The Irish Rover has been my comfy neighborhood pub for a long time now. We moved back to town from exile in New York City in 1994, not long after the Rover had opened its authentically Irish digs in a historic Crescent Hill building that began life more than 150 years ago as a saloon.
Continue reading ‘Crack-a-licious’ small plates at the Irish Rover
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| Fish tacos at Big Ben Cafe |
Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes
England swings like a pendulum do.
Bobbies on bicycles, two by two.
Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben …
Roger Miller’s memorably kitschy tune is one of those melodies that sticks in your head until you want to bang your skull on the wall to make it go away.
Louisville’s new Big Ben, happily, isn’t anything like that. But drop by during a busy lunch hour or balmy evening, and chances are you will find the place swinging.
Head for the village center of new-made-to-look-old Norton Commons, and you can hardly miss the busy scene of outdoor tables and red umbrellas set up across the front of Big Ben’s red-brick quarters. Within, it’s an independent eatery made to look a great deal like a franchise chain, a dream that I suspect the owners have in mind.
Continue reading Big Ben swings like a pendulum do
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| Mezza Plate at Dejlah Bistro. Photo by Ron Jasin. |
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
]More than 7,500 years ago, historians say, early hunter-gatherers started moving in small bands down from the mountains north of the Persian Gulf to settle along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They saved and planted seeds, domesticated farm animals, and eventually founded the world’s first cities, then its first empires, in Mesopotamia, the rich land “between the rivers.”
The ancient Mesopotamians invented writing, not to mention bread, wine and beer. Indeed, the need to provide a growing population with food and drink inspired the first civilization, the fertile soil to which we all trace back our cultural roots.
Continue reading Taste of Mesopotamia at Dejlah Bistro
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| Sandwich from El Rumbon |
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
Fidel Castro is sliding into retirement, and anti-Cuba sentiment feels oh-so ’60s nowadays. We still can’t legally smoke Cuban cigars, but they’re not so hard to score. And Cuban food is starting to look like the next big thing on the Louisville culinary scene.
Havana Rumba broke the ice, earning instant popularity when it opened in St. Matthews almost six years ago; the owners quickly doubled down with sibling Mojito and, more recently, a second location in Middletown. Cocos Lokos added another quality option on the Hurstbourne corridor last year, and Cuba Libre, new in Jeffersonville this summer, is drawing crowds.
Now, an amiable Cuban chef named Reinold Febles has added yet another tasty dimension with Cuban street food. Febles, who’s worked in a number of kitchens around town, sets up his large, spic-and-span food trailer on auto-dealer parking lots around Oxmoor Center, serving Cuban food as well as some Mexican favorites (burritos, quesadillas) and Norteamericano fried chicken and hot dogs.
Continue reading El Rumbon Cuban Trailer gives new meaning to ‘road food’
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years …
Yeah, right. Now that I’ve successfully planted that earworm, let me say I can’t believe it’s been so long since I first reviewed Equus, a then-new restaurant in St. Matthews that was buzzing under a new owner and chef, Dean Corbett, for the old Louisville Times in 1985.
Continue reading Say hello to the new Equus, sort of like the old Equus
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Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes
Stand in the center of St. Matthews at lunch time and look around. Try to find something healthy. Okay, there’s … um … pub grub. More pub grub. And still more pub grub! There’s a hearty Irish stew. Over there, hot dogs. Quick-service Chinese food. Fast-food sandwiches. Fried fish, and more fried fish. Danish pastries, yum … and pizza!
Yep, we’ve got lots of goodies to tantalize the taste buds here, but options are more limited when you’re in the mood for a light and healthy lunch. Continue reading Salads to order, chop chop at Chop Shop
Two new spots — Dish on Market and Hillbilly Tea
If dinner is about dressing up, hitting the town and unwinding at the end of a long day of work, lunch has more to do with packing as much enjoyment as we can into a breather from the toil. Two recent arrivals downtown do a worthy job of satisfying the crave.
Continue reading Looking for Mr. Goodlunch
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
Eve Lee
Bardstown Road. Bard’s Town. The Bard. Bill Shakespeare! It’s surprising no one has seized the opportunity to pun upon the name of the Highlands’ main corridor until now.
With the Bard above the door and the promise of grand entertainment within, expectations run high for this new establishment at the corner of Speed Avenue.
“Curst be he who moves my bones,” warns the tombstone of Billy Shakes, and forsooth, the bones of previous occupants Big Dave’s, Judge Roy Bean’s and others back to Fat Cats remain perceptible here. However, owners Doug Schutte, Jon DeSalvo and Scot Atkinson have put a new, solid flesh on those bones. Continue reading The Bard’s Town plays to the crowd
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| Five nigiri-zushi and two maki-zushi rolls at Umai Zushi |
Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes
I love Asian food, and I’m a big fan of many of the East End’s excellent Chinese restaurants, including such quality eateries as Oriental House, Jade Palace, Jasmine, Liang’s and the new Peking City Bistro.
I’m less whelmed with storefront chopsticks houses and all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets, though. Not that they won’t fill me up when I’m cravin’ Asian, but to be quite frank, they’re all pretty much the same.
Until now, that is.
The arrival of Umai Zushi Buffet near the outer stretches of Westport Road introduces a new variable to the Asian buffet equation: In addition to the usual Chinese suspects, it offers a bounty of king crab legs and, from the cuisine of Japan, more than 40 sushi and sashimi goodies.
It’s pretty good sushi, too, I’m pleased to report.
Continue reading Umai Zushi impresses with bountiful sushi spread
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” Not merely the intro line of the original Japanese “Iron Chef,” this fundamental hypothesis goes back to the French gourmet Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s 1825 gastronomic essay, “Physiology of Taste.”
If Brillat-Savarin had examined my dinner at Peking City Bistro, he might have concluded I am a pregnant Chinese woman, a revelation that would come as a considerable surprise to both my mother and my wife.
Intrigued? Pull up a chair, and I’ll tell you the story.
Continue reading A truly authentic experience at Peking City Bistro
