Category Archives: Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, Italian (and Pizza)

Hey mambo, mangia Italiano!

Melillo's spaghetti
Le Gallo Rosso’s lasagne is as big as a brick, with hearty layers of pasta, ground pork and veal, well-fashioned tomato sauce and cheese. Photos by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Le Gallo Rosso, Melillo’s)

If you’ve been around the Louisville dining scene long enough to remember back when the old landmark Casa Grisanti was still a pizzeria, you know that long before there was trendy “Northern Italian” we had spaghetti with meatballs and plenty of spicy red tomato sauce. Extra credit for red-checked tablecloths, plastic grapevines and wicker-wrapped Chianti bottles recycled as candle holders.

To get technical about it, “Northern Italian” isn’t really authentic Italian so much as a somewhat idealized American rendition of popular dishes from all over Italy. The genre gained traction during the 1970s as a lighter, more upscale reaction to the hearty tomato-sauce Italian that had gone before.

In fact, the red-sauce genre is arguably more honest, drawing its inspiration from the heritage of Southern Italy – Calabria and Sicily – filtered through New York, New Jersey and the Northeast by immigrants in the Ellis Island era.
Continue reading Hey mambo, mangia Italiano! →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, World Food

Zen and the art of vegetarian dining

Big Salad
Big Salad: City Café’s Jim Henry used to make this big salad for himself, but his customers at the Mid-City Mall location convinced him to add it to the menu. It’s a vegetarian meal in itself. Photos by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(City Café, Zen Garden, Shiraz)

I’m a carnivore, an obligate carnivore. I like meat and find it hard to imagine life without beefsteaks, pork chops, poultry or fish on my plate.

And yet … and yet … when I wax philosophical, I can see some strong arguments for vegetarianism.

I can see it when I think about eating for health and nutrition; and I can see it when I remember reading “Diet for a Small Planet” back in the day, and learning just how many resources are spent on getting a steak to my table.
Continue reading Zen and the art of vegetarian dining →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Italian (and Pizza)

Pizza with a New York accent at Hero’s

Pizza at Hero's
Thin and foldable, NYC-style, a cheese slice and a pepperoni slice from Hero’s in Jeffersontown. Photos by Robin Garr

(Voice-Tribune, May 10, 2007)
Pizza has become an all-American food since immigrants from Southern Italy brought it over to the United States in Ellis Island days, and particularly since its popularity exploded nationwide after World War II.

What was originally a simple way for Italian peasant families to get rid of leftovers has become a national passion, with variations that range from New York City’s thin, portable pizza by the slice to Chicago’s deep-dish, casserole-style pie, and on to some of Wolfgang Puck’s far-out California creations. Salmon and caviar pizza with creme fraiche, anyone?
Continue reading Pizza with a New York accent at Hero’s →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Chinese, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, Pacific Rim

Cravin’ Asian at Shah’s Mongolian

Shalimar
Two build-your-own stir-fries at Shah’s Mongolian Grill. Photo by Robin Garr

(Voice-Tribune, April 12, 2006)

I love Italian food and wine and sometimes feel that I can’t get enough of it. But after spending over two weeks in Northern Italy, enjoying the real thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I came home last week just about ready for a change of pace.

But what, exactly, would fill the bill? Instinctively, I emulated the Italian nobleman Marco Polo, who headed for the exotic East in 1266 and found all manner of good things: I headed for Louisville’s East End to check out a favorite Asian eatery that I was overdue to visit because of ownership changes and new offerings since my last review.
Continue reading Cravin’ Asian at Shah’s Mongolian →

Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, QuickBytes

Keeping things balanced on Bardstown

Ballyhoo's Baja Grill
A fish taco (top) and a shrimp taco (with optional jalapeños) at Ballyhoo’s Baja Grill. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Ballyhoo’s Baja Grill, Just Fresh)

Bardstown Road has been established as Louisville’s primary “restaurant row” for so long now that things seem to have achieved a sort of natural balance: If one eatery closes, chances are something similar will be along soon to fill its niche.

