Category Archives: South End

We find friendly folks and good East African eats at Safari Grill

How big is Africa? Africa is so big that you could fit the U.S., China, India, Japan and most of the countries of Europe neatly within its borders and still have plenty of nooks and crannies left for more. You’ve probably seen the colorful map that shows this; it’s all over the Internet.

How big is Africa? About 1.5 billion people live there, or almost 1 out of every 7 humans on Earth. That’s about the same as the total population of Europe, North and South America.

So riddle me this: How come so many of us know so little about Africa? And getting to the point, how come Louisville has so doggoned few African restaurants? Continue reading We find friendly folks and good East African eats at Safari Grill

Hablamos y comemos at La Guanaquita Restaurante

¡Buenos días, señoras y caballeros, hermanos y hermanas! ¡La Guanaquita Restaurante es muy bueno!

Why, yes, I am speaking a little Spanish today, signing on from a sweet little new Central American eatery in the South End. Continue reading Hablamos y comemos at La Guanaquita Restaurante

Signs of the apocalypse: The White Castle veggie slider

I can’t resist mentioning this briefly, since my mini-report on the HotBytes forum and Facebook on New Year’s Day blew up with “Likes” and comments, hinting that there’s public interest in this bizarre development: White Castle, at least for a while, now offers a veggie burger, of all things. They’re only 99 cents each, cheap, but like their meatful siblings, it takes a few to satisfy an appetite.
Continue reading Signs of the apocalypse: The White Castle veggie slider

Duck taunters all win at Vietnam Kitchen

Hey! Vietnam Kitchen’s got duck! Succulent, delicious duck, fatty and rich! And they’ve got “mock duck,” too: an alternative invented by vegetarian Buddhist monks! Either way, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be … well, you know.

Naturally my mind spun a Pythonesque duck-taunting fight.
Continue reading Duck taunters all win at Vietnam Kitchen

The daily Grind pays off for Liz and Jesse Huot

The simple black logo that adorns Louisville’s popular Grind Burger truck and its new sibling, Grind Burger Kitchen, speaks volumes about owners Liz and Jesse Huot’s brisk journey from corporate life to the uncertain joys of running a popular food truck.

Well … actually, Grind is not exactly a food truck. It’s a concession trailer towed by a pickup truck. And that, like the black, gear-like logo, is part of their story.
Continue reading The daily Grind pays off for Liz and Jesse Huot

Quality counts at Grind Burger Kitchen

When you’re buying a car, a suit, a pair of shoes, a watch, or even a hamburger, quality makes a difference. Leather seats or plastic in your family limo? All-weather wool from Armani or shiny polyester from T.J.Maxx? Mephisto loafers, or sneakers from Payless? Tag Heuer or a fake Rolex?

Oh, hell, this is too complicated. Let’s go get a burger.

?Or not.
Continue reading Quality counts at Grind Burger Kitchen

Feeling offal? Check out your local taqueria

Menudo, the fabulously strong flavored and fiery Mexican stew made from pork chitlins (“chitterlings,” to the prissy, or, if you insist on a definition in English, pork intestines) is one of the world’s most trusted hangover cures.

This may relate to the truth that, no matter how bad you feel, if you can hold down a stenchy ration of menudo, you can probably hold down just about anything.
Continue reading Feeling offal? Check out your local taqueria

Celebrate the Noble Noodle at Thai Noodles

Life as a hunter-gatherer was hard, no question about that. As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously put it, this life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

But at least paleolithic humans didn’t have to make many decisions at supper time. Knock over an animal, whack off a chunk and chow down. Cooking it was optional, once people learned to tame fire. It was only when humans settled down in agricultural societies about 10,000 years ago that culinary life got complicated. Continue reading Celebrate the Noble Noodle at Thai Noodles