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This archived review dates from 2007 or before. Use SEARCH above to find all recent reviews.
Rick is back and we're glad to see him. Rick Dissell that is, the eponymous owner of this casually upscale neighborhood eatery and watering hole in St. Matthews, who started out in this location back in the '80s and returned to it last month, to the cheers of delighted longtime "regulars." It's going to take a few paragraphs to sort out all the changes that have followed in the wake of the original Rick's. After 17 years in business, Dissell moved from this Chenoweth Square location in 1997 to expand into a new building a few blocks away on Frankfort Avenue. That didn't work out, and was quickly replaced by a string of successors including the short-lived Blue Moon Diner and Deli and an almost-as-short-lived branch operation of J. Harrod's. (It's now occupied by an attractively upscale pool hall and pub, Diamond, which we hope will break the curse.) Meanwhile, Rick's original space was taken by Indigo, which for a while was one of the East End's top spots (operated by the same folks who went on to open Z's Oyster Bar & Steakhouse); but it slid quickly downhill after Z's proprietors sold Indigo out to a much less impressive operation from Cincinnati with the coincidentally similar name Indigo Cafe. Now the diminished Indigo has faded to black, and Dissell is back where he started. Rick's offers much the same comfortably "business casual" mood as it did in the first place, and even the menu is familiar, blending some of Rick's old standards (like the tongue-in-cheek Rasta Pasta) with new but compatible dishes from Executive Chef Robert Potts. Just as in the past, you enter Rick's through an attractive, awning-shaded patio to a small lobby with separate doors to the bar on the right and dining rooms on the left. Two long, rather narrow rooms run from front to back of the building, both featuring large French doors overlooking the patio. We dined in the second room, where one long wall sports large, eye-catching red panels set into a wall mirror, with old-fashioned candle-type sconces topped with bright poppy-red shades. A large, antique beveled mirror on the back wall brings in more light, and large, bright aquariums are set into the wall between the two dining rooms. A few antique posters around the room and oversize potted palms discreetly evoke a Casablanca theme. Sturdy tables are draped in black, set with good white cloth napkins and furnished with shiny red wood side chairs in an art-deco style. Recessed lights in the black ceiling are carefully placed to provide ample lighting for the tables while leaving the overall mood of the room on the romantically dim side; flickering votive candles in small frosted chimneys provide additional spots of light. The dinner menu is extensive and what I'd call "American-style bistro," upscale enough that you can choose a sauce bordelaise or shiitake demiglace with your beef, but sufficiently down-home that they'll gladly bring out a jar of Heinz 57 ketchup for your french fries on request. More than a dozen starters include soups (Fifteen bean soup for $3.95 a cup, $4.95 a bowl, or a creamy roasted red pepper soup for $3.50 a cup, $4.50 a bowl) and salads ($8.75 for a Ferrari salad with chicken or blackened salmon, $6.75 unadorned; $8.95 for a baby spinach salad, $8.95 with blackened salmon, $6.95 without). Appetizer dishes range in price from $5.95 (for a smoked-turkey and roasted-veggie quesadilla) to $8.95 (for our choice, "killer" oysters served warm in a cloak of molten Swiss and Parmesan cheeses with bacon and garlic butter). Fried calamari are $6.95, and Santa Fe wontons, apparently a flattering imitation of the Bristol's signature starter, are $6.75. A half-dozen sandwiches run from $7.95 (for the Ferrari steak burger) to $10.95 (for a Ferrari Hot Brown). Sixteen entrees (plus specials on the weekends) range in price from $8.50 (for a half-order of spinach Alfredo) to $23.95 (for a char-grilled 12-ounce New York strip steak with fried onions, baked potato and shiitake mushroom demiglace. All beef items are aged black angus, the menu notes). Chef Pott's motto, "Regional flavors, neighborhood feel," is perhaps best illustrated by example: Other entrees include such down-home goodies as homemade meat loaf ($12.95) and pan-sauteed chicken livers or light-fried chicken $14.95) as well as more with-it items like chicken Ricardo, a boneless, skinless chicken breast made teriyaki style ($16.50); pan-seared, bacon-wrapped sea scallops ($18.25); Cooper Island shrimp, oversize prawns split, butterfled and char-grilled in the shell ($18.25), and roasted beef tenderloin with wild mushroom bordelaise and sweet onion mashed potatoes ($22.50). Pan-fried oysters and Florida stone crab claws are offered at market price. All entrees come with bread and vegetable, and a small Ferrari salad is optional for $2 more. Our server mentioned a separate lunch menu including a buffet, which sounds well worth checking out on another day. Rick's wine list contains about 50 selections, quite fairly priced with virtually all bottles in the $30 range or below, but it's not really a "wine geek" list, dominated by mass-market labels (Kendall-Jackson Sauvignon Blanc is $25) with little in the way of artisanal or offbeat items. About half of the wines are available by the glass from $4.75 (for Montevina White Zinfandel, $16 a bottle) to $8.75 (for Estancia Cabernet Sauvignon, $35 a bottle). At the higher end are Chateau Ste. Michelle Indian Wells Merlot from Washington State and St. Francis Claret red blend from Sonoma in California ($37 each), and a couple of pricey bubblies, G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge for $75 and "J" Brut from Sonoma $59. A Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages stood out at $20 as a decent buy for a fruity, easy-to-drink French red, but my head was turned this time by a classy beer, Pilsner Urquell ($4 for a pint on draught, served in a tall glass with the brewery logo). This deliciously hoppy golden lager from the Czech Republic is literally the grandfather of just about all the pilsner-style American lager beers, which sadly have come a long way downhill from their progenitor. Bread is served in a wicker basket with whipped butter in a little metal tub on the side. It's OK, if a bit on the lightweight side, thick slices from an Americanized ciabatta-style loaf with a thin, tender crust and bits of sauteed onion mixed through it. We started with a shared order of the "killer" oysters ($8.95), which came in an impressive presentation: Four scallop-shell white stoneware dishes were arranged on a bed of leaf lettuce on a large white plate, garnished with a lemon artfully carved to resemble the top of Bart Simpson's hairdo. Each scallop dish contained a single large, deliciously fresh shucked oyster, covered in a blend of Swiss and Parmesan cheeses, chopped bacon and garlic butter, run under the broiler until the cheeses melted into a chewy omelet-like purse around the shellfish. All that cheese and smoky bacon turned the oysters into a rather hearty starter, but they went down fast. Dinners come on oversize, off-white stoneware plates. The baby spinach salad ($8.95, served as a main course, consisted of beautiful fresh leaves of dark green raw spinach dotted with bits of mild goat cheese (likely Indiana's Capriole) tossed with thick slices of raw domestic white mushroom, good-size chunks of raw mild red onion and a rectangular block of fresh grilled salmon, blackened with a black-pepper and cayenne coating that packed a deceptively spicy punch. A clear, sweet warm shallot bacon red-wine dressing was served as requested on the side. My choice, the roasted double pork chop ($18.50) was fine. A large chop was butterflied and frenched off the bone, cooked fully through - no rosy pink center here - but tender and juicy. It was topped with a tasty, thick pale-tan sauce that was appetizingly salty if not overly redolent of either of its primary flavor ingredients, brandy and blue cheese. The chop was plated on a mound of Rick's dense, textured sweet onion potatoes and accompanied by a medley of herb-dusted, grilled zucchini and summer squash plus a few needle-thin spring asparagus spears. You could call it truck-stop food elevated to bistro status, and it was very well handled. I was a happy, and well-stuffed, camper. (In case this is not absolutely clear to everyone, as occasional E-mail queries suggest, that's a compliment.) I paid $2 extra for a small Ferrari salad and found it quite serviceable, much like a Caesar, a chopped pile of romaine and a bit of red-edged oakleaf lettuce, garnished with thin slices of green, red and yellow bell pepper, shreds of white onion and a handful of dark, crisply toasted homemade croutons. The standard range of dressings was available, and I chose to kick up the Caesar quotient with the "Brutus" dressing, (Caesar's nemesis?) a thick vinaigrette-style emulsion with a distinct if distant hint of anchovies. A selection of four desserts are $4.75 (for Key lime cheesecake) to $5.25 (for chocolate paté, billed as "a slab of total decdence with white, dark and milk chocolates and toffee liqueur"). We couldn't resist finishing with a shared wedge of polar bear pie ($4.95). Ice-cold, firm base of French vanilla ice cream ganed texture and crunch from Heath Bar chips and an apple-walnut crust; "drunken" chocolate sauce was thick as molasses but much better flavored, dark bittersweet chocolate with a dash of brandy, maybe, poured over the top, with billows of whipped cream piped over the end so you've got the option of virtuously spooning it aside or shoveling it down. We held the toll down somewhat by sharing an appetizer and dessert, choosing a dinner salad as one of the entrees, and ordering draught beer in place of a bottle of wine, thus keeping dinner for two to a relatively modest $49.95 plus a $10.05 tip. Service was chipper and friendly but fell a bit short of four-star standards; they were reasonably attentive but careless about refilling glasses, clearing plates and replacing silverware. Bussers in particular could use some serious training and closer supervision. $$ (May 2005) ACCESSIBILITY: The main entrance and dining rooms are fully accessible to wheelchair users; the restrooms are minimally accessible due to tight quarters and careless placement of modifications for disabled guests.
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