Toast on Market chef George Morris has crafted an inventive menu based on comfort food, such as a meatloaf sandwich, a garlic cheddar grilled cheese and roasted garlic tomato soup. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Toast on Market, and Kim’s ethnic fish tour)

Some of the wits on the LouisvilleHotBytes Restaurants Forum have taken to calling the growing cluster of eateries and watering holes on East Market and Main streets “Clay Street Live.”

From the BBC Tap Room to Jenicca’s Wine Bar, Artemisia and Kim’s and Melillo’s, Felice Winery and the Bodega and more, this unorganized collection of funky, independent local spots in the gentrifying zone east of I-65 boasts a lot more local character than Fourth Street Live, as far as we’re concerned. We love its distinctly Louisville accent, shorn of franchise logos and plastic.

The latest arrival, Toast on Market, makes a good thing even better. Continue reading You’re Toast, and that’s good →

Mike Hungerford cooks up fish tacos and more at the Seafood Connection in St. Matthews. Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Seafood Connection in St. Matthews, and six worthy plates of hummus)

I’ve never taken the position that an eatery must boast white tablecloths or tux-clad servers to qualify for four-star status. Upscale or down-home, if a restaurant takes on a specific challenge and does everything as well as it can possibly be done, then it earns my top rating, whether it’s a luxury dining destination, barbecue joint or neighborhood saloon.

Award a stellar galaxy, then, to what may be one of the smallest and least pretentious restaurants in the Metro.
Continue reading Four-star fish at Seafood Connection →

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Red Robin, Chicago Gyros, Order’s Up! and Ned’s Excellent Adventure at Norma Jean’s Trackside)

OK, let’s get this clear up front: I’m suspicious of corporate restaurant chains, and I don’t have high expectations for much of anything in the suburbs.

So why did I rush out in such a big hurry to check out Red Robin Gourmet Burgers & Spirits in Brownsboro Crossing, an East End commercial development so new that the restaurant’s street address shows up as “Not Found” on my Blackberry?

It’s the buzz, man! The arrival of this outfit, a 350-unit Boulder-based enterprise, seems to have created more of a stir than any corporate arrival since the dynamic duo of P.F. Chang’s and Cheesecake Factory came to town. Big crowds were reportedly slamming the place, and I couldn’t see any way around heading for the ‘burbs to check it out.
Continue reading Cynical critic checks out chain burgers →

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Sari Sari, Queen of Sheba, and Kim’s Curry Tour)

In addition to the customary greetings that all languages share for “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” “Good evening” and “Good night,” folks in the Philippines greet other at midday with a happy “Magandang tanghali.” Loosely translated, the term means “Happy lunch-time!” This cultural note suggests an affection for the midday meal that’s borne out in the warmly comforting nature of home-cooked Filipino cuisine.

Louisville hasn’t had a lot of exposure to the food of this 7,000-island Southeast Asian nation, but the Sari Sari restaurant in Crescent Hill may soon change that with its tasty and affordable Filipino delights. (“Sari Sari,” by the way, means something like “various” or “sundry” in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines. A sari-sari store is a cross between an unchained 7-11 and a community center, where you can get just about anything you really need, and the latest neighborhood gossip, too.)
Continue reading Happy lunch-time at Sari Sari →

Photo by Kelly Mackey: John McCulloch is the executive chef at Stratto’s, cooking in the 19th century mansion – now restored – where his great-great-grandmother once toiled.

(CHEF CHANGE: Chef Tony Efstratiadis, formerly with Napa River Grill and 316 Ormsby in Louisville, took over as chef at Stratto’s in September 2006, and has made some changes in the menu.)

As far back as most of us could remember, folks in Southern Indiana who wanted to enjoy a fine-dining experience were pretty much obliged to hit the bridges to Kentucky if they wanted anything more sophisticated than diner fare or a fast-food chain.

It might seem rude for a Kentuckian to say such a thing, but let the record reflect that it’s deeply rooted Hoosier John McCulloch saying this, pledging to make Stratto’s – the fine new Italian eatery where he’s executive chef – a dining destination that will raise the bar for gourmet-style dining on the Sunny Side.
Continue reading Stratto’s boosts fine-dining on the Sunny Side →

Illustration by Gina Moeller

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

It’s a good thing to have at least one really authentic, Spanish-speaking eatery in the East End – it’s a long ride out Preston to the Metro’s more concentrated Latino-eats zone when you’ve got a hankering for something more real than Taco Bell or even the gently Anglicized Mexicano of the more bilingual Mexican eateries, as fine as they can be.

