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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Indian home cooking at Little India Café

One of the dishes at Litte India Café.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

I’d like to tell you about a cozy new place where dining is much like being invited into an Indian family’s home for dinner.

Pop bustles about while Junior sets the table and keeps up a stream of friendly chatter. Mom’s in the kitchen with a clatter of pans and spoons, and wonderful smells come wafting out. Plates bearing aromatic, home-cooked Indian goodies soon start appearing on the table, and the whole family smiles, awaiting your thumbs-up.

That’s basically the scene at Little India Café.
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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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Cajun-style breakfast at J. Gumbo’s

Breakfast at J. Gumbo’s

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

I’ve just finished a delicious breakfast, and I’m so full that I’m pretty sure I won’t need lunch today. In fact, I’m not so certain about dinner.
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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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Breakfast is finger food at Queen of Sheba

Breakfast plate at Queen of Sheba

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Let’s face it: Breakfast can be as boring as, well, a bowl of oatmeal. Even such treats as ham and eggs and crispy bacon just don’t get one’s motor running in the morning anymore. Mexican desayuno at Zapata’s Corner or migas and breakfast tacos at North End Café? Been there, done that. Even the rolling carts of Chinese snacks at Jade Palace’s dim sum seem so familiar now.

Not that any of these breakfast or brunch options are bad, mind you, but if they no longer bring the exciting shock of the new, perhaps it’s time to wheel over to Queen of Sheba on a Sunday to check out an Ethiopian breakfast.
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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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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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Bosna-Mak: A trip to Bosnia without leaving town

Goulash and Mushroom Soups  Photo: Robin Garr

Voice-Tribune review by LouisvilleHotBytes

I’m not saying that I’m old, mind you, but I’m not the only one around here who can remember when Louisville’s idea of Mexican food was chili con carne, our take on Italian cuisine was pizza, we judged chow mein as the pinnacle of Chinese cuisine, and – except maybe for bratwurst – that was about it as far as ethnic fare was concerned.

But times have changed, and Louisville’s increasingly diverse urban family has been a good thing for us culturally, spiritually and, of course, in terms of a much wider variety of good things to eat.

Thanks to the work of organizations including Kentucky Refugee Ministries and others, Louisville has become one of the nation’s most welcoming cities for international newcomers. Since the 1990s, says the city’s Office for International Affairs, fully half of Louisville’s population growth has been counted in international residents. More than 80 languages are spoken by students in the Jefferson County Public Schools.

Quite a few of our new neighbors have opened restaurants, ranging from Mexico to countries farther south of the Rio; the Near East, Southeast Asia, China and Japan; more from Africa, and plenty of new arrivals from Europe.

Perhaps one of the most unexpected new ethnic communities comes from war-torn Bosnia, one of the many tiny Balkan countries that got back their independence when the Iron Curtain fell and took Yugoslavia with it. Fierce ethnic and religious rivalries brought Bosnia under the gun of “ethnic cleansing.” The United Nations eventually intervened, but only after a small flood of refugees headed toward the U.S., many of them bound for Louisville.

Which brings us around to a short review of Bosna-Mak, an interesting little Bosnian eatery in a short strip of Bosnian stores that lies perpendicular to the old Bardstown Road in Buechel.
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Irish Rover’s hearty fare warms a winter night

Smoked salmon and potato gratin.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

The leaves on our big, old magnolia tree were rattling eerily, and the skies were a dismal gray. The icy wind cut through my parka as if it were a throwback baseball shirt.

The first day of winter may not arrive until Monday morning, but it already feels a lot like winter around here, and last week I had a powerful lust for comfort food in a cozy setting. I posted queries on the LouisvilleHotBytes Forum and my Facebook page and found lots of friends with similar hankerings. These foodie buddies quickly racked up a score of good ideas.

Jack Fry’s, Equus and Jack’s, Baxter Station, Palermo Viejo, Havana Rumba and the L&N Wine Bar & Bistro all received multiple nominations as top spots in the cozy ’n’ filling sweepstakes. Bourbons Bistro, August Moon, Pat’s Steak House, Gasthaus, Selena’s, Come Back Inn, Bristol Bar & Grille, Napa River Grill and Cumberland Brews all had their partisans, too.

But one local establishment dominated the competition like Tiger Wo … well … let’s just say that the Irish Rover earned a solid lead in my casual online opinion poll.
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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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One gyros, two gyros, many gyros

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(REVIEWED: A.J.’s Gyro Café; It’s All Greek To Me)

Let’s get one thing clear: The Greek word “gyros” is a singular noun. Like other similar Greek words that occasionally appear in English — kudos, logos, ethos — you don’t delete the final “s” if you’re having only one. A “gyro” is a kind of helicopter.

The menu at a new Greek-style eatery in Southern Indiana provides us a clear, simple overview: “Gyros is singular.”
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