FVK Swizzle. Jolea Brown @Creative Photography.Go west, they said. So St. Charles Exchange did. This new spot bucks the recent trend to Nulu (East Market Street), opting instead to open up on Seventh just off Main, across from the entrance to 21c. The concept is “1900s hotel lobby bar,” and by Jove, they’ve done it. After a couple drinks at the bar, you’ll find yourself looking toward the grand set of double doors as if they lead upstairs to your honeymoon suite. The suspendered, vested and newsy-capped waitstaff appear as though they’d procure a carriage for your ride home, if only you asked. Sweeping mustard-gold curtains cascade down the ceiling-height windows, which, during a recent grand opening, let in just enough sunlight to illuminate the dining room’s dusky ambience. The flooring is refurbished wood from an old Kentucky barn, and the ceilings are paneled in deep brown-black wood. Mirrors run the length of cushioned banquettes, while small gold lamps add an air of mystery: this is the restaurant I go to in New York for a bite to eat and a Bellini at midnight.
I’ll make a late night stop at St. Charles Exchange for snacks from the Larder – cheese, olives and pickles, ham, crudités – and an artfully mixed cocktail, such as the FVK Swizzle. The picturesque gin-based drink, featuring citrus flavors and a hit of absinthe to keep you honest, is brightly slashed across the top by pink grapefruit syrup.
A die-hard Springsteen fan, my husband was obligated to try the Darkness on the Edge of Town, a stormy rum drink served over one massive hunk of ice. Had I sampled any of the punches, my pick would have been the Well-Deserved, simply for the name. Exclusively American wines and beers round out the beverage program.
A variety of delectable deviled eggs was offered – curry, truffle, barbeque – the selection will change daily. But the winning hors d’oeuvre, by several lengths, was Elvis on Horseback: peanut butter-stuffed dates, wrapped in bacon, atop a smoked banana vinaigrette. A list of five Plates (“Mains”) range from $22 to $29, and a lamb burger is offered for $15.
Listed hours are Mon. – Sun., 5 p.m. – 2 a.m. A private room is available, and they anticipate opening their cool, shaded below-ground-level outdoor patio July 1.
Vegan "ribs" at Green Leaf . LEO photo by Ron JasinPeople talk about “restaurant rows” all the time in this food-crazed town. We’ve been marking them with highlighters on the city map for the last 25 years or so, since Bardstown Road started to solidify as the city’s first such culinary concatenation with the arrival of the Bristol, Jack Fry’s and their neighbors in the late 1970s.
It didn’t take Frankfort Avenue long to get into the act, when the Irish Rover, El Mundo and Heine’s followed Deitrich’s and the original incarnation of Lynn’s onto the streetscape. And then came St. Matthews, and NuLu;, and before long they’re all probably going to start running together into one mass restaurant zone.
And now, out on the bustling northwestern corner of the U of L campus, we may have the city’s first purpose-built restaurant row. If you don’t get out to this area often and still have in your mind the image of the old barn-like venue that long housed Masterson’s, get set to recalibrate: The entire southern end of the block along Cardinal Boulevard (née Avery) between Third and Fourth streets is now filled in by a hulking Cardinal red building that includes fancy apartment housing for 540 students … and, at ground level, a spanking-new urban block of spiffy storefronts that’s chockablock with quick-service eateries. Now, that’s a restaurant row!
Clearly geared to student interests, this row focuses on simple dining, fast and cheap. Not that there’s anything the matter with this. You might stereotype it as geared to student tastes, too. You’ve got subs (Qdoba), burgers (Home Run), vegetarian (Green Leaf), wings and such (Cluckers), coffee (Quills), Vietnamese-Chinese (Saigon One), pizza (Papalino’s), more sandwiches (Jimmy John’s) and, for dessert, a delicious bowl of ice cream (Comfy Cow).
You’ll find no upscale bistros here, no pricey white-tablecloth dining; but it’s a good mix of attractive alternatives, and applause to Louisville’s Grisanti Group (with its ties to local dining through the old Ferd Grisanti’s) for offering a number of local operators space among the chains. Not to mention such other attractions as J. Gumbo’s, Bazo’s, Bearno’s, Santa Fe Grill, La Tapatia, and the iconic Wagner’s Pharmacy, among many more in the campus-Papa John’s Stadium-Churchill Downs zone.
The Cardinal Towne strip proved more than ample for us the other day, though, as I felt the siren song of good quick and cheap eats calling my name from every doorway we passed at lunch time. We finally settled on a three-course progressive dinner that began with perhaps the quirkiest of the bunch, Green Leaf Natural Vegetarian Bistro.
