Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

86	Azalea 3612 Brownsboro Road (502) 895-5493

Website: http://www.tosabe.com/azalea/index.shtml

I suspect that most of us who've been around Louisville for any length of time still think of this comfortable old East End farmhouse as Bauer's, the upscale, down-home restaurant that was here for more than a century.

Then in the late '80s La Paloma came to this space with its creative Latin cuisine and quickly developed an intensely loyal following all its own. But it, too, closed, to be replaced by Azalea, a Kentucky outpost of celebrity chef Tom Catherall's glitzy eatery that had introduced "fusion" cuisine to Atlanta in 1990.

Louisville may not have needed any introduction to "fusion," the creative cuisine that bridges many cultures from Asia and Italy to the American Southwest, but Azalea in its turn has captured Louisville's heart - or at least our taste buds. It has become one of the city's most popular and reliable places to dine, whether you choose the popular brick-walled patio with its shady grove or the austerely decorated, hard-edged and rather noisy rooms indoors.

It's a large space, with a bar at the back and a large dining room divided into private nooks with rows of sturdy booths separated by mahogany-stained dividers. The seats, upholstered in something like burlap and illuminated by golden-brown beaded hanging lamps, are reasonably comfortable, although the overall tone reminds me vaguely of a dining room furnished by Pier One.

The decor is relatively spare, with only a few discreet prints to break up the stark white walls and black-and-white ceilings. White tablecloths are protected by glass; heavy flatware comes rolled in white napkins.

Each day's menu offers a variety of dinner specials including a pasta, fish, heart-healthy, stir-fry and chef's special. The standard bill of fare features eight starters, from house-made potato chips with dip ($3.95) to a substantial appetizer of whole sizzling catfish with black bean chili sauce ($11.95). Salads, soups and sides are $2.95 (for Asian-style vegetables or olive-oil and herb "crushed" yukon gold potatoes) to $7.95 (for fried oysters in a Parmesan-cheese cup).

Three pasta dinners range from $11.95 (for walnut ravioli in herb pesto cream) to $16.95 (for grilled shrimp with tortellini); and a half-dozen entrees are $16.95 (for chorizo-encrusted chicken breast, Caribbean seafood kebab or hot-smoked salmon in potato crust) to $21.95 (for grilled beef tenderloin). Or, to be more specific, "grilled beef tenderloin with roastee shallots, olive-oil-and-herb crushed Yukon gold potatoes, baby squash and blue cheese Espagnole." As is typical with fusion fare, the menu descriptions tend to read a lot like recipes.

Azalea's wine list is substantial, with more than 100 selections, about two-thirds of them red and a fair share of the lower-end choices available by the glass, usually for one-fourth of the bottle price. Prices range from $16 ($3.95 a glass) for Jacob's Creek Australian Chardonnay to $195 for 1983 Salon, a sought-after Champagne. You'll find quite a few good wines in the $25 to $40 sector, including our choice, Edmunds St. John 1997 Matagrano Vineyard El Dorado County Sangiovese ($36), a delicious California red made from an Italian grape in the Sierra Foothills. Ripely earthy and complex it's a Chianti-style wine with a tart acidic backbone that made it a winning match with the tomato sauces in several of our dishes.

Oddly, in contrast with the full bar and well-chosen wine list, Azalea's beer selection is minimal and mostly mass-market, with nothing on draft and nothing more interesting than Sam Adams by the bottle.

My wife, not feeling particularly hungry, fashioned a meal from an appetizer, soup and vegetable dish and ended up with more than enough for dinner. We began with a shared appetizer, fried oysters ($7.95). It was an attractive (and edible) display, a thin round of just-melted Parmesan cheese shreds formed into a deep cup and used as a bowl to hold a ration of tender mixed field lettuce, grilled red-onion strips and four fat, crisply fried oysters in a spicy breading, served on a plate striped with a coarse mustard-seed aioli, a garlicky mayonnaise-style dressing.

The Caesar salad ($4.50) was a straightforward rendition, crisp romaine dressed with a creamy, tart and garlicky Caesar sauce, lots of shaved Parmigiano, crisp croutons and a triangle of soft, bready herb-topped foccacia-style bread on the side.

A daily special, tomato-artichoke soup ($3.75), was a triumph. Decadently rich and creamy, probably laden with more heavy cream and real butter than we wanted to know about, it was not a smooth puree but pleasantly textured with toothsome bits of artichoke, deep tomato flavor and subtle herbs.

Crushed Yukon gold potatoes ($2.95), another Azalea special, were coarsely mashed, not a puree but an intentionally lumpy mound of tender potatoes in their skins, apparently cooked until soft then roughly broken up with a fork, lightly touched with herbs and garlic.

My entree, grilled shrimp pasta ($16.95), came in a large white bowl. Five jumbo shrimp, each wrapped with a strip of prosciutto and grilled just right, crispy and tender, perched atop a good ration of cheese-stuffed tortellini (a mix of white, pastel pink and green) topped with shredded Parmesan and floating on a plate covered half with a red, herbal tomato-basil sauce and half with a white, silken Chardonnay sauce.

A shared dessert ($5.95) featured two scoops of creamy homemade Heath Bar ice cream in a crunchy edible basket, plated on creme anglaise cut through with stripes of dark chocolate and red fruit and garnished with orange, kiwi, strawberry, raspberry and blueberry.

With two foamy, cinnamon-topped cappuccinos ($2.50) to finish up, a pleasant and ample meal for two came to $88.03, plus an $18 tip for competent if sometimes hassled service on a crowded night. $$$