El Rumbon Cuban Trailer gives new meaning to ‘road food’

Sandwich from El Rumbon

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Fidel Castro is sliding into retirement, and anti-Cuba sentiment feels oh-so ’60s nowadays. We still can’t legally smoke Cuban cigars, but they’re not so hard to score. And Cuban food is starting to look like the next big thing on the Louisville culinary scene.

Havana Rumba broke the ice, earning instant popularity when it opened in St. Matthews almost six years ago; the owners quickly doubled down with sibling Mojito and, more recently, a second location in Middletown. Cocos Lokos added another quality option on the Hurstbourne corridor last year, and Cuba Libre, new in Jeffersonville this summer, is drawing crowds.

Now, an amiable Cuban chef named Reinold Febles has added yet another tasty dimension with Cuban street food. Febles, who’s worked in a number of kitchens around town, sets up his large, spic-and-span food trailer on auto-dealer parking lots around Oxmoor Center, serving Cuban food as well as some Mexican favorites (burritos, quesadillas) and Norteamericano fried chicken and hot dogs.
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Say hello to the new Equus, sort of like the old Equus

“Beef tenderloin “sliders” at Equus and Jack’s”

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years …

Yeah, right. Now that I’ve successfully planted that earworm, let me say I can’t believe it’s been so long since I first reviewed Equus, a then-new restaurant in St. Matthews that was buzzing under a new owner and chef, Dean Corbett, for the old Louisville Times in 1985.

I didn’t have any gray in my hair then, and quite a few of the other favorites of the time — Casa Grisanti, say, or Sixth Avenue, both way stations in Corbett’s career — are long gone.

But Equus just keeps on keeping on, changing pace to stay au courant while continuing to satisfy its core audience.
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Salads to order, chop chop at Chop Shop

Chop Shop’s Steakhouse Salad

Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes
Stand in the center of St. Matthews at lunch time and look around. Try to find something healthy. Okay, there’s … um … pub grub. More pub grub. And still more pub grub! There’s a hearty Irish stew. Over there, hot dogs. Quick-service Chinese food. Fast-food sandwiches. Fried fish, and more fried fish. Danish pastries, yum … and pizza!

Yep, we’ve got lots of goodies to tantalize the taste buds here, but options are more limited when you’re in the mood for a light and healthy lunch.

Say hello to Chop Shop Salads, a new arrival that adds an appealing option to this limited local niche: It’s an all-salad eatery with a fast-food vibe.
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Umai Zushi impresses with bountiful sushi spread

Five nigiri-zushi and two maki-zushi rolls at Umai Zushi

Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes

I love Asian food, and I’m a big fan of many of the East End’s excellent Chinese restaurants, including such quality eateries as Oriental House, Jade Palace, Jasmine, Liang’s and the new Peking City Bistro.

I’m less whelmed with storefront chopsticks houses and all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets, though. Not that they won’t fill me up when I’m cravin’ Asian, but to be quite frank, they’re all pretty much the same.

Until now, that is.

The arrival of Umai Zushi Buffet near the outer stretches of Westport Road introduces a new variable to the Asian buffet equation: In addition to the usual Chinese suspects, it offers a bounty of king crab legs and, from the cuisine of Japan, more than 40 sushi and sashimi goodies.

It’s pretty good sushi, too, I’m pleased to report.
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A truly authentic experience at Peking City Bistro

Shredded pork with dried tofu

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” Not merely the intro line of the original Japanese “Iron Chef,” this fundamental hypothesis goes back to the French gourmet Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s 1825 gastronomic essay, “Physiology of Taste.”

If Brillat-Savarin had examined my dinner at Peking City Bistro, he might have concluded I am a pregnant Chinese woman, a revelation that would come as a considerable surprise to both my mother and my wife.

Intrigued? Pull up a chair, and I’ll tell you the story.
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La Colombiana offers up South American treats

Bandeja Paisa at La Columbiana

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Our city is blessed with Latino treats. In addition to a flotilla of taquerias, we’ve got landmarks like Bruce Ucán’s Mayan Café with its Mayan fare from Yucatan and Guatemala, and Anthony Lamas’ Seviche with its Nuevo Latino smorgasbord of goodies from Sonora to Tierra del Fuego.

So why do we remain cursed with a widespread attitude among diners that South of the Border food consists of tacos, burritos and guacamole all the way down?

The cuisines of the Western Hemisphere, from Mexico through Central America and down through South America, are as rich and diverse as, well, the cuisines of our 50 states.

