Category Archives: West End

$ Budget (under $30), Commentary, Soul Food, West End

Big Momma’s Soul Food Kitchen lures us West

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we interrupt our dining review for this public-service announcement: Have you voted yet? Good! Wait, you over there! You haven’t voted? Please vote on Election Day, Nov. 3, or vote early in person at one of Louisville’s convenient early polls. But vote! Vote as if your life depends on it, because just possibly it does.
 
There! I’m glad to get that off my chest. We voted last week. It was easy. It really felt good. And best of all, it led us toward this week’s exceptionally tasty food report.

Here’s how it went down: We voted early at the Kentucky Center for African-American Heritage, then decided to grab a delicious soul-food meal from a Black-owned West End restaurant: Big Momma’s Soul Food Kitchen. Continue reading Big Momma’s Soul Food Kitchen lures us West →

$ Budget (under $30), Soul Food, West End

We support a black-owned business with a great meal at LuCretia’s

Support Black-owned restaurants, and other Black-owned businesses, too! You’ve heard me yell this for quite a while. Every time I head west of Ninth Street for a good meal and a friendly welcome, I urge you to do the same. Erasing that imaginary, unnecessary wall that cuts off Louisville’s West End from the rest of Louisville is the important and right thing to do. Continue reading We support a black-owned business with a great meal at LuCretia’s →

$ Budget (under $30), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, LEO's Eats, Mexican, Cuban, Caribbean, Soul Food, West End

Galan’s offers a tasty oasis in a West End food desert

Many of Louisville’s West End neighborhoods are defined as food deserts, places where low-income neighbors don’t have easy access to supermarkets. But Carlos Galan is trying to do something about that.

Galan, who came to Louisville from Florida five years ago with his wife, Kim, saw potential in the West End, and he is taking practical steps to bring food to the Market Street neighborhood where Russell meets Portland. Continue reading Galan’s offers a tasty oasis in a West End food desert →

$ Budget (under $30), Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, Farm-to-table, LEO's Eats, West End

The Table does well by doing good

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if every restaurant followed the pay-what-you-can model of The Table in Portland? What if Vincenzo’s or Jeff Ruby’s, for example, made its menu pricing variable depending on what the diner could afford? Or offered creative alternatives like putting in a few hours serving tables or helping out with kitchen chores? Or invited you to pay your tab forward so someone else could take a seat at the table?

Yeah, I know. Not. Going. To. Happen. Continue reading The Table does well by doing good →

$ Budget (under $30), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, Commentary, LEO's Eats, West End, World Food

Discover the Jamaican joys of Roof Top Grill

Let’s tear down that wall, the imaginary one along Ninth Street that some people think separates our West End neighbors from the rest of us. I can’t think of a better time than Derby season to do it, and I’ve got a great destination in mind: Roof Top Grill, a friendly eatery that turns out some of the best Jamaican food around. Continue reading Discover the Jamaican joys of Roof Top Grill →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), LEO's Eats, Vegetarian/Vegan, West End

V-Grits works vegan magic with meat-free seafood and fish

You’d be surprised to know how many people who give up eating tasty animals for reasons pertaining to the environment, health or animal welfare nevertheless harbor a nostalgic memory for the comfort-food pleasure of the meat that they won’t eat any more.

But there’s good news for vegetarians and vegans who want life to be more than a boring run of side dishes: There’s a variety of humane alternatives that can approximate that experience without Bossy or Porky having to die for their pleasure. Continue reading V-Grits works vegan magic with meat-free seafood and fish →

$ Budget (under $30), Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, LEO's Eats, Soul Food, West End

Go west for meat-and-three at Irma Dee’s

We’ve got a great idea to restore vibrant commerce to Louisville’s West End, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Walmart or a hip food park.

No, our plan is much simpler: We start by erasing that infamous and wholly imaginary wall along Ninth Street. We go to the West End. We make friends. Then we give our business to the local institutions that are already serving the community with pride.

I can’t think of a better place to begin than Irma Dee’s, a charming, bright little cafe that opened a few weeks ago on a main street in the city’s Parkland neighborhood. Continue reading Go west for meat-and-three at Irma Dee’s →

$ Budget (under $30), Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, LEO's Eats, West End

Pay what you can or pay it forward at The Table

Everything about The Table seemed so cool! Its lovely adaptive reuse of a sturdy 19th century warehouse building, comfortable and cozy, making fine use of exposed brick, rough-hewn wooden tables, attractive art and bright flowers. The lunch menu that isn’t overly long, but it was full of intriguing goodies that makes thoughtful use of fresh, locally produced ingredients. And the room crowded with happy people, filling the space with laughter and smiles. Continue reading Pay what you can or pay it forward at The Table →

$ Budget (under $30), West End, World Food

We take the Soul Train to Big Momma’s

When the Supreme Court axed Louisville’s long-standing school-desegregation plan this summer, an ABC News team came to town to report local reaction, and while they were here, they took their cameras to lunch at Big Momma’s Soul Kitchen and declared this tiny West End eatery “a true oasis of lovingly prepared home cooking that delivers great taste at a great price.”

That’s strong praise, so we headed west on Broadway to Shawnee Park, where Big Momma’s occupies a tiny, white-painted building just large enough for a service window and five tall stools along a short lunch counter.

Open for lunch and early dinner daily, Big Momma’s offers a lot of soul food for a little price. Each day’s menu changes slightly, but fried chicken and a few other items remain constant. A main course and two sides is $7 to $7.50; sandwiches are $3.50, mostly.

We filled up on crisp, juicy fried chicken and an oversize breaded pork chop smothered in gravy, with excellent long-simmered green beans and bacon; white beans; creamy, rich mashed potatoes; and long-cooked chunks of cabbage, all well-seasoned and flavored and prepared with obvious TLC. That’s what “soul” is all about. We dropped a good tip in the jar and left with smiles and change from a $20.

Big Momma’s Soul Kitchen
4532 W. Broadway
772-9580

$ Budget (under $30), Mexican, Cuban, Caribbean, New and noteworthy, South End, West End

Mexican hat trick: tacos three ways

Jay Denham
Lining up for lunch at Taco Tico. LEO photos by Nicole Pullen

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Taco Tico, Taco Bell, El Zarape)

Way back at the dawn of time (oh, all right, during the 1970s), back when most people in Louisville thought “nacho” was just a cool way of saying “righto” and even the cognoscenti pronounced “taco” as “tack-oh,” indeed even before the first Taco Bell rang the region’s chimes, there was Taco Tico.

(Actually, for the sake of historical accuracy, the first Taco Tico was founded in Wichita, Kan., in 1962. Glen Bell opened his first eponymous taqueria in Downey, Calif., that same year. Louisville, however, slow during that era to embrace culinary change, failed to embrace the fast-food taco for a while.)

Taco Bell, of course, prospered and grew. Now a property of Louisville-based Yum! Brands, it boasts about 6,000 outlets around the world. Taco Tico, on the other hand, topped out in the ’80s with about 120 outlets before falling off to about half that peak. It’s in just eight states, the lion’s share in Kansas and nearby states, with a handful in Kentucky.

But now, after a 10-year hiatus, Taco Tico is back in Louisville Continue reading Mexican hat trick: tacos three ways →