I’d like to sing the praises of Shady Lane Café, but I expect that café owner Susi Smith, an outstanding professional singer, could warble it far better than I; and her husband and co-owner Bill Smith, who’s not only a mean hand on the short-order grill but also a poet of some repute, could probably sling some better verses on the topic than I, iambic pentameter or free verse, either way.
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Category Archives: BY PRICE FOR TWO
Don’t judge the name. Try Hay!! Chi Wa Waa
Hey, Chihuahua? What kind of a name for a restaurant is that? With a wacky Señor Gonzales accent? Really? Are they talking about the state of Chihuahua in Mexico, or calling a little dog? Or maybe, just possibly, poking a thumb in the eye of “Yo quiero Taco Bell“?
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Food Network loves The Coach Lamp, but who loves Food Network?
Okay, I am just going to come right out and say it: I am so over Food Network. Have been for years, really.
She’s like an old flame, full of bad memories of a romance that I try to suppress now that I’m no longer quite so young and stupid. Oh, I loved her back then, I truly did. It was late coming to Louisville, and I lusted after it in my heart when I read my friends’ stories online about her seductive wiles. And when she finally came to town, sometime around the turn of the millennium, as I recall, I was smitten, so smitten. Continue reading Food Network loves The Coach Lamp, but who loves Food Network?
North End Cafe: Now a local institution
North End Cafe has just about become a Louisville institution, and it didn’t take all that long to do so. Co-owner and Chef Christopher Seckman celebrated the 10th anniversary of the original North End Cafe on lower Frankfort Avenue last spring – it’s a place of enduring popularity. Now the second North End Cafe, located at the Douglass Loop in the former Club Grotto location, appears to be going strong after a year and a half.
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Vibrant Village Anchor Pub & Roost thrives in old Anchorage
When Village Anchor Pub & Roost and its companion watering hole, The Sea Hag, opened three years ago this past summer, I thought they were pretty cool. But I wondered if they would stick.
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What’s a Brix? Good chow and libations in the ‘burbs
So, what’s a Brix? Let’s ask the Intertubes!
“Degrees Brix (symbol °Bx) is the sugar content of an aqueous solution. One degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and represents the strength of the solution as percentage by weight (% w/w). If the solution contains dissolved solids other than pure sucrose, then the °Bx only approximates the dissolved solid content.”
Right! I knew that! Well, I knew the gist of it, anyway. You see, “brix” is wine-geek talk of the highest order, viticultural trade jargon you don’t really need to know at all, unless you’re the boss of a vineyard. It’s the kind of word that separates insiders (who know it’s pronounced “bricks”) from the rest of us, who probably think it’s French and would say it “bree” if we thought about it at all. Continue reading What’s a Brix? Good chow and libations in the ‘burbs
Marketplace: Top Chef, No Hype
We live in the age of the chef-driven restaurant. Across the nation and around the city, chefs have become outside personalities, featured on stage, screen and TV. Louisville has been no exception to this principle, with our top chefs turning up on Food Network, competing in chefly combat and scrambling after awards, honors and, of course, sweet, profitable publicity for Louisville’s eateries and for the city.
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It’s the rice, but not just the rice, at Taj Palace
Little things mean a lot. Even something as little as a grain of rice can mean a lot. Of course, it takes 7,200 grains of rice to fill a cup, or so sayeth the Google, but that’s not important right now.
Let’s talk about rice, and in particular the spectacular rice at Taj Palace. Trust me on this, folks. I love Indian food, and I’m a fan of Taj, which has survived a journey around three East End locations. I go there fairly often. But the other night, sampling a bite of simple, extra-long-grain basmati rice from a side platter, I suddenly experienced what philosophers call an epiphany, a sudden, almost spiritual insight into the deeper meaning of things. Specifically, rice. And Taj Palace.
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Mussel & Burger (& Elotes) Bar
Okay, I have to admit, I was dubious at first about the idea of this new place in J’town bringing together mussels and burgers as its signature dishes.
When I heard that Cristina and Fernando Martinez and his cousin, Yaniel, were going to build a bill of fare around two such disparate edibles, my imagination pushed back: “One of these things is not like the other.”
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Pick your avatar at Dragon King’s Daughter
Maybe this is just my wacky imagination talking, but I’ve always thought Dragon King’s Daughter sounded like a good name for a really intense online role-playing game.
It would be a game full of samurai warrior avatars, of course, but it would have to have moustachio’d bandidos too, as DKD (as its fans abbreviate it) manages to fit both Japanese and Mexican flavors — and a lot more, too — into a single menu, and somehow it works.
Continue reading Pick your avatar at Dragon King’s Daughter