The shtick here is that everything is vegetarian and much of it vegan; and posters and flat-screen videos in this shiny, green room hammer on the health and general goodness of a meat-free lifestyle. The menu straight-facedly offers dishes like caramel ginger chicken, steak burgers, BBQ pork and, mm, mm good, ribs, but it’s all ersatz, of course, using soy-protein analogues in place of meat. This vegetarian alternative outraged Louisville Cardinal critic Nathan Douglas, who savaged the place in a review earlier this year, demanding to know why “… one would put themselves through eating imitation meat, which at Green Leaf, has the consistency and taste of wet paper towels.”
I like the kid’s style – he might have a future as a restaurant critic – and if he got a little too harsh, he wasn’t really far off in his overall assessment. While I didn’t hate the meat analogues – the “ribs” had a chewy meaty texture and good salty flavor, and the “chicken” bits were soft but tasted as much like chicken as, say, rattlesnake or bunny rabbit does.
I wasn’t overwhelmed with the preparation, though. Both our dishes, house special citrus “rib” ($6.50) and roasted salted “chicken” ($6.75) came in seemingly identical combos with broccoli, pea pods, onion strips, zucchini, green pepper and a few wizened bits of button mushroom and soy sauce in “stir-fries” done on a grill top with rice on the side. I’ve had better Chinese food with more smiling service at storefront chopsticks houses all over town, and much better vegetarian at Roots, Heart & Soy, Zen Garden and just about every Southeast Asian eatery in town.
I doubt I’ll be back, but at least it was a decent deal, $17.18 for two with a tall glass of bubble tea ($2.95), and the change out of a $20 for the tip jar.
Hoping to bounce back from a less than satisfactory experience, we continued lunch at a sure bet, Papalino’s NY Pizzeria, whose Cardinal Towne branch offers the downscale mood of an off-campus pizza pub. Giant slices, one with spinach, goat cheese and roasted tomatoes, and the other with roma tomatoes on chipotle cheddar, made us happy and got us out for about 10 bucks plus tip. (I rated the original Papalino’s 88 points upon opening on Baxter Avenue in 2010.)
Papalino’s NY Pizzeria
337 W. Cardinal Blvd.
365-1505 papalinospizza.com
Of course we couldn’t leave without a quick dessert at Comfy Cow, whose Cardinal Town branch sticks with the mini-chain’s antique ice-cream parlor look and ice cream that we’d scream for. “Arnold Palmer,” a lemonade-iced tea sorbet with a whiff of ginger, was strangely good. Caramel mocha was just plain good. Two “kiddie scoops,” $5, which probably works out to about 1 cent per calorie.
The Comfy Cow
339 W. Cardinal Blvd.
409-5090 thecomfycow.com
Since the loss of Deitrich’s and the short-lived Le Beaujolais at the Douglass Loop, the lack of a good French bistro in this town has been a major whining point for foodies. Sure, we have the awesome Le Relais, but it’s a fancy, upscale restaurant, hardly a bistro by any standard.
So what is a bistro? It’s hard to define simply in English, but let’s call it the Parisian model of a friendly, family-owned neighborhood restaurant that offers a simple bill of fare and tasty libations at wallet-friendly prices, with no pomp or circumstance. Continue reading La Coop brings bistro to town→
Yum, I love me some fine diner fare. That’s fine “diner,” now, not fine “dining,” which I like, too, but which might be a little out of place in the noisy and very casual environs of The Silver Dollar, whose retro-style sign out front blares “Whiskey By The Drink.”
]Now that I think about it, Chef Jonathan Schwartz and sous chef Dave Hawkins do an estimable job of fine cooking, too, but they keep it in the blue-collar style of Bakersfield, Calif., a dusty Central Valley town where agriculture and oil, the Dust Bowl diaspora and the Chicano diaspora meet and blend in an environment that gave birth to the Bakersfield Sound in country music and, it goes without saying, honky-tonk saloons. Continue reading Fine diner brunch and honky-tonk at The Silver Dollar→
Bombay isn’t Bombay anymore, it’s Mumbai. And as India takes its native names back, Madras is Chennai, and Calcutta goes by Kolkata. But “Mumbai Grill” just doesn’t have the same curb appeal as Bombay Grill, somehow.