Last month, we gained another new flavor of Hispanic America as La Colombiana — the region’s first Colombian restaurant — opened in Lyndon in the shopping center quarters vacated by FireFresh Barbecue.
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Molly Malone’s alive, alive-oh in St. Matthews’ fair city

Mussels at Molly Malone’s

Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes
Think of the name “Molly Malone” and get an instant “earworm,” the tune that sticks in your head and will not go away. “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-oh” indeed!

In Louisville, however, Molly Malone gains quick recognition as one of the region’s many amiable Irish pubs; a stalwart in the Baxter Avenue club zone for years, Malone’s added an East End branch in St. Matthews Station last autumn, replacing the old BW-3 at the corner of Shelbyville Road and Breckinridge Lane, adding another stop to a block-long concentration of watering holes that also includes BBC, Brendan’s, Dutch’s and 60 West, a collection that’s starting to rival the Baxter strip.

The new Malone’s is a fun and friendly Irish pub with a really good beer selection, but as I’ve found the food generally edible but unexciting.
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Istanbul Palace introduces Turkish fare

Doner plate at Instanbul Palace

Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes

Louisville’s first Turkish restaurant has settled down in the East End, as Istanbul Palace, a popular spot in Lexington, has now moved to our town.

If you reckon you might enjoy Turkish food because you love turkey on Thanksgiving, you may want to re-think that: Despite the apparent coincidence of names, the turkey does not come to us from Turkey with a capital T. It’s a North American bird, most likely named by early settlers based on what they thought they heard the American Indians say.

Turkish food, to the casual observer, might seem to resemble Greek food, but I’d be careful about that, too: Turkey and Greece, both of which have been major world powers in their time, have a long record of rivalry, and sadly that relationship has had its rocky periods.
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Let’s break our fast at Zapata’s Corner

Zapata’s Huevos con Chorizos

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

How about a little desayuno? Barring the Saturday bowl of menudo at the local taqueria, the regrettable closing of Bueños Dias Café in Jeffersonville left the area bereft of a really good Mexican breakfast … until the happy arrival of Zapata’s Corner in Middletown, refilling the space left vacant by the brief final incarnation of Mazzoni’s with a happy, colorful Latino vibe.
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Save Jade Palace for dim sum

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

I’ve reviewed the dim sum many times over the years, returning most recently to examine the chicken feet and other “challenging” specialties for a review in the Jan. 7, 2009, LEO Weekly. It is also a regular stop on our brunch circuit when I’m not reviewing.

But what’s Jade Palace like in the evening, when the dim sum carts aren’t rolling?
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Olmsted’s Bistro open to everyone

Voice-Tribune review by Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes

Just about everyone in Louisville knows that our impressive collection of city parks from Cherokee to Iroquois to Shawnee – and the tree-lined parkways that connect them – were designed in the 19th century by the prominent landscape-architecture firm, Olmsted Brothers, headed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.

It’s perhaps a bit less well-known that Olmsted designed other landscape projects around Louisville, including the oak-shaded lawns of the Masonic Home of Louisville on Frankfort Avenue, for which Olmstead designed the plans in 1867.

Originally the Masonic Widows and Orphans Home, now providing residential personal-care and nursing-care services for seniors, Masonic Home today is a stately campus of red-brick buildings, most of them built during the 1920s. Its central building is now called the Olmsted after the famous architect.

The Olmsted has been open to the public for catered meetings and events for several years. Now, after a recent renovation of its lower level, its 48-seat dining room – dubbed The Bistro in Club Olmstead – is open to the public for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
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First Look: Two tasty new ethnic spots – La Catalana & Cocos Lokos

Stuffed eggs at La Catalana

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Adding more options to Louisville’s growing ethnic-eats scene, two interesting restaurants have opened in recent weeks, offering dishes that your mother never made at home … unless your mother came from the Caribbean or Barcelona.

Cocos Lokos (“Crazy Coconut”) has been open for a few weeks in the Hunnington Place shopping center near I-64 at Hurstbourne. Started by former employees of Havana Rumba, it offers Cuban cuisine accented with a few dishes from around the Caribbean.

La Catalana (“The Catalan Woman”) opened last week in the short St. Matthews strip center that also houses Havana Rumba and Del Frisco’s, just behind … wait for it … where the old Sears store used to be. It’s Louisville’s first restaurant featuring the Catalan fare of Barcelona, Spain, plus a selection of dishes from around the Mediterranean.
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