How do you like your cornbread? Like Scarlett O’Hara, most Southern folk don’t give a damn for sweet cornbread. North of the Mason-Dixon, however, cornbread without a touch of sweetness seems just plain weird.
This topic came to mind the other day at Napa River Grill, where we were offered iron mini-skillets loaded with domed rounds of golden-brown cornbread topped with balls of soft butter. It was good cornbread indeed, crunchy on the surface, crumbly within, coarse-grained and sweet, sweet, sweet. You could put this on the dessert menu and call it corn cake. Continue reading Sweet, Sweet Cornbread And More At Napa River Grill→
Chipotle is here at last. Let the congregation say “Whoopee!” The 20-year-old Denver-based fast-food chain built about 1,400 units in 43 states (including a few properties in Lexington and about 30 in Greater Cincinnati) before one finally opened in downtown Louisville last month. (March 2013) Continue reading Louisville finally gets a Chipotle. W00t!→
I wouldn’t want to say that I’m an incurable fanboy, but I can’t deny that I’ve spent more than a few long days lining up at Oxmoor Center, eagerly waiting my turn to be among the first to grab the latest and greatest iDevice from the Apple store.
And better yet, if hunger pangs strike after a few hours of inching ever so slowly forward in the quest for your iThing, you can always make a quick food run to Yang Kee Noodle, bribing your neighbors to save your spot by promising them a delivery of steaming pad thai, sizzling egg rolls or an oversize cup of hot-and-sour soup. Continue reading Yang Kee Noodle came to town 10 years ago, and we’re glad→
We rolled up to our destination in the gathering darkness, and I found a parking spot at the curb out front. I turned, looked up, and … wow! This looks just like our old neighborhood in New York City! It’s a sturdy, three-story block of brick, not brownstone — visualize Queens, not Greenwich Village — with cozy lights in apartment windows on the upper floors, and busy storefronts opening on the street: a meat market, an Italian gelato shop and a family-run Chinese eatery. Continue reading Tea Station’s simple pleasures warm the heart and tummy→
Who doesn’t like a good, juicy burger? It’s ground bliss on a bun, and if you pair it with something else delicious and it gets even better. Burgers and cheese! Burgers and onions! Burgers and fries! Burgers and onion rings, oh my!
But “let’s go get some burgers and mussels” said no person ever. Until the recent arrival of Mussel & Burger Bar, that is, which suddenly has us musing about combinations of artistic dishes never tasted before. Continue reading Get your surf and turf at Mussel & Burger Bar→
Who doesn’t love a bento? Whether you grew up admiring doll houses or tool boxes, the neat, orderly compartments in a Japanese bento box, each carefully loaded with a tiny, artful portion, speaks not only to our hungry adult identities but the inner child within. Continue reading Hiko-A-Mon’s fine Japanese fare earns a following→
For those of us who grew up in an age when we thought a bipartisan series of presidents wanted to send us off to exotic places with strange names like “Vietnam” and “Thailand” to meet nice people and kill them, it is a fine thing that we now go to Vietnamese and Thai restaurants right here in Louisville, meet nice people and eat their delicious food.
When DiOrio’s pizza first settled into the former home of Karem’s Meats in St. Matthews, it already seemed that this booming nightspot zone was attracting more pizzerias than it could reasonably handle … and that was before Coal’s or Mellow Mushroom came to town. Continue reading DiOrio’s earns its place on Pizza Row→
Chef Edward Lee’s insanely popular new restaurant MilkWood at Actors Theatre of Louisville reminds me more than a little of Chef David Chang’s acclaimed Momofuku Ssäm Bar and other Momofuku eateries in New York, Toronto and Sydney, but I think MilkWood has the potential to be even better. Continue reading MilkWood reminds us of Momofuku, only better→
Some restaurants become landmarks through longevity in place, gaining familiarity by virtue of “always” having been there.
The Seelbach’s Oakroom and Brown Hotel’s English Grill fall easily into this category of historic worth, and a generation of Baby Boom icons — the original Bristol, Jack Fry’s, Lilly’s, Equus, Pat’s, DelFrisco’s and quite a few more survivors of the ’70s and ’80s — have become fixtures on the local dining map. (This, perhaps, is why so many felt particular pain as the former Azalea building, a graceful restaurant venue since 1870, was allowed to fall into grubby disrepair so as to justify its destruction in favor of a modern replacement for an upscale eatery, Mesh.) Continue reading Blackstone settles in as Prospect destination→
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