I love labneh, the thick, tangy, strained-yogurt cheese of the Eastern Mediterranean. It was a treat to get a dab of labneh, dotted with pumpkin seeds, atop a risotto at Marketplace last week, but a bite only made me want more. So we headed over to the highly regarded Aladdin’s Cafe in New Albany the other day, where you can get the stuff in a sandwich or on a plate.
We had such a good time checking out Main Street last week that we decided to hit the other end of downtown for dinner at Marketplace. Hmm. This block is different.
Walk down Fourth Street toward Broadway on a quiet evening when there’s nothing playing at the Palace, Mercury Ballroom or the Brown Theatre, and you may not meet another human being. Until you get to Marketplace Restaurant, anyway. Continue reading Even on a quiet night, Marketplace rocks→
Say what you will about the Yum Center – and I say it looks like the offspring of an unnatural union between a toaster oven and an ink-jet copier – you have to give it credit for helping foster a boom in good places to eat in its Main Street neighborhood. Like Bluegrass Brewing Company. And other good places, too, but BBC, I’m looking at you right now. Continue reading Yum Center bound? Dine at BBC first→
Can a dining decision be political? You bet! When nightly news shows horrifying images of immigrant parents ripped from their families while partisans shout for a border wall, it’s time to call B.S. The best way I know to do that is to take my dining business to local restaurants run by Latino neighbors, such as the spectacularly good La Lupita in Clarksville.
And while I’m there, happily noshing, I want to thank the owners and servers and tell them I’m glad they’re here: “Me gusta que tu eres mi vecina,” I’ll say in fractured Spanglish, reaching out with a few words in their language. “I’m happy that you are my neighbor.”
