New and noteworthy, News announcements

Stuff your stocking with a Louisville Originals gift cert

Gift Cert

Just in time for the holidays, the Louisville Originals independent restaurant association has launched a new restaurant gift-card program.

Available online at www.louisvilleoriginals.com, cards can be purchased in any amount from $25 to $1,000. Order online, and your gift cards will arrive within three days after receipt of payment. Or buy in bulk for all your friends: Orders of five or more cards receive a 5 percent discount on the total charge.

Gift cards may be used as often as you like (until the money runs out!) Continue reading Stuff your stocking with a Louisville Originals gift cert →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Bistros, Outside the city

Westport General Store cuts the cheese, but it’s no Cracker Barrel

Westport General Store
Westport General Store: about 30 minutes from Louisville, is down-home, innovative and urbane. Photos by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

A rustic country store in a tiny rural village, it boasts a breezy veranda, an oversize wheel of fine cheddar cheese, and a down-home bill of fare that includes such goodies as stone-ground grits and country-fried pork chops and even, occasionally, fried bologna.

Why, it sounds just like Cracker Barrel.

Not!
Continue reading Westport General Store cuts the cheese, but it’s no Cracker Barrel →

Commentary

Danielle’s: Still sweet, and better than ever

CLOSED. We very much regret to learn of the abrupt closing of Danielle’s just before New Years. The owners, attributing the closure largely to intractible issues surrounding city liquor licensure, say they hope to find a way to return to business eventually.

Danielle's
Danielle’s has earned its place as one of Frankfort Avenue’s stars. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

“Dammit,” grumbled my wife, squinting crossly as she studied the new menu at Danielle’s. “Look at this! It’s just like before! Everything has sweet flavors and fruit in it.”

I leaned out of whacking range and snickered: “This is a bad thing?”
It wasn’t bad at all, as it turned out, and even my wife eventually agreed, after she scraped the sweet tomato jam off a hearty portion of lamb shank.
Continue reading Danielle’s: Still sweet, and better than ever →

Commentary

Eating our way through the holidays

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

OK, you’re going to shop till you drop – taking care to drop someplace where you can get something tasty and restorative so you can bounce back to shop again.

Or maybe you hate shopping as much as I do and would rather just forget the whole thing, buy your Christmas presents on the Internet, and eat your way through the holidays instead.

No matter which way you want to play it, we’ve got plenty of holiday-season dining advice for you. Tuck this column into your purse or your car. If you find yourself feeling a little peckish during a shopping venture, browse these quirky mini-reviews to find the places just right for you.
Continue reading Eating our way through the holidays →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Bistros, Outside the city

Big-city dining at bucolic Holly Hill

Holly Hill
Holly Hill Inn in Midway, Ky., is located in a beautiful brick structure that dates back more than 150 years. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Photo by Kim Massey.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Holly Hill Inn, Gourmet to Go’s rye bread, Oceanside Seafood)

Call me an unreconstructed urbanite, but I tend to assume that if you desire sophisticated fare in an upscale environment, you’ll want to stay close to the city.

Sure, there are exceptions, with jewels like Limestone and Ferd Grisanti in the chain-rich suburbs, and worthy dining destinations even in the outer ring of suburbs, from RockWall above New Albany to Norma Jean’s Trackside and Westport General Store out in Oldham County, just to name a few.

But who’d have thought that one of Kentucky’s most sophisticated eateries – so good that it attracts national media attention – resides in tiny Midway, a good hour’s drive east of downtown Louisville, so far out into the Bluegrass that you’ve got to drive past Waddy and Peytona to get there?

It’s true. Featured in such publications as Bon Appetit, Food & Wine and Southern Living and invited to show their stuff at James Beard House in New York City in June 2004, the husband-and-wife team of owner-restaurateurs Chris and Ouita Michel have put Midway not only on Kentucky’s culinary map but the nation’s with their Holly Hill Inn. Continue reading Big-city dining at bucolic Holly Hill →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Bistros, Outside the city

Brunch at the Prospect Bristol

Bristol - Prospect

(Bristol – Prospect, Voice-Tribune, Nov. 9, 2006)

Louisville old-timers fondly recognize the Bristol Bar & Grille as the great-grandpappy of just about all the popular eateries that now virtually line Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenues.

When the original Bristol opened at 1321 Bardstown Road in 1977, the idea of an upscale urban bistro seemed a little strange, but the idea quickly caught on, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Over the years, the Bristol became well-known for its casual gourmet-style signature dishes, from the Bristol Burger (served on an English muffin, what a concept), to the beloved Green Chile Won Tons. But when I look back over all the years that I’ve been a fan and happy customer, one Bristol tradition stands out: Sunday brunch!

A few branches around town have joined the original location, sharing similar menus but each with its own mood. The downtown branch (614 W. Main St.), fits in beautifully with its 19th century storefront surroundings, and the Hurstbourne Bristol (300 N. Hurstbourne Pkwy.) seems just as compatible a fit with the suburbs.

