas P.F. Chang’s and Cheesecake Factory. The three-hour waits of the early days may have diminished a little since they opened last autumn, but eager diners still line up hungrily at dinner time.

What is their secret? Continue reading Chains – Was Mr. Marx right? →

$ Budget (under $30), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, Outside the city

Frosting the Hoosier pumpkin

Huber's
Server Dacqueri Mahar shows off Huber’s finest, the country platter dish of fried chicken and ham. Photos by Sara Havens

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Stumler’s, Joe Huber’s)

“When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock …
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence …
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best.”

Ahh, autumn, time of harvest and nippy nights, hearty cider and cozy fireplaces. Autumn doesn’t get any better than it does in rural Indiana, and it’s no surprise that the poet who penned those words in 1883, Indiana’s own James Whitcomb Riley, was a Hoosier through and through.

Riley, who’s been a hero of mine ever since I learned that he started out as a newspaper reporter and was once fired from the Anderson Democrat for being a little too creative with his prose, knew a good thing when he saw it, and so do we.

The leaves are getting serious about turning colors now, and any random pumpkin is likely to wake up in the morning sporting a touch of frost. Let’s celebrate Riley’s memory with a leaf-peeping, eating and drinking expedition to the tourist farms of Starlight, Ind. Continue reading Frosting the Hoosier pumpkin →

Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, BY PRICE FOR TWO, QuickBytes, World Food

Gumbo A Go-Go Goes to J-town

Gumbo A Go-Go

(Gumbo A Go-Go, Voice-Tribune, Oct. 12, 2006)

There’s plenty of sadness to go around amid the vast devastation that Hurricane Katrina left along the Gulf Coast last year, but for those of us who love good food, good drink and good times, the loss of the city of New Orleans as we once knew it has to be one of Katrina’s most enduring blows.

Sure, the City That Care Forgot will come back, and indeed it’s already doing so. But will it ever be the same? Who knows?

Meanwhile, though, the good news is that wherever people love the bold and colorful Creole and Cajun cuisines of New Orleans and Acadiana, chances are that someone nearby will be cooking the stuff and doing it well.

That’s certainly the case in Louisville, where Gumbo A Go-Go – a relatively recent arrival that opened last year in small quarters in Clifton – has now opened a suburban branch in Jeffersontown.
Continue reading Gumbo A Go-Go Goes to J-town →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, Frankfort Ave., Clifton, Crescent Hill, QuickBytes, South End

Chili today, hot tamale

Flabby's chili
Flabby’s chili is a simple, classic preparation – coarsely ground beef in chunks with tender red beans and just enough short strands of spaghetti to make it Louisville-style. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Five noteworthy bowls of red; Karma Café)

Tomatoes or no tomatoes? Beans or no beans? Chopped meat or ground meat? Chile powder or dried chilies or fresh? And by the way, is it “chile” or is it “chili”? Gimme a break! This is almost like listening to the Kentucky legislature arguing about whether evolution or intelligent design should be taught in our schools.

Much of the chili debate centers around the argument that chili is a historic dish with a long tradition that started in the Texas-Mexico border country and was spread across the heartland by cowboys on the open range, and that it must be a pure, unadulterated combination of beef and chile peppers, nothing more, without adulterants or fillers no matter how delicious those additives might be.
Continue reading Chili today, hot tamale →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, QuickBytes, South End, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, World Food

Fast food follies

Corn dog nuggets
How does A&W get those little dogs to roll around in corn? Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(A&W’s corn dog nuggets, White Castle’s chicken rings; also Primo and more)

The life of a food critic is not all white tablecloths and fawning service and foie gras for breakfast. Take it from me, folks, sometimes I do these things so you won’t have to.

Occasionally it becomes necessary to follow a food trend wherever it takes us, even when it takes us down a road that I would just as soon avoid.

Let us consider, then, the corn dog nugget.

As I reported in our State Fair feature in August, I feel a once-a-year craving for corn dogs that can only be satisfied with one, annual dog-on-a-stick. OK, maybe two.

But what if these crunchy, fatty delights were available year-round, as close as a familiar fast-food spot?
Continue reading Fast food follies →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Bistros, Southern Indiana

Drop your Kentucky prejudice and head to Bistro New Albany

Bluegrass Bistro
Bistro New Albany occupies much of the ground floor of the old New Albany Inn. Photo by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

I always feel a little like I’m traveling to another country when I cross the river into Indiana. Maybe it’s just guilt over having told so many bad Hoosier jokes, but I get this uneasy feeling that someone is going to stand up, point an angry finger in my general direction, and yell “Kentuckian! J’accuse!” Or the Indiana equivalent.

So, I hope all my Hoosier friends won’t be offended when I admit that just about every time I visit downtown New Albany, I feel some sense of surprise when I look around and realize, for the umpteenth time, “Hey, this place is really nice.”

With its intact blocks of sturdy, historic office buildings and its lovely rows of stately Victorian mansions, N’Albany seems to have just about everything a city could want – with the possible exception, unfortunately, of a busy, vibrant street scene after the sun goes down.
Continue reading Drop your Kentucky prejudice and head to Bistro New Albany →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Bistros

Dining among the antiques

Bluegrass Bistro
The Bluegrass Bistro recently opened inside the Derby City Antique Mall in Buechel. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Bluegrass Bistro, Hippo Wings, WingZone)

If you want to find a really good lunch in Louisville for a really good price, go shopping for antiques.

Here’s my theory: People who enjoy the hunt for serious antiques and who know how to distinguish the good stuff from junque are also likely to have a well-honed skill at scouting out lunch.

Evidence abounds. One of the best lunch spots in town is The Cafe at the Louisville Antique Mall on Goss Avenue. Shelbyville’s august Wakefield-Scearce Galleries boast the memorable Science Hill dining room. Middletown’s old Main Street, a major destination for antique-hunters, is well served by the estimable Alley Cat Cafe, and the new A Little Peace Cafe is earning good reviews at the Mellwood Arts Center. East Market and Main streets and Frankfort Avenue and Bardstown Road are all famous for both their antiques and their eateries.

Now add Bluegrass Bistro to the mix. Continue reading Dining among the antiques →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Attack of the killer chains

P F Chang'sPardon me if I seem dense, but I’m still having a hard time figuring out just why so many people are willingly lining up for a wait of two to three hours to dine at the two hottest new spots in suburbia – P. F. Chang’s and The Cheesecake Factory.

We’ve checked them both out now – Chang’s twice – and while I’ll grant that they’re both well designed, staffed with competent people and serving food that ranks well above the median for corporate chain fare, still … three hours? Give me a break!
Continue reading Attack of the killer chains →