Category Archives: A RESTAURANT LISTING…

It doesn’t have to be Lent to enjoy Sharks Seafood

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

You probably didn’t even notice that I didn’t bother to talk about fried fish for Lent this year. Everyone else was doing it, it seemed, including our pals at LEO Weekly, so why add another voice to the chorus?

Plus, to be frank, with more than one-fourth of Americans now describing their religious affiliation as “nothing in particular,” and no more than one-tenth of the remaining religiously affiliated strictly observing abstinence from meat during Lent, it felt like the pressure was off.

On the other hand …

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Born2Bagel and lox and bialys, oh my!

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Here’s a good way to start a noisy debate among Louisville food lovers: Ask for opinions on where to get the best bagel in town. Want to kick it up another notch? Ask you can even get a bialy hereabouts.

What’s a bialy? See what I mean? A lot of us have so little exposure to this rarely seen cousin to the bagel that we’re not even sure what it is.

More about that shortly. First, though, let’s put our hands together and welcome our town’s latest bagel shop: Born2Bagel, which opened last autumn in a Middletown shopping-strip storefront at the corner of Shelbyville Road and Blankenbaker Parkway.

Continue reading Born2Bagel and lox and bialys, oh my!

Four Pegs scores with smoky wings, ribs, and … jackfruit!?

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

It’s easy to run out of superlatives when we’re talking about the barbecue at Four Pegs in Germantown.

  • You’ve got those hefty, flavorful wings that come in a squadron of memorable flavors.
  • You’ve got those firm, flavorful, impeccably sauced baby back ribs.
  • And you’ve got that tender, mouth-watering pulled jackfruit

What?

Continue reading Four Pegs scores with smoky wings, ribs, and … jackfruit!?

Blue Dog’s new owner keeps on keeping on

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

It was a chilly, cloudy Saturday morning in January. The temperature was hovering around 37º. Even so, the sidewalk tables in front of Frankfort Avenue’s beloved Blue Dog Bakery & Café were filling up just the same, hungry travelers clad in parkas and mittens, eagerly awaiting a steaming coffee drink and pastry treat.

Inside Blue Dog’s warm, cozy space was jammed with more eager supplicants. Counter service would begin any moment, and they were ready.

“It’s always like this,” Blue Dog’s new owner Libbie Ackerman Loeser said with a smile.

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El Mundo’s new brunch warms and satisfies

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

I felt pretty sad last month when I read El Mundo’s social-media post announcing management’s decision to “put the original, quirky, tiny Frankfort Avenue location on pause until the Spring.”

The good news was that El Mundo’s newer, larger Highlands shop, which opened during the Covid-19 pandemic, remains open. It has expanded service to seven days a week, and recently launched an impressive Saturday, Sunday, and Monday brunch.

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We love Sankalp Indian, once we found it

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

I try not to miss much when it comes to developments in local restaurants. It happened this month, though, when I finally got to Sankalp Louisville for what proved to be one of the best Indian meals ever.

Where has this place been all my life? Or to be more specific, why was I so clueless about this large, stylish Indian eatery that had announced its opening in an Instagram post almost exactly 18 months ago?

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Banish the winter chill with warming pho at Eatz

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Vietnam is a tropical country, mostly. In its southern reaches, around Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and the Mekong Delta, it’s searing hot and sopping humid virtually all year.

So how did a country so torrid give birth to pho, that aromatic, beefy soup-as-entree that’s delicious all year ‘round but lovably warming during winter’s icy blasts?

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Have a (disco) ball at Paseo

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

When was the day the disco died? Surely the dance and the surrounding culture were already fading by the late 1970s. But historians trace its ultimate demise to July 12, 1979, when a wacky “Disco Demolition” night at Chicago’s Comiskey Park boiled into a riot that caused at least nine injuries, 39 arrests, and the forfeit of that night’s Major League Baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers.

It was a momentous occasion, I’m sure. But riddle me this: Why am I recalling this sad event to introduce this week’s restaurant review? Stay with me. I’ll get there as fast as I can.

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Indian? Mexican? Treat yourself to both at Tikka Tacos

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

What is tikka? Based on a Punjabi word meaning “small pieces of meat,” it’s an Indian dish of marinated, tandoor-roasted meat. Eat them right up, or serve them in a creamy sauce as tikka masala.

Okay, then, what’s a taco? You’re kidding me, right? Everyone knows what a taco is.

But what happens if for some inexplicable reason someone decided to put these two things together? Shazam! Now we’ve got Tikka Tacos, a curiously delightful new spot on Preston Street near Audubon Park.

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Twig and Leaf goes Latin at dinner time

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Any discussion of Louisville’s oldest and most iconic restaurants can’t reasonably overlook Twig & Leaf. Founded in 1962, this Douglass Loop neighborhood landmark with its iconic leaf-shaped neon sign has been a local go-to spot for diner fare for a long, long time.

Sure, this place has had its ups and downs. Passing though many ownership hands over the years, it’s been cherished at times, avoided at others: Favored by ‘60s hippies with the late-night munchies, later hailed by the Highlands lunch set, sometimes widely ignored, the Twig endures.

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