Texicans is smokin’ in Crestwood

MEEEAAAT! at Texicans BBQ Pitt

Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes

Say hello to Texicans BBQ Pitt in Crestwood, one of the most recent arrivals in our local smorgasbord of smoked meat and a tasty addition indeed.

Barbecue may be one of America’s most traditional regional foods. It varies in style and content as we travel around the nation, particularly around the “BBQ Belt,” a swath of the South, the Midwest and Texas that’s more an idea than a geographical reality.

Just about every region has its own take on barbecue, from the saucy urban Kansas City style to the wacky yellow mustard-based sauces of South Carolina. In Memphis, folks dress your meat with slaw – yes, right on the bun. And down in Western Kentucky, around Owensboro and Paducah, they’re notorious for the use of mutton as a favorite meat for barbecuing, and a thin, tart “black dip” to bathe it in.

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Baseball’s back! Eater up!

The Slugger Sandwich at the ballpark

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
It’s hard to comprehend that Louisville Slugger Field hosted its first game 10 years ago this month. Our “new” ballpark has been open for a decade. During that time, we’ve seen a few pennant-winning teams and a couple that didn’t do so well.

Sadly for foodies who like to enjoy an interesting dining experience along with a game, concessions have generally been, well, a little boring. Peanuts and Cracker Jacks, burgers and dogs, brats and Italian sausage, nachos and Papa John’s pizza, with ice cream to sweeten the mix.

At the start of the 2010 season, however, we spotted a handful of new food items that have potential to turn the ballpark into a downscale bistro.
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Studio’s Grill and Pub stuffs it right

Studio’s Grill and Pub’s stuffed cheeseburge

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

By Kevin Gibson

Every so often, a carnal pleasure will come along that staggers you. It might be a new sushi roll or a red wine or even a candy bar (tried the Reese’s Dark yet?). Once you discover it, you just can’t stop going back to the well.

Enter the Studio’s Grill and Pub stuffed cheeseburger.

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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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Otto’s takes on tough competition with “best burger”

The Otto BurgerPhoto: Robin Garr

Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes

The economy being what it is, I find myself ordering hamburger about as often as steak these days. But if I’m going to have a burger, I want it to be a good one. And happily, quite a few local beef emporia have made this wish an entirely possible dream.

Recently Otto’s Cafe, the first-floor coffee shop at the Seelbach Hotel, entered the hamburger sweepstakes with a take-no-prisoners news release that flatly declares Otto’s new hamburger the best in town.

“Now that consumers have tried the rest,” the Emailed statement boldly declared, “Otto’s at The Seelbach Hilton is inviting everyone to try the very best!”

Going on in considerable detail, the PR spun a tale of friendly corporate espionage: Culinary staff fanned out across the city like a squadron of food critics, ordering hamburgers and checking them twice, trying to see which were naughty or nice.

Disappointed by prefab frozen patties, dried-out, pounded and pressed burgers devoid of juicy deliciousness (I’m just passing along the story here, folks), the Otto’s burger creators concluded that high-quality fresh-ground, hand-packed beef parked on a house-baked bun was the way to go.
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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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Burgers, dogs and cones, oh my!

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(Five Guys, Home Run, Conez and Coneyz)

For all the talk of market indicators and the rebounding Dow and yada yada yada, you and I know there’s still a recession going on. And so, apparently, do a lot of Louisville’s restaurateurs.

I’ve reported recently on the ways some of the city’s top-tier eateries are responding to tightened consumer spending with menu-price reductions. Small-plates restaurants, always popular, are on the rise.

And, in a time when the economy and other things that go bump in the night look scary, many of us crave cheap, hearty and, yes, fatty comfort food. New spots that specialize in economical edibles such as hamburgers and hot dogs are springing up all over.
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Ole Hickory Pit, old Western Kentucky tradition

LouisvilleHotBytes in The Voice-Tribune

Anybody want a little mutton? I can hear you going “Eeuuww!” all the way from here.

Once beloved by our English and Australian cousins, who had a lot of sheep around, mutton has all but died out in modern times. You’ll rarely if ever see it in the grocery store or on a restaurant menu. In an age of mild beef, chicken and pork, “the other white meat,” mutton has a bad reputation as strong, greasy and gamey meat.

But you’ll find an enduring exception in Western Kentucky, around Owensboro and Paducah, where sheep are farmed and mutton lives on as a popular meat choice for barbecue.
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Home Run Burgers slams a base hit

LouisvilleHotBytes in The Voice-Tribune

Drive in to Home Run Burgers & Fries on impulse, and you might initially assume that you’ve found your way to yet another franchised burger chain.

It has the look of a fast-casual burger chain, and I say that respectfully: Bright colors, professional decor with a distinct baseball theme, and an extensive burgers-or-fried-fish menu designed for efficiency and value.

What’s more, they’re running on a fast expansion plan, with additional properties planned for later this summer in St. Matthews (Shelbyville Road Plaza) this autumn, and Middletown (Middletown Station) around the end of the year.

There’s a reason why this locally owned and operated outfit is running well right out of the box. According to an earlier version of their Website (http://homerunburger.com), Bob Kiper, whose daughter, Kathy Scannell, is general manger of Home Run Burger & Fries, operated the popular local Hungry Pelican restaurant chain from the 1950s through the late 1980s.
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Road trip ramble

The new and improved Burger Boy. LEO photo by Ron Jasin

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(Burger Boy, A.J.’s Coffee ‘n’ Cream, Polly’s Freeze, Mike Linnig’s)

“Road trip!”

With the possible exception of “smog alert,” no two words say summer better.

For the inveterate foodie, no road trip would be complete without stopping to sample roadfood, a concept that the writers Jane and Michael Stern made famous, defining it as “memorable local eateries along the highways and back roads of America.”

With summer finally blazing at its peak, we’ve done some road time lately, visiting a few old friends on the highways around Louisville, and discovering a bright new face on a roadfood-style inner-city eatery that has lifted itself from a dive into an inviting diner. Let’s start there.
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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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Great Bunz, loaded with splendid burgers

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

So we’re walking down Baxter just north of Highland Avenue, well into the city’s club zone, and suddenly a new hanging sign catches my eye.

“BUNZ,” it reads, like a hip-hop interpretation of a bread store specializing in … naw, can’t be. We swerved into the tiny quarters that had previously housed Omar’s Gyros and found a spiffy new shop specializing in hamburgers – fat, dense and beefy burgers, mounted, of course, on exceptional buns. Er, bunz.

Located just across the street from Derby City Dogs and a block or so north from the new Highlands branch of Lonnie’s Taste of Chicago, another hot-dog store, this recent arrival would seem to mark a new high-water mark for restaurant specialization in the neighborhood.
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