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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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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Who put these foodie sugar plums in my stocking?

Caffe Classico’s Saffron Asiago risotto cakes

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

New happenings at Caffe Classico and The Comfy Cow

With visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads, and neither a kerchief nor a stocking cap in sight, a long winter’s nap has been the furthest thing from Mamma’s, er, Mary’s and my heads as the holiday season draws near.

We’re obligate foodies, we’re ready for eats, and we see no conflict between celebrating Christmas the old-fashioned way, with joyous services on Christmas morning, followed by a late lunch, making the trek over the creek and through the woods to Vietnam Kitchen. It’s a perennial favorite among the many Asian eateries that remain open on Christmas Day.
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TanThai sets new standard in Thai food

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(Photo by Robin Garr.)

Foodies, food lovers and food geeks who’ve been around town for a while will recall the happy shock that comes with the discovery of an ethnic spot that stands out from the pack: A new arrival with food preparation and style that hint at something special going on in the kitchen.

So it was with Vietnam Kitchen, almost a generation ago now, around the same time as the Mayan Gypsy truck went land-based with its first bricks-and-mortar location. More recently, we’ve seen it with Saffron’s for Iranian and Red Pepper for hardcore authentic Chinese.

In each case, the food, the mood and the service — but especially the food — signal that this place is, well, different.

Now welcome another ethnic standout, TanThai Cuisine of Thailand. It’s been in its shopping-center quarters on Charlestown Pike, north of New Albany, for close to a year now. But word of mouth travels slowly when there’s a broad river to cross, and TanThai remains unfamiliar to most of Louisville’s ethnic-food fanciers.
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Thai comes to Fern Creek

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

With all due respect, the Fern Creek neighborhood has long been the kind of place where “ethnic” means barbecue or diner fare.

But the arrival last year of Sake Blue, one of the region’s top Japanese restaurants, changed that metric forever. Now add Thai to the mix with the opening of True Thai in the Glenmary Plaza shopping center just east of the Snyder.

Small but bright and attractively decorated, True Thai is operated, I’m told, by a former employee of Louisville’s Thai-Siam. A menu of about 30 standard Thai dishes is attractively priced with all dishes under $10. Stir-fry, noodle and fried-rice dishes are $8.95 for chicken, pork or tofu dishes; add a buck for seafood. Curries are $7.95 and $9.95.
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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.

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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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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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White Oak brings Kentucky’s treasures home

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(By Paige Moore-Heavin. LEO photo by Ron Jasin)

The top current food trend can be summed up in one word: local. The Obamas have planted a garden at the White House. Farmers markets are all the rage. Even big chain groceries spotlight a bit of local produce.

In 2009, farming is cool.

“Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” Barbara Kingsolver’s account of eating homegrown and regionally produced food, has gotten me on the local bandwagon, too. Enter The White Oak, now open in the East Market Street space formerly occupied by Artemisia. Chef and co-owner Allen Heintzman (who was chef at Artemisia from 2005 to 2008) said on LouisvilleHotBytes.com that the restaurant would feature “Kentucky comfort food” and “almost 100 percent local” ingredients. Locavore and progressive, like many of you, I had to check it out.

The long, narrow main dining room has undergone more than just a name change. Gone are the dark red walls, replaced with lighter colors, soft yellow and fresh green tones that complement the works of local artists on the walls. Like to eat al fresco? The shady patio remains an option.
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Here’s anuddah New York pie. Got a problem widdat?

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Pizza originated in prehistoric times, food experts say, when Stone Age tribes pounded wheat grains into a coarse batter and baked rough rounds on hot stones. Then they would top this primitive flatbread with whatever roadkill or gleanings were available. They didn’t call it “pizza,” but we think they probably called it good.

Tomatoes and cheese weren’t added for a few millennia, but by the time pizza as we know it was created in Naples and emigrated to the New World in the Ellis Island days, aficionados were surely already fighting over whose style was best.

Locally, folks who’ve tasted the joys of New York City pizza engage in a constant quest to find something akin to the Italian-immigrant style of pie that’s sold on almost every street corner in Gotham. It’s not an easy quest, as Louisville’s own pizza form (perhaps best demonstrated in the mile-high Impellizzeri pie) has earned a strong following in its own right.

Nevertheless, the quest continues, and when I heard that Perfetto Pizzeria had recently opened in the Plainview quarters last occupied by the short-lived Slice of NY, I rushed eastward to check it out.
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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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