All posts by Robin Garr

Commentary

Happy Lent, and thanks for all the fish

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Easter is late this year, and working backwards, that means that Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday are a little behind schedule, too. Fat Tuesday is coming up on March 1, and Ash Wednesday, beginning the penitential season of Lent, arrives next week, on March 2.

In other words, if you’ve been craving fried fish a little more than usual lately, there may be a reason for that: In a more typical year, Lenten fish-fry season would already be well under way. Continue reading Happy Lent, and thanks for all the fish →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, Northeast Metro

Impellizzeri’s takes us back in pizza time

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

If you’d like to time-travel back to the ‘70s and taste pizza the way our parents and grandparents did, all you need to do is head for Impellizzeri’s.

Let me tell you why: Pizza impresario Benny Impellizzeri has been making pizza in Louisville since he started cooking at the fabled old Mario’s in Hikes Point in 1968, when LBJ was president and the Beatles’ White Album was high on the charts. Continue reading Impellizzeri’s takes us back in pizza time →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), African, Black-owned, Hikes Point, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, Mexican, Cuban, Caribbean

A trip to Jamaica in a takeout box from Eden & Kissi

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

My friend Erica posted a Facebook challenge: “Y’all…look. This place. These wings. Go. Robin Garr, have you been here yet?” It came with a photo of a succulent golden brown chicken wing the size of a turkey wing, a tantalizing treat from Eden & Kissi.

That was last September, and I really meant to get right out to this little takeout spot in Buechel. But one thing after another got in the way. So here we are, 4 1/2 months later, and suddenly, with the Omicron variant hanging around, great Jamaican takeout sounded good. Continue reading A trip to Jamaica in a takeout box from Eden & Kissi →

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

Burger vs Burger: It’s a win-win at Shady Lane Cafe

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Ahh, Shady Lane Cafe! This lovable little East End diner-style cafe has been a popular lunch (and weekend dinner) spot since Bill Smith and Susi Wood opened it around 2004. It earned deserved popularity for its iconic Brownsboro burger and much more.

All good things eventually move on, though, and in August 2019 Bill, short-order chef and poet, and his wife Susi, amiable host and professional singer, turned the business over to another couple – Carol Reeves and Satbir “Shan” Singh – in August 2019.

The new owners have maintained the same high level of quality and popularity. When I dropped in to pick up a takeout lunch on a recent Saturday, every table in the little space was filled with apparently happy diners, and the line to the counter extended all the way back to the door. Continue reading Burger vs Burger: It’s a win-win at Shady Lane Cafe →

Commentary

The Language of Food: This book helps us interpret the menu and more

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

“Can you figure out how much your dinner will cost by counting the words on the menu? Food, and how we describe it, can tell us a lot about what it’s going to cost us when we go out to eat tonight.”

The Louisville Free Public Library’s e-book blurb about Stanford University professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky’s 2014 book, The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu, got my attention fast. I knew a book that dives into culinary linguistics and statistics too would be a great read for a word nerd and food geek like me. Continue reading The Language of Food: This book helps us interpret the menu and more →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Pacific Rim, Vegetarian/Vegan

Delicious tofu takeout at Heart & Soy

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

I’m pretty sure I unleashed a small rant last autumn when the Delta variant was coming on, threatening to retreat into takeout dining until things blew over a bit.

I didn’t actually do that. I’m vaccinated, and now boosted too, so what, me worry?

But the other day, eyeing news reports about the Omicron variant and rising positivity tolls, I started thinking about takeout again. Continue reading Delicious tofu takeout at Heart & Soy →

Commentary, Vegetarian/Vegan

When KFC gets faux chik’n, plant-based meat’s time has come

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

If you still think the recent wave of faux meats made from plants is just a passing fad that won’t last, consider this: On Monday, KFC rolled out Beyond Meat’s new plant-based chicken nuggets for a short-term test at all 4,000 U.S. shops, boxed not in the traditional red but a tasteful environmental green. Continue reading When KFC gets faux chik’n, plant-based meat’s time has come →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Frankfort Ave., Clifton, Crescent Hill, Mediterranean

Simply Mediterranean brings Lebanese flavor

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Back in the late winter of 1984, I did my first restaurant review for The Louisville Times. I enjoyed a great dinner at a short-lived Lebanese restaurant on Bardstown Road with a Lebanese-American friend who spent a short time at the city’s afternoon paper before moving on to bigger things.

Here we are, almost too many years later to count, and I’ve just finished a tasty repast from Simply Mediterranean, which I believe is the city’s first ethnic Lebanese restaurant since then. Continue reading Simply Mediterranean brings Lebanese flavor →

Commentary

Two more closings end a bleak 2021

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

And the hits just keep on coming. It seems appropriate, in a meta kind of way, to quote a hit by the musician and songwriter Michael Nesmith, who died this month, to mark the passing of two more Louisville restaurants as the year nears its close.

Both spots – Faces Bar/Bistro at 1604 Bardstown Road, and The Fuelery Restaurant and Cafe at 2011 Frankfort Avenue – were born, lived, and died during the pandemic. Faces opened in June 2020, pushed back by the looming pandemic from a planned March opening. The Fuelery opened at the beginning of 2021. Continue reading Two more closings end a bleak 2021 →

Commentary

Why leave? Local chef becomes a full-time Dad

By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Just about a year ago, sadly listing about 30 favorite restaurants that had closed forever during the first full year of Covid-19, I wrote, “the arrival of a pandemic that none of us saw coming at this time last year turned 2020 into a swirling black whirlpool that didn’t make anyone happy.”

Would 2021 be better? With a vaccine on the near horizon, a new national administration coming in, we dared to hope so, even while caseloads and positivity levels remained high.

So here we are, almost at the end of 2021. Most of us are doubly vaccinated now, and many are boosted. That’s good, right? Continue reading Why leave? Local chef becomes a full-time Dad →