And now there’s a Prospect Bristol, opened this past summer in shopping-center space that had housed a Max’n’Erma’s. Continue reading Brunch at the Prospect Bristol →

$ Budget (under $30), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Indulge your pork cravings at Pig City

Pig City
Pig City BBQ: Certain songs with food allusions may or may be what they seem, but there’s nothing ambiguous about Pig City BBQ. It’s about the pigmeat, brothers and sisters. Photo by Paige Moore-Heavin

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Pig City BBQ, Fresco Southwest Grill & Pizza)

Food was never very far from the thoughts of Mississippi blues great Armenter Chatmon, better known to the world as Bo Carter. At least we assume he was thinking about food when he dreamed up blues ballads like “Banana in Your Fruit Basket” and “Your Biscuits Are Big Enough for Me.”

OK, so maybe those references are just a little ambiguous. Maybe he was thinking about food, and maybe he wasn’t. But there’s no doubt that Bo had his dinner plate in mind when he warbled the tune I love best, “Pigmeat is What I Crave.”

I’m right with him there: Meat, fish, fowl or soy protein, it’s hard to beat pork for sheer deliciousity.

Naturally when I heard about a new barbecue joint out in the East End called Pig City, I knew where I had to be. Continue reading Indulge your pork cravings at Pig City →

BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, BY PRICE FOR TWO, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

This drink’s for Fido

Tyler Dorsett
In a rare display of common sense, Kentucky recently made it OK to take home an unfinished bottle of wine from a restaurant. Tyler Dorsett of the Bristol-Downtown shows the first step, re-corking the bottle … Photos by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Wine doggy-bagging, Cutting Board Café, Aldi’s)

You order an excellent wine to go with your restaurant meal, and when dinner is done, the bottle is half empty. Or half full, depending on your worldview. What do you do?

Common sense would dictate that you poke the cork back in the bottle and take it home to enjoy another day. But common sense, by and large, does not inform alcoholic-beverage-control laws. In Kentucky, restaurants are generally not licensed for “package liquor” sales and, historically, have risked a fine or loss of their drinks license if they permit customers to carry out wine.

In a rare display of common sense, however, Kentucky’s legislature this year passed a new law allowing consumers to take the partially consumed bottle home. The law requires that restaurant staff re-seal the bottle, place it in a closed bag and provide a dated receipt. The consumer must keep the bottle in the trunk, a locked glove compartment or other place “inaccessible to the driver” during the trip home, a rather bureaucratic set of requirements apparently aimed at ensuring that thirsty motorists won’t slug their Chateau Gotrocks right out of the bottle while speeding along the Watterson.
Continue reading This drink’s for Fido →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Bistros, Chinese, Coffee Shops & Desserts, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Chains – Was Mr. Marx right?

P.F. Chang's
Long waits were common when P.F. Chang’s opened in Louisville last year. Photo by Robin Garr

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(P.F. Chang’s, Cheesecake Factory)

“Unite,” Karl Marx urged the workers of the world. “You have nothing to lose but your chains.” And speaking of chains, my experiences with dining at the franchised variety too often remind me of another Marx – Groucho – who famously said, “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”

Please note that I’m not simply bashing all chains, sight unseen. I’ve had splendid meals at quite a few, and published glowing reviews. But whether you’re looking at a restaurant chain like Cheddar’s or a newspaper chain like Gannett, simple logic argues that when corporate bean counters rule spending, corner-cutting and diminished quality are likely to follow. Chains simply operate under different constraints than an independent local business run by an owner-chef whose passion drives him or her to excel regardless of costs.

This seems to work, most of the time. Consider the popularity of the Louisville Originals restaurants and similar locally owned eateries: You’ll find few chains knocking the locals out of any critic’s list of Top 10 places to dine.

And yet … some chains clearly do something right, because hungry crowds fairly knock down their doors. Take the suburban culinary meccas P.F. Chang’s and Cheesecake Factory. The three-hour waits of the early days may have diminished a little since they opened last autumn, but eager diners still line up hungrily at dinner time.

What is their secret? Continue reading Chains – Was Mr. Marx right? →

$ Budget (under $30), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, Outside the city

Frosting the Hoosier pumpkin

Huber's
Server Dacqueri Mahar shows off Huber’s finest, the country platter dish of fried chicken and ham. Photos by Sara Havens

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Stumler’s, Joe Huber’s)

“When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock …
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence …
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best.”

Ahh, autumn, time of harvest and nippy nights, hearty cider and cozy fireplaces. Autumn doesn’t get any better than it does in rural Indiana, and it’s no surprise that the poet who penned those words in 1883, Indiana’s own James Whitcomb Riley, was a Hoosier through and through.

Riley, who’s been a hero of mine ever since I learned that he started out as a newspaper reporter and was once fired from the Anderson Democrat for being a little too creative with his prose, knew a good thing when he saw it, and so do we.

The leaves are getting serious about turning colors now, and any random pumpkin is likely to wake up in the morning sporting a touch of frost. Let’s celebrate Riley’s memory with a leaf-peeping, eating and drinking expedition to the tourist farms of Starlight, Ind. Continue reading Frosting the Hoosier pumpkin →

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