Goat Chettinad at Bombay Grill. PHOTO: Ron Jasin.Still, even if you say “Mumbai” and I say “Bombay,” let’s not call the whole thing off. Recent visits to Bombay Grill have me persuaded that it’s leading the growing local pack of Indian restaurants in a hotly competitive food fight right now. The food seems authentic, an assumption that’s substantiated by the regular presence of crowds of happy Indian-American diners.
More important, the Indian food here is consistently delicious, served in bright, clean and comfortable suburban shopping center environs, and service has been invariably friendly, quick and smiling. We’ve got a half-dozen Indian eateries around town, and a couple have stuck for close to 15 years. It’s a good thing, and if you still haven’t really embraced Indian food, perhaps it’s time to give it a try.
If you don’t have much experience with Indian cuisine, we’ll excuse you if you think it’s nothing more than bowls of fiery-hot curry, rice and maybe a big bottle of Indian beer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you; but it’s worth knowing that Indian food is actually as diverse and interesting as India itself, and that’s saying a lot.
From its southern tip in the tropics to its northern heights that reach to the top of the Himalayas, India incorporates fields and farms, jungles and deserts, plains and great river valleys, some of the world’s tallest mountains, and nearly 5,000 miles of ocean coastline that provide a wealth of seafood.
With 1.2 billion people in a country about as large as all of Europe, India is the world’s second most populous country (after China), and is wildly diverse in religion, culture and custom. What that means to us is that some Indians shun beef but eat pork; some reject pork but dine happily on cow; and quite a few avoid eating animals at all, turning this preference into some of the world’s most interesting vegetarian fare.
Bombay Grill earns my applause for opening its menu to the full range of Indian regional cuisines, offering samples of all those flavors from just about every corner of the subcontinent. You can sample a broad selection on the all-you-can-eat lunch buffet ($7.99 weekdays, $9.99 Saturdays and Sundays).
The menu, though, offers a much wider range of treats than you’ll find even on its expansive buffet line, offering more than 100 options divided partly by primary ingredient (lamb, chicken, seafood, goat and vegetarian), partly by cooking style (tandoori oven, biryani rice dishes) and partly by region (dosai and uthappam from South India). It’s all affordable, the menu topping out at $12.99 for seafood courses, $10.99-$11.99 for most meat and seafood entrees, and $8.99-$9.99 for nearly two dozen vegetarian dishes.
We put the system to a stress test recently with a sizable group of 11 for dinner, a crowd that proved to be dwarfed by an even larger anniversary party. No worries — service and the kitchen handled the load well.
We passed around all manner of dishes, and really had no complaints about quality or preparation on anything. Even with a bountiful meal, our large group joined the clean-plate club.
We began by sharing four or five appetizers, including medhu vada ($3.99), which look like Nord’s finest but are actually dense and savory “fried donuts” made with lentil flour; samosa turnovers ($3.99), or spicy mashed potatoes and peas wrapped in fried pastry cones the shape of oversize Hershey Kisses; a South Indian masala dosai ($5.99), or a giant crepe rolled around spiced potatoes; and a veggie appetizer plate ($8.99), featuring four chutneys, pakoras (onion fritters), a snow-white iddly (rice bread), hot green chiles peeking out of a fried wrap, spiced fried potato wedges, another medhu vada and a samosa, and something called a “vegetable cutlet.”
Main courses passed around the table included such traditional goodies as chicken tikka masala ($10.99), tender chicken bites in an orange-pink, mildly spicy tomato and butter sauce; chicken tandoori ($10.99), bright red and sizzling from the clay oven with sliced onions; and lamb saag ($11.99), chunks of lamb in a savory spinach-and-cream sauce.
Goat chettinad ($11.99) consisted of flavorful but mild goat meat on the bone, (unfortunately more bone than meat) in a South Indian toasted-spice sauce. My favorite, malai kofta ($9.99), featured six bite-size veggie “meatballs” made of finely minced veggies fried in crisp, breaded spheres, then dunked into a delicious and complex sauce of tomatoes, finely ground cashews and fiery spice.
An average share for dinner would have been about $30 per couple; we picked up the appetizers and a big Indian beer and still got out for $66.15 plus tip.
