Happy lunch-time at Sari Sari

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.)
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Stratto’s boosts fine-dining on the Sunny Side

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.
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What’s brewing at BBC?

(Bluegrass Brewing Co., Voice-Tribune, July 12, 2006)

Brewing beer locally for a dozen years now, Bluegrass Brewing Co. is the city’s oldest remaining brew pub and was our first to make a significant mark on the national brew pub and microbrewery scene.

America has enjoyed such a renaissance of small-batch, craft brewing since the early 1990s that it’s easy to forget that, for much of the postwar generation, the only beer available in the U.S. for those who wanted something more interesting than mass-market lager was expensive (and often poorly kept) imported brew. Beer lovers everywhere owe a debt of gratitude to creative brewers like Dave Pierce, founding brewer at BBC, who opened this local favorite in 1993. It’s been a destination for good beer and good food ever since.

The BBC brand has proliferated over the years, now hanging its sign over a half-dozen watering holes, not all of them directly connected. Pierce, as it happens, stopped brewing there in 2001 and separated ways from the original owners in 2005, although the St. Matthews BBC that he founded carries on the BBC name and trademark with beers now made by brewers Jerry Gnagy and Cameron Finnis.
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We hablamos a little Spanglish at La Perla del Pacifico

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.
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Time for Thai

(Lemongrass, Thai Taste, Thai Café, Thai-Siam, Voice-Tribune, June 28, 2006)

I’ve never quite understood why lemongrass isn’t more widely popular in Western cuisines. A key ingredient in Southeast Asian cookery, this fragrant herb imparts a lovely lemony perfume with a mellow and tangy complexity that mere lemon juice can’t match.

Bold, bright and crisp flavors like lemongrass inform the delicious dishes of Vietnam and Thailand, in the tropical region that we once called “Indo-China” to signal its location between India and China. It’s no coincidence that the fare of this part of the world derives its character from both of its larger neighbors, melding the light, colorful stir-fries and rice and noodle dishes of East Asia with the spicy and aromatic flavors of South Asia.

The combination rarely fails to delight, and I’m never loath to head out to any of the region’s Vietnamese or Thai eateries when I need a culinary mood-lifter. And now we’ve got one more appetizing option with the arrival of a new branch of Lemongrass Café in the heart of St. Matthews.
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A Brown Cow for Daddy and other food weirdness

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Bourbon Stout Float at Jazz Factory, Bubble Tea at TaiPei Café, and more)

Illustration by Gina Moeller

Last week, when we spent a good deal of our Eat ‘N’ Blog efforts on a wide-ranging survey of the region’s ice creams and related dairy treats, let’s face it, we did it mostly for the kids. Ice cream, after all, is for youngsters … not excluding the inner child who resides within us all.

But ice cream doesn’t have to be a kiddie treat. Consider the remarkable new summer confection that’s drawing oohs and aahs (and yes, the occasional snicker) in the friendly confines of Louisville’s Jazz Factory. The Bourbon Stout Float is a Brown Cow for grown-ups, no mere root beer float but a robust, creamy cooler that substitutes real beer – rich, dark Bourbon Barrel Stout from Browning’s – for the namby-pamby soft drink of childhood.

To embrace the concept of beer and ice cream requires a serious paradigm shift, and even some of my more adventurous foodie friends reject the very notion with a high-pitched, wailing “Eeeeuuuwwww.” Wimps! Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it, I say; and Jazz Factory makes it easy, whipping up a Bourbon Stout Float in a hefty pint glass for $6.50, no more than you’d pay for a 32-ounce The Hulk Chocolate Smoothie at Smoothie King, where you’ll get no alcohol in your 1,300-calorie concoction.
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