We get scrod, and haddock too, at The Fish House

Scrod and Haddock sandwiches at The Fish House

Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes
(published 2/11/2010)

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So what’s a scrod? I’ll spare you the notorious Boston cabbie joke (although if you’re desperate to hear it, email me.) Anyway … scrod – or “schrod,” an older variation that’s dying out – is a foodie term that’s hard to pin down. Its definition varies depending on where you look it up.
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Don’t shun the store brand

INDUSTRY STANDARD:
Insider Info For Those Who Dine Out
With Columnist Marsha Lynch

My dear, departed mom was a housewife in the ’60s and ’70s. In addition to being enamored of all sorts of convenience foods (such as skillet-dinner-in-a-box and instant mashed potatoes), she was a starry-eyed brand-name-foods aficionada.
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Comfort with Cajun accent at Coach Lamp

Coach Lamp’s fried chicken.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

The sturdy brown-painted brick building near the top of the hill where Vine Street rises from Broadway toward Breckenridge Street has been an east-of-downtown landmark since 1872. It has served as a saloon, a general store and then a saloon again.

Since around the time of Louisville’s 1937 flood, it has been a neighborly eatery and pub, known for cold beer and a signature roast beef-and-mashed-potato plate.

In 2000, under the guidance of new owners Gail and Billy Darling, it added an upscale component: Enter and stay on the right and you’ll enjoy the friendly bar, which really hasn’t changed much since the 1937 floodwaters receded. But walk to the back of the room, turn left, go down a small slope and you’ll pass — like Dorothy entering Oz — into a much more stylish room where the scene is casually artful and the fare upscale.
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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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The Windsor is slick, and so are its napkins

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

“Five-second rule! Five-second rule!”

It didn’t matter whether I was decked out in fancy all-weather wool slacks on a Thursday evening or well-worn jeans for a Tuesday lunch: No matter the fabric, no matter how I folded and knotted the thing, the slick, slippery burgundy polyester napkin would not stay on my lap.

I must have invoked the five-second rule a dozen times or more, grumbling every time I plucked my fallen napkin from the floor, during a couple of recent meals at New Albany’s otherwise delightful Windsor Restaurant and Garden.

Come to think about it, the irritating napkin slide was just about the only nit I could find to pick with this splendid eatery, a worthy successor to the late and still lamented Bistro New Albany.

Young co-chefs Justin McMillen and Cory Cuff were barely old enough to legally sample their own wine list when the classy dining room and bar, with its lovable New Orleans-style patio, reopened in the old New Albany Inn last year.
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Tequila Factory manufactures fine Mexican chow

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(By Guest Critic Kevin Gibson)

Thank goodness it’s not another faux Irish pub.

Tequila Factory Bar and Grill is the latest tenant in the revolving-door location at 917 Baxter Ave., the former home of @tmosphere, Bazo’s and two or three iterations of Nio’s, among other short-lived concepts.

It’s all but surrounded by Irish-style pubs, where you’ll pay $6 for a pint of Guinness and enjoy such dubiously “Irish” staples as Jamaican jerk chicken and shrimp Alfredo pizza. This concept seems to be springing up everywhere in the Highlands and other neighborhoods around town (I’m looking at you, Fourth Street Live). But there’s been an unfortunate lack of new and interesting Mexican concepts.

Enter the Tequila Factory. (more…)

Rivue brunch goes round and round

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

If you haven’t been up to the revolving top of the Galt House for a while, you may be surprised to see how much things have changed. Gone is the faux sailing ship look, with its blocks and tackles and green, purple and gold running lights.

Exit the elevators on the hotel’s 23rd floor now, and you step into a series of sleek rooms decorated in stark black and white. Light fixtures made from stacks of clear globes look like bubbles rising in champagne. But the real eye-catcher, as it has always been, is the lofty view of the Ohio River and the city all around.

When Rivue replaced The Flagship Room two years ago, the top-floor dining room highlighted a $60 million renovation of the entire hotel. (more…)

Dragon King’s Daughter gives sushi a new twist

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(LEO photo by Ron Jasin)

“I just can’t do sushi,” my Facebook friend Suzie in Arkansas posted. “It’s the redneck in me.”

Maybe. But even the most ardent sushi-hater could be rehabilitated at Dragon King’s Daughter, where Toki Masabuchi puts an international twist on the creative sushi delights that have built her a loyal following at Maido Essential Japanese in Clifton.

Take the “Italian Picnic” ($10, pictured). There’s no fish in this delight, which features pencil-thin asparagus, tempura-battered and fried, tucked into a sushi roll topped not with seafood but Italian prosciutto, fresh basil leaves and a dab of Japanese mayo topped with a few toasted pine nuts. Is it Japanese? Is it Italian? It’s both - and it is delicious.

Masabuchi, who continues to work her culinary magic at Maido, too, recently took over the Bardstown Road quarters left vacant by the abrupt departure of Karma Café.

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Breakfast, tapas? Have it your way at North End

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(LEO photo by Ron Jasin)

Where is it written that eggs must be reserved for breakfast? In my culinary Day Timer, an omelet makes a splendid date for dinner. Scrambled eggs go down well anytime. And bacon! There’s no hour of the day or night when the thought of smoky, salty bacon won’t inspire a hunger pang.

On the other hand, I’m equally flexible about non-traditional savories at breakfast time. A slice of pizza, a piece of cold fried chicken or a scoop of cottage cheese filched from its tub while I stand in front of the open refrigerator door: These alternatives, too, make a perfectly acceptable way to start the day.

Now, to huzzahs from breakfast lovers everywhere, North End Café makes all-day breakfast easy. (more…)

Fried chicken? Falafels? Captain Pepper Jack’s mixes it up

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(By Paige Moore-Heavin)

When my friend Lynn suggested Captain Pepper Jack’s Aero Bistro for girls’ night out, I was a little confused. This place, which opened near Bowman Field in May, was new to me. “It’s part Southern American and part Mediterranean,” she said. Well, that’s an odd combination. But, ever the foodie, I was willing to give this culinary mash-up a try.
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High-tech bar, award-winning fare lift Boombozz Taphouse

LouisvilleHotBytes.com in The Voice-Tribune
(Published May 13, 2009)

The Highlands carry-out branch of Tony Boombozz Pizza on Bardstown Road - once the location of an urban White Castle still remembered fondly by Baby Boomers - has re-emerged after a major renovation as a splendid pizzeria and high-tech beer dispensary, the East End mini-chain’s fourth property and perhaps its most exciting yet.

Curved banks of silvery metal tubes soar over the bar to pipe down a selection of more than 20 draft beers, most imports and microbrewery beers. What’s more, the region’s only “ice bar” features artificially made “snow” blanketing a strip at the back. Want your beer ice cold? Set your mug on the icy white line.
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