So, when the short-lived Baja Fresh closed after only a few months of vending fast-food-style fresh burritos out of a shiny new glass building, and a similarly ephemeral branch of Bazo’s came and went from the old building that once housed Jupiter Café and is now home to Nio’s, no one really expected that Bardstown would be long bereft of fish tacos. Or, for that matter, that Qdoba and La Bamba would dominate the boulevard’s burrito market without challenge.

Sure enough, now comes Ballyhoo’s Baja Grill, a new spot that looks a lot like a franchised chain operation but that’s actually only the smallest of chains, being the third property of a Nashville-based outfit whose eateries at the other end of the old L&N line bear the trademark name “Chile Burrito Co.”
Continue reading Keeping things balanced on Bardstown →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Pacific Rim, South End

Hot, hotter, hottest

Green chicken curry
Chile flakes paint Vietnam Kitchen’s Gào xào ca ry cay (green chicken curry) a pointillist’s palette of fiery red. It is as hot as the furnaces of Hades. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Thai Smile 5, Sala Thai, Vietnam Kitchen)

A man like me who eats and drinks for a living really needs to be serious about exercise, and I’m not talking about namby-pamby exercises like golf or light jogging, where you barely break a sweat.

No, to survive in the professional dining game, you need to work out until you’re breathing hard, dripping sweat, red in the face, nose running and virtually screaming with the pain of it all. No pain, no gain, after all.

Happily, I’ve discovered an appealing way to achieve this state without having to work out: Simply include in your diet a minimum daily requirement of fiery food. Continue reading Hot, hotter, hottest →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, World Food

Fat Tuesday Valentine at Joe’s OK Bayou

Joe's OK Bayou
Nothing says “I love you”: like a plate of gumbo, jambalaya and fried crawfish tails from Joe’s OK Bayou. Dig in! Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Joe’s OK Bayou, Ramsi’s Cafe on the World)

It’s a long way from the Louisiana bayou country to the shopping centers that are rapidly replacing forests and fields on New Albany’s far north side, but once you step into Joe’s OK Bayou, the distance seems to disappear. Or some of it, anyway.

Like its Kentucky-side counterpart in Plainview, this relatively new edition of Joe’s (it opened the autumn before last) turns bland shopping-center space into a modest replica of a Cajun-country saloon. The walls are painted to resemble a fishing shack surrounded by cypress trees and subtropical birds. Zydeco music in the background and glowing Abita beer signs complete the Acadian ambience, and the food does a reasonably good job of evoking the bayou country, too. Continue reading Fat Tuesday Valentine at Joe’s OK Bayou →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Italian (and Pizza)

Lentini’s is back, again, and it’s better than ever

Three pastas
Lentini’s tris di pasta sampler: risotto con asparagi, thin and dense lasagna and wide tagliatelle in a light cream sauce with Portobello mushroom slices. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

The red neon sign out front of this Highlands landmark isn’t retro, it’s real. It takes us right back to the ’60s, still luring us in to Lentini’s “Little Italy” just as it did when it opened 45 years ago when JFK was president, Elvis was King and girls wore beehive hairdos and poodle skirts.

When the last Lentini (“Sonny”) retired in 2001, a partnership with a Vietnamese entrepreneur followed and we got banh mi and pho alongside lasagna and pizza. This strange experiment didn’t last long. Lentini’s closed, reopened under new management in 2003, then closed again. New owners tried again and promptly went bankrupt. Now it’s ba-aa-ack for a third try, or is it a fourth?

This time, though, the signs look good. Continue reading Lentini’s is back, again, and it’s better than ever →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, Pacific Rim, Seafood & Water's Edge, South End, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, World Food

Craving Crustaceans

“I have yet to meet a pile of shrimp that I was not immediately on good terms with and could not devour promptly,” says Eat ‘N’ Blog correspondent KIM MASSEY. “My deep affection for these little parcels of protein is well matched with my passion for ethnic foods. It’s a fortunate thing, then, that Louisville’s ethnic restaurant community offers so many opportunities to indulge these cravings.”
Needless to say, Kim was quick to volunteer for the challenge of finding some of the region’s most delightful ethnic shrimp dishes. This is her crustacean-loving report:

Let’s start with a duo of appetizers that come dangerously close to displacing shrimp and grits as my favorite way to begin a meal.
The Banh Xeo ($5.60) at Vietnam Kitchen is an inspired creation. An eggy crepe that falls somewhere between a pancake and an omelet, Banh Xeo is pan-fried to a decidedly crispy exterior, then folded over stir-fried shrimp and bean sprouts in a simple but complementary combination of tastes and textures. The salty-sweet acidity of the soy-based sauce provides a perfect foil for the rich crepe. It’s one of those appetizers that you would gladly order in entrée-sized portion, if only you could! (One possibility: Order two.)

