Category Archives: BY PRICE FOR TWO

$ Budget (under $30), Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, LEO's Eats, QuickBytes, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, underSlideshowEntries

Cheddar Box? Cheddar Box, Too

My friend Tom has been in Louisville for a few months now, and he knows his way around pretty well. But he got a little confused when we got together for lunch the other day at Cheddar Box Too.

Tom said his GPS wasn’t offering much help, but when he wheeled into the Chenoweth Square shopping center from the east, rolled past Majid’s and Paul’s and then spotted my car parked right under a sign that read “Cheddar Box,” he figured he was there. Not quite, Tom. But close. Continue reading Cheddar Box? Cheddar Box, Too →

$ Budget (under $30), Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, QuickBytes, underSlideshowEntries, Vegetarian/Vegan, Voice-Tribune review

Take a healthy, tasty break at Earth Friends Cafe

’Tis the season … no, I’m not talking about that season. ’Tis the season for spectacular over-eating, indulging ourselves a the delicious risk of life and health because, well, that’s what we do at holiday time.

If you’re ready for a break, though, or plan to be later, allow me to suggest a trip to Earth Friends Cafe & Coffee Bar, where virtuous dining can also be delicious.
Continue reading Take a healthy, tasty break at Earth Friends Cafe →

$ Budget (under $30), Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, LEO's Eats, New and noteworthy, QuickBytes, underSlideshowEntries

Economic recovery: The 99 percent get lunch

It is being reported that economic recovery is back, at least for the 1 percent, who get to eat $100 dinners at pricey new spots like Brasserie Provence, or nosh from the upscale end of the dinner menu at El Camino. For the 99 percent, though – the rest of us who are still struggling paycheck to paycheck – well, we’re getting by on a load of new lunch spots where an appetizing midday repast won’t cost you an arm and a leg.
Continue reading Economic recovery: The 99 percent get lunch →

$ Budget (under $30), Italian (and Pizza), QuickBytes, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, underSlideshowEntries, Voice-Tribune review

Fried pie? Boombozz fried pizza wins our applause

When I was a kid, I looked forward to road trips as an occasion for fried pie, a rare culinary treat that seemed to exist only in those exotic places where people lived among cornfields and tobacco patches and spoke in a slow drawl.

Fried pie! We never had anything like that at home. It was a pie-crust turnover, loaded with fruit filling – apple was as popular as Mom or the Flag – folded over, sealed into a fat half-moon and deep-fried until it sizzled. Hot and crisp, juicy and sweet, it was just the right size for eating out of hand. Yum!

A single fried pie probably packed 1,000 calories, but at that age I didn’t mind. Now I do, and I haven’t indulged for years, maybe decades. The other day, though, I ran across an even more tempting take on fried pie that I just couldn’t resist.
Continue reading Fried pie? Boombozz fried pizza wins our applause →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, LEO's Eats, Mexican, Cuban, Caribbean, New and noteworthy, underSlideshowEntries

No, Bar Belle! El Camino is surfin’ good

My pal the Bar Belle is also the boss of me when it comes to this column, but that sure doesn’t stop me from calling Bullwinkle when I just have to. So, yo, Bar Belle! You’ve got it all wrong when you go hatin’ on El Camino! How did this debate work out? Well, our conversation went something like this:

Your Humble Critic: We checked out El Camino the other night. It’s the new place with the Cali-Mex surfer/tiki-bar vibe that’s run by the Silver Dollar peeps in the old Avalon space on Bardstown. It is truly awesome.

The Bar Belle: I went the other night and wasn’t impressed.

Critic: Whaaa? Continue reading No, Bar Belle! El Camino is surfin’ good →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Bistros, Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, Frankfort Ave., Clifton, Crescent Hill, underSlideshowEntries, Voice-Tribune review

Make Mine Grilled Cheese, Pleese!

Ahh, it finally feels like autumn, and I’m thinking of comfort food.

This nostalgic meme rarely attaches itself to the light, low-calorie and cooling dishes of summer. “Comfort” means stews and hearty soups, spaghetti and meatballs or maybe a thick pan of lasagna – the kinds of warming, stick-to-your-ribs dishes that Mom used to make, or at least you wish she had. Nor need comfort food be complicated or hard to cook.
Continue reading Make Mine Grilled Cheese, Pleese! →

$ Budget (under $30), Pacific Rim, QuickBytes, South End, underSlideshowEntries, Voice-Tribune review

Vietnam Kitchen: 50,000 K8’s Sold?

Okay, let’s run the numbers here. Vietnam Kitchen has been open for about 20.5 years, six days a week. That’s roughly 6,500 days of serving the public since Alex and Kim Lam brought this lovable institution to town in 1993.

Thinking out loud, that means that if every day they sell five orders of “K8,” the menu shorthand for H? ti?u Saté, a delectable rice-noodle dish that’s surely one of Vietnam Kitchen’s top hot-and-spicy dishes, they must have stir-fried way more than 30,000 orders of it by now.

If the Lams were more boastful types, they could put out a flashing sign that boasts, “Nearly 50,000 K8’s sold!” (Yeah, I know I guesstimated 30,000, but hey, nobody fact-checks Mickey D’s “billions and billions” either, right?)
Continue reading Vietnam Kitchen: 50,000 K8’s Sold? →

$$$$ Luxury ($80 and up), Bistros, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, LEO's Eats, New and noteworthy, underSlideshowEntries, White tablecloth, deluxe

Brasserie Provence shows grace and good eats in dinner rush

“Je vais avoir le canard,” said my friend Anne, summoning a French teacher and one-time expat’s easy fluency.

Our server looked puzzled, though. “Maybe you could point it out on the menu,” he said, blushing a little. “I’m still learning the dishes.”

I’m not picking on the guy, though. He showed Hemingway-esque grace under fire as our party of four spent the evening on a lavish meal at Brasserie Provence. We enjoyed his service, a fine Loire Cabernet Franc and an excellent, mostly authentic Provencal meal while allowing plenty of slack for a kitchen slammed by capacity crowds on its first full weekend. Continue reading Brasserie Provence shows grace and good eats in dinner rush →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Bistros, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, LEO's Eats, underSlideshowEntries

Rye will make you eat your brussels sprouts and beg for more

Somewhere out there in this wonderfully diverse world, there is bound to be at least one human who truly loves, loves, loves brussels sprouts.

I have not yet met this person. Let’s face it, a brussels sprout is nothing but a tiny cabbage, with all of the faults that its bigger sibling is heir to, but – in my opinion, at least, and apparently that of many others – few of the virtues. Overcook them and they get stenchy. Undercook them and they stay hard, without the saving grace of crunch. And no matter what you do with them, it seems, they remain, well, tiny cabbages.
Continue reading Rye will make you eat your brussels sprouts and beg for more →