Setting aside the urbanite’s prejudice that there’s nothing of interest east of the Watterson, we recently ventured out to tract mansion country to try the new La Perla del Pacifico (“The Pearl of the Pacific”), and were so impressed by its simpatico combination of fine food, friendly service and fair prices that we’ve gone back again and again.
Continue reading We hablamos a little Spanglish at La Perla del Pacifico →

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Herman’s Deli, Stevens & Stevens and an Omega My Oh quest for salmon)

Illustration by Gina Moeller

Here’s something I’ve never quite understood: The word delicatessen, from the German delikatessen, which the Teutons borrowed in turn from the Italian and French words delicatezza and delicatesse, means, well, delicacies or maybe delicate eats.

Delicate? What in the heck is delicate about fatty meats like pastrami, corned beef, tongue and chopped chicken liver, piled high on thick rye bread with mustard and onions and dill pickles? Or, depending on your ethnic preference, an antipasto on a bun, salami and capicola and sopressata and mortadella and maybe a little prosciut’ and some peperoncini peppers on a crusty hero loaf?

Let’s face it: Deli fare is European po’ folks’ comfort food, filling and fatty, designed to fill and fuel the inner person for a hard day’s work.
Continue reading Finding a deal of a deli in Louisville →

Illustration by Gina Moeller

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Scotty’s BBQ, Heady’z, Gelato Gilberto, Westport General Store)

Yes, we’re talking barbecue again, all right? Get used to it. Properly smoked meat is one of nature’s most perfect foods. Get yourself outside of a rack of juicy, smoky ribs, and you really don’t need much of anything else.

Way out on the far east end of town, a gent who calls himself Big Bubba has been dispensing excellent ribs, with no extra charge for homespun commentary, since back in the day when there wasn’t much else around this tract-mansion-riddled region but corn and potato fields. Eat ‘N’ Blog correspondent DAN FARLEY says it just doesn’t get much better than this:

Let me say this right off the top: If you like barbecued ribs better than I do, you’re one sick puppy. I love them; I can’t do without them; I believe I can tell you where to get the best ribs in the Louisville area: Scotty’s, located at the end of a little strip mall on Shelbyville Road across from Copperfield, is the place.
Continue reading Big Bubba’s smokin’ →

(El Toro and Salsarita’s, Voice-Tribune, June 7, 2006)

El Toro, the brave bull, sounds like it ought to be the name for a place that specializes in beef, and now that I think of it, the beef dishes at El Toro restaurant are, well, bueno. But it’s the mariscos – the seafood and fish – that really rattle my marimbas at this popular new East End eatery.

My Mexican-American foodie friend Javier put me on El Toro’s trail the other day with an excited E-mail message. “I am from Mexico … I think honestly that El Toro is the best [Mexican] restaurant in the city of Louisville right now. The service was excellent and the food was prepared very well. It is still somewhat Tex-Mex which bothers me but somehow they manage to make you forget that fact.”

This was high praise, coming from a guy who’s done time in the restaurant business himself. So I hastened to check it out, and came away convinced. If not the No. 1 Mexican restaurant in the metro – competition for that title is keen – it certainly exceeds expectations, and earns my recommendation for food, service and environment.
Continue reading El Toro wins critic’s “Olé!” →

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Nios, Mayan Gypsy, Jeff Ruby’s preview)

Photo by Robin Garr: Nio’s at 917.

If these old walls could talk, what stories they might tell. This stunning, century-old red-brick building, with its big semicircular fanlights over glass-paned front doors, was originally the Gem theater, where actors trod the boards in a small but imposing barrel-vaulted room that now houses a dining room and the open kitchen at Nios at 917.

Did they play Shakespeare? Or vaudeville, or burley-cue? It’s hard to say. Before the 1950s, it was Shibboleth Hall, a Masonic lodge, and in recent years it has housed a succession of eateries and bars. The still-lamented Jupiter Grill was here, followed by a short-lived incarnation as a fish-taco spot, then @mosphere, a trendy establishment that ran into licensing problems that turned on the thorny issue of whether it was an eatery or a saloon.

Nios should have no difficulty with this regulatory question. Although it boasts a splendid bar with a lofty wine rack so tall that it needs library-style rolling ladders to reach the top shelves, it’s a restaurant indeed, and one that’s already showing potential to compete with the city’s top tables.
Continue reading Nios at 917: small plates, big taste →