Vietnam Kitchen
5339 Mitscher Ave.
363-5154

The Camarones de Alio ($6.99) served at Havana Rumba offer a sumptuous prelude to any meal. A half-dozen plump, tail-on shrimp are sautéed in a simple sauce of olive oil and butter with a smidgen of red pepper and lashings of minced garlic, served sizzling in their clay-pot cooking vessel. This is culinary minimalism at its finest. It’s served with warm, crusty French bread, perfect for mopping up the delightful sauce after the sweet and tender shrimp are down the hatch.

Havana Rumba
4115 Oechsli Ave.
897-1959

That’s just the beginning of the diverse and delicious shrimp dishes available at the city’s ethnic eateries. Consider the shrimp tips ($13) at Queen of Sheba. This splendid dish combines shrimp, onions, tomatoes and green peppers, lightly sautéed in butter with Ethiopian spices. It is served with Kik Wot – a mound of creamy stewed split lentils that would make a satisfying vegetarian dish in itself. Both shrimp and lentils are piled atop injera, the spongy, pancake-like Ethiopian flatbread, which adds a hearty element to an otherwise light entrée. This delightfully complex dish will leave you clamoring to sample more of this wonderful cuisine.

Queen of Sheba Ethiopian
3315 Bardstown Road
459-6301

Another shrimp dish, less subtle but just as satisfying, is the Camarones al Chipotle ($11.50) served at Fiesta Mexicana. A dozen plump shrimp are liberally smothered in a rich, dark sauce of tomatoes and chipotle peppers, with a sprinkling of just-melted Chihuahua cheese. Its smoky heat packs quite a punch, which can be pleasantly tempered with a dollop of sour cream. Served with a side of savory Mexican rice and salad, it’s a hearty, warming dish, a welcome respite to a cold winter evening.

Fiesta Mexicana
5414 Bardstown Road
762-0840

When my crustaceous cravings unite with a desire for the familiar, I beat a hasty retreat to India Palace – a regular port of refuge for a sometimes homesick Brit. It can be so difficult to choose just one dish from the many impressive shrimp options that I frequently give up the struggle and select a contrasting duo. The volcanic, spicy, tangy, Shrimp Vindaloo ($11.95) creates a delightful reverse trajectory of creeping warmth from the back of the throat to the tip of the tongue. It partners perfectly with the mild and aromatic Shrimp Saag ($11.95), a delicate light curry that combines spices, herbs, spinach and a dash of cream. Add a side of Pilau rice, a warm fluffy round of naan flatbread, and there you have it: a culinary hug from a much loved friend!

India Palace
9424 Shelbyville Road
394-0490

Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, BY PRICE FOR TWO, QuickBytes, World Food

Gumbo A Go-Go Goes to J-town

Gumbo A Go-Go

(Gumbo A Go-Go, Voice-Tribune, Oct. 12, 2006)

There’s plenty of sadness to go around amid the vast devastation that Hurricane Katrina left along the Gulf Coast last year, but for those of us who love good food, good drink and good times, the loss of the city of New Orleans as we once knew it has to be one of Katrina’s most enduring blows.

Sure, the City That Care Forgot will come back, and indeed it’s already doing so. But will it ever be the same? Who knows?

Meanwhile, though, the good news is that wherever people love the bold and colorful Creole and Cajun cuisines of New Orleans and Acadiana, chances are that someone nearby will be cooking the stuff and doing it well.

That’s certainly the case in Louisville, where Gumbo A Go-Go – a relatively recent arrival that opened last year in small quarters in Clifton – has now opened a suburban branch in Jeffersontown.
Continue reading Gumbo A Go-Go Goes to J-town →