Let’s touch down for a couple of quick hits on the metro dining scene this week. Uptown Café has been a Bardstown Road landmark for 20 years, serving always reliable fare in a friendly setting that keeps bringing people back for more.
Shandaar Indian is so new that its well-crafted Facebook page still has that new-page smell. So far out in the East End that it feels closer to downtown Shelbyville than downtown Louisville, it proved to be well worth the trek. Continue reading Something old, something new→
LOUISVILLE, New South United People’s Zone, April 1, 2065 – The recent discovery of a large trove of 50-year-old LEO Weeklys, lost in the rubble-filled basement of one of the old buildings in the old city’s fabled New Lew (Nulu?) district before it was destroyed in the Troubles of ’37, sheds fascinating light on the city’s dining scene in those times.
My (long-suffering) fiancé, John, had a celebratory dinner with workmates scheduled last Saturday for 7 p.m. at a popular sushi-hibachi restaurant in Fern Creek. At 7:45, he texted me: Still waiting for a table.
Sure, it was Saturday night, and the place was packed, but that seemed a little bit too much of a delay. I replied: Lordy. Didn’t you have a res? Continue reading It’s my party→
It’s irresistible, isn’t it? The thought of an officially sanctioned day of playing hooky, all safe and warm with your kids and your dogs, snuggled up at home with a full pantry, three hundred cable channels and a bottle of wine for later. The oven’s cranking a pot roast and dough’s rising underneath a gingham tea towel in a ceramic bowl on the counter. It’s like a Norman Rockwell painting up in here! Continue reading It’s No Day for a Snow Day→
Savvy restaurant patrons have heard of the practice of bringing your own bottle of wine to a restaurant and paying a “corkage” fee to have it poured and served for you and your guests. But some folks take things a hair too far in this area. Let’s play a game about dining out. A game I like to call “Okay or Not?” Continue reading Industry Standard: Okay or Not?→
That scene in “Jaws.” You know the one – Quint and Hooper are comparing scars attained from shark-hunting: “You wanna drink?” “I’ll drink to your leg.” “OK, so we drink to our legs!”
Sometimes perception is reality. If a group of diners comes into your restaurant and has to wait a bit longer to be seated than they’d like, they will often naturally exaggerate that wait time when they relate the experience to other people. Their “45-minute” wait for a table might in reality have been 20 minutes, but they will still stick to that 45-minute testimony. Once things have gone this far astray, all bets are off. Continue reading Is perception reality?→
I guess it’s been about six to eight years ago that “artisanal” became the hot new menu adjective. Artisanal this, artisanal that. But let’s get down to brass tacks: We can’t even get people to pronounce it consistently. Merriam-Webster Dictionary has posted a pronunciation that is like the word “artisan” with just “uhll” on the end: ART-izz-an-uhll. Other sources say: ar-TIZZ-uhn-uhll. Continue reading Artisanal, anyone?→
On the anniversary of 9/11 the other week, I was watching a 2002 documentary that began as a profile of a rookie firefighter in New York City and ended up as a film about the larger events of the day. There were lots of scenes from the firehouse in the weeks leading up to the attack; many were of the firehouse kitchen, where the probationary firefighters (or “probies”) were tasked with preparing the shift meal. I was instantly fascinated, but I had a lot of questions the film didn’t answer, so I wanted to ask an actual firefighter how it all goes down. Continue reading On feeding firefighters→
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