Monthly Archives: March 2008

$ Budget (under $30), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown

Old Louisville burger hop

Ollie's
The only remaining location of a once thriving chain, Ollie’s Trolley is always crowded come lunchtime. LEO Photo by Ben Schneider.

LEO’s Eats with guest writer Dan Thomas
(Ollie’s Trolley; Dizzy Whizz; Granville Inn, and Wagner’s Pharmacy)

The humble burger: It’s a mainstay of the American diet. Most people appreciate a great burger. So where can you go to get something better than the normal fast food offerings from Rally McHardee King and the rest of their brethren? What are the “destination” places that we will go out of our way to, just to get a burger fix we can’t get anywhere else?

Louisville does have independent burger joints still hanging on and doing what they do best. Several are located in and around Old Louisville. What makes these places so good? How do they compare with each other?
Continue reading Old Louisville burger hop →

Commentary

Magical evening at Corbett’s

You will often hear the term “Louisville’s restaurant community.” There’s no better way to describe the atmosphere that existed on March 9 at Dean Corbett’s “An American Place.”

“When we walked in the door, we were greeted by a woman from Sysco. And then, just a few minutes later, a server brought us a glass of wine — her jacket said ‘Rivue,’ ” said LouisvilleHotBytes forum member Jay Mazzoni, who attended the $150-a-plate event with his wife Karen. “It was that way all evening,” he went on. People from many different restaurants, the area’s top chefs — competitors on any other night — working together to create an evening of dining unparalleled in recent Louisville foodie history.
Continue reading Magical evening at Corbett’s →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, World Food

Puck chain brings a taste of California downtown

Photo of Wolfgang Puck Express from outside
Photos by Robin Garr.

(Wolfgang Puck Express, Voice-Tribune, Mar. 13, 2008)

Wolfgang Puck, the smiling, round-faced Austrian-turned-Californian with the Schwarzenegger accent, has finally arrived in Louisville.

Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that Puck’s fast-casual dining chain has arrived: The 80th unit of his Wolfgang Puck Express opened recently in the Kentucky International Convention Center, but you’re no more likely to find Puck building pizzas here than you are to run into Col. Harland Sanders frying chicken at your neighborhood KFC.
Continue reading Puck chain brings a taste of California downtown →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Bistros

Incredible Dave’s: Flawed Inspiration

Photo in Incredible Dave's
Chuck E. Cheese on steroids: If you’re unfamiliar with the Incredible Dave’s concept, imagine a Chuck E. Cheese on steroids, and with a bar. While the concept carries a touch of inspired brilliance, in practice there are flaws. Photo by Nicole Pullen.

Leo EATS with guest columnist Kevin Gibson.

Incredible Dave’s is a fantastic world of sound and color; the kind of place that makes children’s eyes nearly pop out of their heads when they walk in.

“Oh … my … gosh,” one girl, who looked about 7, said recently upon entering with her younger brother and parents.

My girlfriend Jen and I went to Incredible Dave’s, which opened last month on Westport Road in the site of a former Kroger store, on a recent Saturday around 4 p.m. We had hoped to beat the dinner rush, but the place was packed. Packed. For an establishment that had been open only a few weeks at that point, it was quite impressive to see.

If you’re unfamiliar with the restaurant’s concept, imagine a Chuck E. Cheese on steroids, and with a bar. Incredible Dave’s is kind of a Dave & Buster’s that caters to families, giving the adults a chance to dine, enjoy an adult beverage or two and watch the ballgame on big screens while the kids blow their minds on arcade games, bowling, Xbox and Wii lounges, and plenty more.

Continue reading Incredible Dave’s: Flawed Inspiration →

News announcements

Peng Looi is BCA’s Jefferson Evans honoree

Photo of Chef Peng Looi
Chef Peng Looi.

Chef Peng Looi, of Asiatique and August Moon, has won this year’s Jefferson Evans Award, presented annually by the Black Culinarian Alliance to honor individuals “of color” who have shown excellence in the food-service industry. Peng Looi is of Malaysian heritage.

The award is named after chef Jefferson Evans, the first black graduate of the Culinary Institute of America.

QuickBytes

The Sushi battle is joined!

Photo of Toki Masubuchi Huie
Toki Masubuchi Huie: Maido Essential Japanese co-owner and sushi-maker Toki Masubuchi Huie fashions “Dragon King’s Daughter Reborn” bites at Sushi in the City.

LEO’s Eats with Louisville HotBytes

By Robin Garr.

Gather ’round, young ‘uns, and I’ll tell you a story about days gone by. Way back in the dark ages … well, the 1980s … sushi was only a wild-eyed rumor here in Louisville, and most people didn’t believe it would be either appetizing or healthy to eat raw fish.

When this Japanese treat first hit town, it was available only as a Thursday special at a downtown luncheonette, sparsely attended by a small group of zanies (yes, I was one of them) who understood that 125 million Japanese can’t all be wrong. Soon the proprietor went off to start the city’s first real sushi bar, Sachicoma. But it was years before Louisville worked up enough of a sushi craze to support more than one.

Continue reading The Sushi battle is joined! →

$ Budget (under $30), Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, Italian (and Pizza)

The Boombozz theory of evolution

Boombozz
The most recent addition to the Tony Boombozz empire is the brand-new upscale casual Boombozz Bistro in Jeffersontown with an expanded menu and table service. The walls are bright and bold, the colors of tomato sauce and mozzarella, artichoke and sun-dried tomato. Photos by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with Louisville HotBytes

Like a primordial anchovy creeping out of the sea and beholding bigger and better things on shore, the first Tony Boombozz pizzeria burst into view just a decade ago as a tiny but portentous creature.

Louisville’s pizza lovers looked upon it and saw that it was good. So it wasn’t long before the small pizzeria moved into larger quarters on Frankfort Avenue, then spawned a second location on Bardstown Road, cannily providing artisan pizzas on both of the city’s primary restaurant rows.

Now there are four, with the addition of a fast-casual dining room in Springhurst, and, out past Jeffersontown in the distant ‘burbs, the subject of today’s sermon: a brand-new upscale casual Boombozz Bistro with an expanded menu and table service. (Coming later this year, an expanded Bardstown Road operation and tap room with 30, count ’em, 30 draught microbrews.)
Continue reading The Boombozz theory of evolution →

QuickBytes

Hot? Not.

Boombozz
A Skyline Chili five-way topped with “Extreme Habanero” cheese.

The currently trendy Habanero pepper, meaning “guy from Havana,” is said to be one of the hottest peppers on Earth, or at least one of the hottest you can buy at your average grocery store. Food scientists measure its heat in the range of 300,000 Scoville units, which is 10 times the strength of a Cayenne pepper, 100 times that of a jalapeño and a gazillion times that of a green bell pepper. Or, in less technical terms, “Wooooeeee!”

Naturally when I saw an advertisement for Skyline Chili’s EXTREME Habañero cheese – inscrutably spelled with a tilde over the “ñ,” an affectation not known in the pepper’s Cuban homeland – I had to try some right now. Continue reading Hot? Not. →