This Joe Davola won’t kibosh you

The Belligerent BLPT at Joe Davola’s

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Fans of “Seinfeld” will remember “Crazy” Joe Davola as an ominous character, a violent psychotic who threatened to “put the kibosh” on people he didn’t like, which meant pretty much everyone.

So who’d name a restaurant after that scary guy? The odd shtick works for partners James Tyler and Christopher Stockton, who push the Crazy Joe concept to the ragged edge with menu names like “Belligerent BLPT,” “Psychotic Savory Roast Beef” and “Violent Veggie Meat Loaf.”
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Cricket’s Café adds flavor to Sunny Side

It’s a wrap at Cricket Café

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

By Kevin Gibson

You want fries with that? Eh. I’ll admit I often save a little time and eat a chain burger or corporate taco. But I know there are alternatives out there if I need them.

Over in Sellersburg, Cricket’s Café offers such an option.
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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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Warming up at Wiltshire on Market

Pork tenderloin at Wiltshire on Market

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

We found a parking place right in front of Wiltshire on Market on a freezing Thursday evening, negotiated rock-hard ridges of icy snow and made it to the front door still standing. As soon as we stepped inside, a welcoming warmth enveloped us and drove away the cold.
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We follow the yellow brick road to Arbor Ridge

Arbor Ridge’s crab cakes

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Arbor Ridge’s menu is extensive and, management attests, “serves a fresh, flavorful and healthy cuisine with Californian and Mediterranean flair.” It is certainly a giant step beyond boring, although I wouldn’t rate it adventurous.
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Perfect pair: Hot Brown, meet pizza

BoomBozz’s Hot Brown Pizza

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

The famous Hot Brown — allegedly fashioned as a midnight snack for Roaring Twenties revelers famished after a night of dancing in the Brown Hotel’s Crystal Ballroom — is just an open-faced sandwich of turkey, bacon and cheesy Mornay sauce. Nothing so inventive there, and it’s a cardiologist’s nightmare.

The inventive folks at BoomBozz Taphouse in the Highlands have put a new spin on the old tradition by marrying it in weird but delicious union with a pizza.

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No animals were harmed in making this chili dog

Vegan chili dog. Photo: Robin Garr

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Speaking of creative eateries, Conez & Coneyz may be one of the smallest dining venues on Frankfort Avenue, but it’s also one of the most eager to please.

When the owners chose to set up a hot-dog stand last year near the epicenter of an urban neighborhood rich in recovering hippies and seminary students (occasionally both embodied in the same person), they weren’t all that surprised to hear an instant demand for a vegetarian dawg.

Ultimately, they sourced two dogs that weren’t merely vegetarian but vegan: a Loma Linda brand item that turns to textured vegetable prote for almost-sausage flavor; and a Vegi-Dog made by Cedar Lake that’s all-grain protein. One chilly afternoon, I tried the Loma Linda as a chilidog, topped with vegetarian chili and chopped onions.
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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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Potstickers comes unglued

Potstickers closed Jan. 17, 2010, after the Jan. 20 edition of LEO had gone to print. This review appeared in that edition of LEO. We publish it here in memoriam, and to help explain why we think it didn’t last.

When I heard that Chef Edward Lee of 610 Magnolia was behind a new fast-food noodle shop that opened last autumn in the midst of the club zone on Baxter, I was excited. I’ve got a lot of respect for Lee and his work, and 610 has been one of my favorite Louisville restaurants for 25 years, under Lee and his predecessor, Ed Garber.

After a couple visits to Potstickers, though, I’m puzzled and bemused. If Lee is really behind it — and I have no reason to doubt that — it’s got to be a hands-off operation.
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Cocos Lokos brings Cuban and more to Hurstbourne

Ceviche of the Day. Photo: Robin Garr.

Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes

Walk into Cocos Lokos, and a couple of things are likely to catch your eye.

First, if you think you detect a resemblance to Havana Rumba, that’s not terribly surprising. The manager and several members of the Cocos Lokos team left the popular Cuban spot in St. Matthews a couple of months ago to open this new spot in the Hunnington Place shopping center just off I-64 and Hurstbourne Parkway.

Second, you may be as pleasantly surprised as I was to see what a remarkable job they’ve done of making a shopping center space look, well, like it isn’t in a shopping center.
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Dissertation on chili and a fine new place to enjoy it

	Lunch at the Chili Pot. Photo: Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

If you think wine-snob dogma like “never drink white wine with red meat” or “never drink white Zinfandel with any meat” or “never drink a wine with a rating under 90” is tough, you’ve obviously never set foot in a room filled with baying chili-heads.

Tomatoes or no tomatoes? Beans or no beans? Chopped meat or ground meat? Chili powder, dried chilies or fresh? It’s like listening to medieval theologians arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

A recent visit to The Chili Pot, a great new spot in Okolona, filled me with the warming potion and prompted me to ponder the chili mystique.
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Diamond Café: A Facebook phenom scores in the real world

The Reuben at Diamond Café

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
As a veteran of food and wine online since well before Al Gore played his small role in the invention of the Internet, I’ve been following the development of social media from the start.

But here’s something new: Mark down Diamond Café as the first local spot I’m aware of that went viral on Facebook before word-of-mouth spread news of its arrival in Clifton Heights.

Diamond (”D&C Diamond Café,” per its business card) quietly replaced Taste of Jamaica a few months ago. When I spotted the café’s Facebook fan page the other day, bearing the slogan “fine dining at an affordable price,” it had already gathered more than 900 followers.
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