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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Selena’s brings comfort to Willow Lake

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

An old, popular East End country dive bar, closed for years, reopened about a year ago as Selena’s and has been drawing crowds ever since, owing its growing popularity to bountiful food, friendly service and a relaxing atmosphere. “A tradition since 1979,” read the black awning over the entrance to what used to be the Willow Lake Tavern when we visited soon after it opened last fall.
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Soul train stops at Lonnie’s

LouisvilleHotBytes in The Voice-Tribune, Sept. 10, 2009

Here’s a geographical conundrum: How can you walk from the familar suburban scene of St. Matthews into Chicago’s South Side in one small step? It’s simple, assuming that small step takes you through the door of Lonnie’s Best Taste of Chicago.

Cubs and White Sox and Bears, oh my, not to mention portraits of Chicago mayors Harold Washington and Richard Daley and photos of Windy City landmarks like the John Hancock building convert the small, free-standing building on St. Matthews Avenue into a fair approximation of a South Side lunch spot.

As it is in Chicago, so it is in St. Matthews, at Lonnie’s at least, where you can order Chicago-brand Vienna Beef dogs with a variety of toppings, plus Kronos gyros - also made in the Windy City - and other Chicago culinary traditions including spicy Italian beef sandwiches, corned beef, wings, Polish and Italian sausages and more.
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Another reason to love El Tarasco

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(By Kevin Gibson)

I love El Tarasco’s St. Matthew’s property. I go there for lunch several times a month with my friend and business associate Jerry, and we’re never let down — when it comes to quality Mexican at a great price, it’s hard to beat. The chicken tacos are ridiculously good.

Recently I was there with my buddy Fred, and he pounced upon a new menu item called tacos al pastor ($9.99). I tried a bite or two of his order and was immediately hooked. Not that my chicken soft tacos weren’t delicious, all stuffed with fresh, tender pulled breast chicken, lettuce and enough Chihuahua cheese to choke … well, a really big Chihuahua. But this al pastor stuff was that good.
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Mikato brings Japanese flair to old Napa River space

LouisvilleHotBytes.com in The Voice-Tribune

If you think of a Japanese restaurant, sushi may cross your mind, assuming you’re a reasonably adventurous diner. Not so adventurous? Then the fun of Japanese slice-and-dice chefs showing off their utensil-tossing techniques at hibachi tables may ring your gong.

Adventurous or shy, just about everybody can appreciate the subject of today’s sermon, the bento box. This attractive option, a Japanese food tradition for some 500 years, features a pretty, black-lacquered wooden box neatly divided into rectangular sections, each containing a different tidbit, each offering a delicious contrast of color, texture and flavor. (It’s perfect for those who can’t stand foods touching on the plate, but even the less compulsive can come to love a bento.)

Happily, you can find sushi, hibachi grills AND bentos - and much more - at Mikato Japanese Steak & Sushi in St. Matthews. (more…)

The eponymous pastry seals the deal at Danish Express

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

You can, and probably do, call it a Danish pastry, but its roots lie in Vienna. Nevertheless, the Danes have made this rich and delicious pastry their own, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one in the Old Country than you can enjoy right here in Louisville at Danish Express.

This quaint St. Matthews storefront occupies a cozy space with big plate-glass windows that make up the entire front wall, facing east to bring in bright sunlight in the morning.

It’s open from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. daily (except Sunday), offering breakfast throughout and lunch at midday. The breakfast menu - including but not limited to the rich, oversize Danish - makes it one of the city’s top spots to break a fast. At lunchtime, it’s still a decent place for a quick meal, but facing much sterner competition, it’s not quite as close to the front of the pack.

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Classy Equus drops prices and tablecloths but keeps high style

LouisvilleHotBytes.com in The Voice-Tribune

Okay, who wants organ meat? Internal organs, that is, livers, kidneys, hearts and even more unmentionable selections.

All together now: “Eeeeuuuuwwww!”

But wait! People around the world have been enjoying organ meats for millennia, and those who shun them on the basis of the “eeuuww” factor are missing something good.

This is one of the many reasons I love dining with my wife, Mary, and our good friend Lucinda. They’re adventurous foodies, and showed it the other night when we spotted sweetbreads on the menu at Equus.

“I’m having that,” Lucinda said with a happy smile. “Can we share?” asked Mary. Me, too.

What’s a sweetbread? It isn’t bread, and it’s not a dessert. It’s a calf’s thymus gland, or perhaps a bit of his pancreas. Vegetarians please look away.
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Wathen’s Kentucky Bistro bounces back

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Everybody loves a parade? Maybe. Let’s say that most people love most parades. But the procession of broken dreams that has recently passed through the St. Matthews space that once was home to Rick’s? That’s a parade not so easy to enjoy.

For the historical record, let’s retrace the genealogy of this spot that once housed the offices of the then-Voice of St. Matthews: Rick Dissell established the original Rick’s around 1980, and earned his popularity the old-fashioned way, with a 17-year run in that location.
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Tiny Simply Thai packs ‘em in

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Does size matter? Some of the Metro’s tiniest restaurants rank among its most cozy and attractive. From this assertion I do not exclude New Albany’s iconic Little Chef, a 10-seat diner so small that it once wore wheels; or, for that matter, the trendy, crowded, noisy and compact new 732 Social on East Market Street, about which we’ll be telling you more anon.

This week, though, we turn to another Lilliputian favorite, Simply Thai, housed in the freestanding building at the corner of Wallace and Wilmington avenues in St. Matthews.

Succeeding a short-lived barbecue joint and a forgettable Chinese fast-food eatery, Simply Thai crams about eight tables into a small space, with a couple more patio tables out front.
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