Peace and good eats at Zen Tea House

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.   (more…)

Shrimp and grits throwdown!

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).
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A magic carpet ride to 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.
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Industry Standard: Supper and the single diner

Industry Standard: Supper and the single diner

This week, a member of the LouisvilleHotBytes.com forum reported that she had been dining out alone early in the evening, and she’d been told at the host’s stand that certain tables were reserved, but she might be accommodated at one if she could finish before the reservation party arrived. It appeared that she was offended by this response and sought commiseration from the dining community.
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Let’s line up for breakfast at Meridian Café

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
(Meridian Café, Maido, Les Relais, Dem Bones)

Louisville has always been a breakfast-loving town, it seems, and citizens of Derby City have always had our morning favorites.

From Canary Cottage back in our grandparents’ time to the Baby Boomers’ favorite, Lynn’s Paradise Café, and on to such modern attractions as the lovably urban Toast on Market and Wild Eggs (which just opened a second shop in Westport Village), we’re accustomed to queuing up and waiting, happily and patiently, for weekend breakfast or brunch.

You might find me in line at any of those spots on any given weekend. But you’re even more likely to find me at my top breakfast favorite, Meridian Café in St. Matthews. I honestly cannot understand why Meridian, which always has a cozy crowd of regulars, hasn’t developed the kind of cult following that prompts supplicants to line up outside the door.
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