$ Budget (under $30), Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, World Food

Ketchup, globalization and Pakistani fare

Mutton curry at Omar

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

The smiling gentleman forked a sizzling dish of bhaji in my direction. It sizzled gently, wafting wonderful aromas noseward: sweet, caramelized onion and an elusive mix of spices.

This is ethnic-foodie heaven: Omar Fast Food Restaurant, a new eatery featuring the fare of Pakistan, a South Asian nation that most of us have heretofore been more likely to encounter on the front page than on our dinner plate.

I took the plate hungrily.

“Ketchup?” the gent inquired, offering a fistful of red foil envelopes of Hunt’s finest.
Continue reading Ketchup, globalization and Pakistani fare →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, Pacific Rim

Sake Blue is on a roll – lots of rolls

ecuador sushi roll
LEO photo by Ron Jasin.
LEO’s Eats with
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Not so long ago – well, back in the early ’80s – the only place in town to get sushi was a downtown diner, where a Japanese woman came in on Thursdays to produce a special sushi lunch for a small but ardent corps of cognoscenti.

A generation or so later, more than 20 eats emporia provide Japanese fare across the metro area, most of them boasting good to excellent sushi bars. You can even buy sushi boxes at local grocery stores.

Just about everybody in town, or every sushi lover anyway, has a favorite, and a roster of top spots (Kansai, Sake Blue, Raw Sushi Lounge, Jarfi’s Bistro and Z’s Fusion) showed off their wares last month at the annual Sushi in the City gala. The all-you-can-eat event and competition at the Henry Clay was for the benefit of the Family Scholar House of Louisville.

New restaurants carried off top honors, with a judging panel rating the entry from Z’s Fusion as Sushi of the Year. The audience, however, followed another favorite, voting the “People’s Choice” award to the city’s newest Japanese restaurant, Sake Blue.
Continue reading Sake Blue is on a roll – lots of rolls →

$ Budget (under $30), Commentary, Frankfort Ave., Clifton, Crescent Hill, World Food

Fox vows to put J. Gumbo’s back on track

J Gumbo's Frankfort Ave. Location
After stumbling at the start, J. Gumbo’s is again hitting its stride.

Regular readers will recall observations I’ve written in the past about the original Clifton J. Gumbo’s retaining much of its character while some other links in the growing local chain didn’t show so well. This news release about Founder Billy Fox Jr. regaining control of the brand should read as good news for those who loved Gumbo’s, at its best, for quality and value.

During his twenty year career as a thoroughbred horse racing jockey, Billy Fox, Jr. learned a thing of two about taking it all in stride. So after his initial foray into franchising his J. Gumbo’s Down-Home Cajun Cookin’ restaurants didn’t proceed as smoothly as he had hoped, Billy didn’t panic or let failure whip him into a frenzy. Instead, he has confidently taken hold of the reins of his business again. “There’s a joke among the staff.” the Grand Coteau, La., native says, “that they’ve gotten me back in the saddle and the kitchen again.”
Continue reading Fox vows to put J. Gumbo’s back on track →

$ Budget (under $30), Pubs, Brew Pubs, GastroPubs, Southern Indiana

Roll out the barrel at Bank Street Brewhouse

steamed mussels, beer
Mussels and a brew at Bank Street Brewhouse

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
With guest critic Kevin Gibson

Lovers of microbrewery beer now have another local mecca: The long-awaited Bank Street Brewhouse, an offshoot of New Albanian Brewing Company, opened its doors this month and is operating with a limited menu and limited seating in downtown New Albany.

If an early impression does justice to the end result, this brewpub will indeed have been worth the wait.

I visited during a recent evening when, in spite of the lightly publicized “soft opening,” the small pub was mostly full, thanks most likely to the fact that the weather was warm and there were plenty of New Albanian beers from which to choose.
Continue reading Roll out the barrel at Bank Street Brewhouse →

Industry Standard

Keepin’ it real: our end of the deal

Since I got this writing gig, I’ve spent a lot of column inches imploring diners to support the local independent restaurant industry. I’ve asked this knowing that belts are tightening, budgets are shrinking and moths are flying out of rarely opened change purses all over the city. But what’s in it for you? What are we doing to entice you to spend your decreasing pool of entertainment dollars at our places of business?

Of course we can drop prices. Many already have. Several local fine-dining establishments have recently revamped their menus to adapt to the changing recessionary and discretionary-funds dynamic. Le Relais, Avalon and Seviche come to mind. But what else can we do for you?’
Continue reading Keepin’ it real: our end of the deal →

$ Budget (under $30), BY LOCATION, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, Frankfort Ave., Clifton, Crescent Hill, New and noteworthy, Pacific Rim

Peace and good eats at Zen Tea House

Avocado and tomato crispy rolls were a treat for the eyes and palate. LEO photo by Ron Jasin.
Avocado and tomato crispy rolls were a treat for the eyes and palate. LEO photo by Ron Jasin.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

If you’re accustomed to grabbing a cup of coffee and knocking it back without much serious thought, you might find an occasional switch to tea a transformative experience.

Particularly if you choose to savor said cup in the contemplative environment of Zen Tea House in Clifton. Owned by longtime local restaurateur Huong “CoCo” Tran, Zen Tea House completes a neat trio of unusual Asian eateries on Frankfort Avenue, two doors down from her Zen Garden vegetarian restaurant and next door to her nephews’ Basa Modern Vietnamese.

From a rock garden in the small front yard of this Clifton bungalow to the curved, black tea bar that sweeps through the front room, Zen Tea House breathes a quiet, relaxing Asian style. The space is calming and, yes, Zen-like.   Continue reading Peace and good eats at Zen Tea House →

Commentary, QuickBytes

Shrimp and grits throwdown!

Windsor shrimp and grits
          LEO photo by Ron Jasin

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

In the Old West, a throwdown was an invitation to come out and fight.

In modern culinary times, resurrected by Food Network’s popular Chef Bobby Flay, a throwdown has become something decidedly more civilized, but still with plenty of posturing and inflated claims.

Cooking throwdowns are a frequent occurrence among the foodies, chefs and restaurateurs whose online personas hang around the LouisvilleHotBytes.com Restaurants Forum.

Last week, the biggest throwdown yet brought chefs from 13 area restaurants together at Captain’s Quarters for a shrimp-and-grits throwdown, a competitive cooking event that attracted a capacity crowd of 250 spectators and raised nearly $5,000 for Families for Effective Autism Treatment (FEAT).
Continue reading Shrimp and grits throwdown! →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, World Food

A magic carpet ride to Caspian Grill

Salmon at Caspian Grill

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

We’ve talked before about how Louisville’s Iranian-American community started in the 1970s with a crowd of students at the University of Louisville who decided to stay around when the Ayatollah Khomeini led the Iranian revolution and things went sour back home.

Iran’s loss has been Louisville’s gain, as a surprising number of these folks went into the restaurant business. Initially many of Louisville’s Iranians worked at the late, storied Casa Grisanti. They eventually ventured out to start restaurants of their own, and in more recent years have begun introducing us to their native cuisine. (The respected restaurateur Majid Ghavami, for instance, bridges this gap, now serving as both owner of Saffron’s, the city’s first Iranian restaurant, and general manager of Volare, one of our most popular Italian eateries.)

Now comes another Italian-to-Iranian translation, as the owners of Café Glace on Frankfort Avenue, a gelato shop, have opened Caspian Grill, an excellent Persian restaurant on Bardstown Road, in the quarters formerly occupied by Sweet Surrender.
Continue reading A magic carpet ride to Caspian Grill →

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