What is tikka? Based on a Punjabi word meaning “small pieces of meat,” it’s an Indian dish of marinated, tandoor-roasted meat. Eat them right up, or serve them in a creamy sauce as tikka masala.
Okay, then, what’s a taco? You’re kidding me, right? Everyone knows what a taco is.
But what happens if for some inexplicable reason someone decided to put these two things together? Shazam! Now we’ve got Tikka Tacos, a curiously delightful new spot on Preston Street near Audubon Park.
Any discussion of Louisville’s oldest and most iconic restaurants can’t reasonably overlook Twig & Leaf. Founded in 1962, this Douglass Loop neighborhood landmark with its iconic leaf-shaped neon sign has been a local go-to spot for diner fare for a long, long time.
Sure, this place has had its ups and downs. Passing though many ownership hands over the years, it’s been cherished at times, avoided at others: Favored by ‘60s hippies with the late-night munchies, later hailed by the Highlands lunch set, sometimes widely ignored, the Twig endures.
Wait! What? There’s a Thai restaurant in the space that housed the German restaurant Gasthaus for nearly 30 years!?
Yep, and the new arrival, All Thai’d Up, is a good Thai eatery, too. Still, it came as a surprise when Gasthaus announced its departure in a social media post in May 2022.
Napa River Grill enjoyed a very good run before it renovated and rebranded as Osteria Italian Seafood last month.
Its name recently foreshortened to just-plain Napa, the upscale Northern California-style eatery had endured for 24 years, a long life for a restaurant.
I’m going to come right out and say it: Meesh Meesh is one of the best new restaurants to come along in Louisville lately.
But wait! What’s with that repetitive rhyming name? The restaurant’s website explains it all for us: MeeshMeesh means “apricot” in both Arabic and Hebrew.
With the sad fighting going on in Israel and Palestinian Gaza right now, a restaurant that celebrates both of those cultures seems like a good place to be. Continue reading Meesh Meesh is good good→
I’m not great at small talk, but I love chaat. Okay, I can hear the chorus of boos from here. I’ll just show myself out.
Seriously, though, the Indian street food delight known as chaat appeals to me, so much so that a search on the word in the Louisville HotBytes archives brought up references at a dozen different local Indian eateries. I’ve eaten plenty of chaat, and I’ve spent plenty of words trying to describe it. Continue reading We chaat it up at Shreeji Indian→
If you haven’t heard about Chef Edward Lee’s new Korean restaurant Nami by now, it’s probably only because you haven’t been paying attention. The news about this Korean-American top chef opening his first Korean restaurant since his 20-something youth in New York City has been all over the place.
Nami, which opened on May 2, has been jammed since the start. If you want a seat, especially on weekends, you should get a reservation will in advance or plan to arrive before 6 p.m.
Two popular East End restaurants did a kind of corporate musical chairs this fall: It all started when Goose Creek Diner closed its shop on Goose Creek Lane after more than 20 years, and Sal’s Pizza & Sports Pub on Lyndon Lane closed last December after a dozen years.
Neighbors promptly begain grieving the loss of their familiar watering holes, but the events seemed unavoidable. Goose Creek Diner’s landlord decided to raze its building. Sal’s owner simply decided it was time to retire. Neighbors at both places wondered where they were going to go for down-home fare in a friendly environment.
As autumn 2020 chilled into the first Covid winter, one of the hardest hits of a run of bad restaurant news came when Uptown Cafe announced that it was closing on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, seemingly ending a 35-year run as a fixture on Bardstown Road’s Restaurant Row.
Uptown was comfortable, cozy, reasonably affordable, yet stylish, more a bistro than a diner. If it wasn’t a place where everyone knew your name, at least it was a place where your face was always familiar. Continue reading New Uptown Cafe, a lot like the old Uptown Cafe→
Blue Dog Bakery celebrated a quarter-century of making great bread for Louisville’s people this year, and it’s hard for me to believe that it has been that long.