Bombay Grill
216 N. Hurstbourne Pkwy.
425-8892 bombaygrillky.com
Rating: 90
The buzzing gallery and nightspot zone along East Market Street that the PR-meisters wish we would call “NuLu” has become so crowded lately that, as Yogi said, nobody goes there anymore. Of course, this is not true. In fact, thousands of people joyously cram the nabe in pursuit of art and good things to eat and drink, and doubly so on weekend evenings. Continue reading Beating the crowds with a weekday lunch at Rye→
Grouper fingers at the Brewery.It’s been a quite a few years now since a couple of Louisville’s favorite neighborhoods sprouted so many eateries that we dubbed them “Restaurant Rows.” Bardstown Road arguably came first, starting with the Bristol in the 1970s, quickly joined by Jack Fry’s, Cafe Metro, Lilly’s and many more. Frankfort Avenue, with Deitrich’s on its leading edge, quickly gained critical mass in the ‘90s. Then St. Matthews grew into a dining and nightlife zone, and now we’ve seen Nulu burst like the finale at Thunder Over Louisville.
Now something new is happening: All these prosperous restaurant rows are growing into each other, melding into one gigantic, delicious city-wide restaurant zone!Starting in the bustling quarter around the Yum Center, an ambulatory diner could easily work his way out through Nulu and Butchertown to Frankfort Avenue, strolling right out to St. Matthews with few breaks in the action all the way to Oxmoor. Or you could hang a right from Nulu onto Baxter, push through its busy nightspot zone and on out Bardstown to the Watterson. You’d rarely be more than a minute’s walk from an eatery either way.
Stick a pin into the epicenter of this culinary earthquake, and you’d probably jab it down on Baxter, right about where The Brewery recently opened its doors.
Wait! The Brewery? Wasn’t that a popular watering hole back in the ‘80s and ‘90s?
Why, yes!
It closed around the beginning of the new Millennium, though, leaving thousands of bereft fans nostalgic with memories of a lively setting for good music, tasty pub grub and plenty of cold beer.
But now owners Mike Ryan and Dan Evans are back, joined by restaurateur Kevin Daly, with a new Brewery that looks a lot like the old Brewery but maybe even better. Open for lunch and dinner daily, until 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays, its expansive space includes the dark, amiable tavern with its historic bar, a 5,000 pound installation that once served the 19th century Vienna Bar and later Kunz’s; a lighter, brighter dining room, and a patio.
The beer list features mostly the usual suspects but adds a couple of upscale imports and one or two microbrewery locals (NABC Hoptimus and Falls City Ale). The menu remains heavy on the kind of delicious salty, crunchy fried goodies that go so well with beer, plus a broad selection of sandwiches and burgers, virtually all under $10. If you’re feeling more like a restaurant meal, a half-dozen more substantial entrees range in price from $8.95 (for linguine with meatballs and marinara sauce) to $12.95 (for a grilled 10-ounce sirloin or grilled or fried fresh Florida grouper, both served with veggie and potato).
We found everything satisfactory during a recent visit, but perhaps as befits a place named after a beer factory, the beer-friendly starters shone the brightest. Cheese bites ($4.95) consisted of two or three dozen small cubes of Cheddar and Monterey Jack, perfectly fried, crispy without and molten within, with a gently spicy remoulade for dipping. Grouper fingers ($7.95) were on the mild side for grouper, perfectly fried, too, and generously portioned.
A single-size mushroom-and-olive pizza ($6.95) and the Brewery’s famous Brew Burger ($5.95) passed muster, and a spinach salad ($5.95) was, well, a salad. But here’s our advice: Say hi to the new Brewery, much like the old Brewery: You can’t go wrong with a crunch bar snack and a cold beer.
Dinner for three, with a couple of pints of the local brews, was $46.65 plus a $10 tip.
Preview by Deb Hall This is a report on a pre-opening media tasting. La Coop opens to the public on Tuesday, April 24.
The latest addition to the East Market corridor – La Coop-Bistro A Vins – aims for the welcoming ambience of a neighborhood French bistro, and succeeds very well. They’ve done amazing things with the former 732 Social space- now transformed from its former industrial vibe into a warm and inviting space that feels very much like the actual bistros in France. Continue reading Craving French bistro? Here comes La Coop!→
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, my father came home one day and announced, “Kids, we’re going to Chicago this weekend, and we’re going to a new kind of restaurant. It has the most amazing salads on a giant buffet, and you can walk right up and take whatever you want.”
Just about everyone knows what an omelet is, and the difference between “easy over” and “sunnyside-up” is a mystery to only a few. As Louisville’s dining scene has grown and our restaurant roster become diverse, we’ve learned more and more. Marinara or alfredo? Easy. Corn or flour tortilla? Ditto!
But when it comes to Indian food, most of us are still learning. What’s a korma? A saag? A vindaloo? Want to learn Indian food vocabulary fast? I suggest a visit to the buffet at Taj Palace. Continue reading Learning and liking Indian food at Taj Palace→
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