Category Archives: BY LOCATION

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, LEO's Eats, Mexican, Cuban, Caribbean, New and noteworthy, underSlideshowEntries

No, Bar Belle! El Camino is surfin’ good

My pal the Bar Belle is also the boss of me when it comes to this column, but that sure doesn’t stop me from calling Bullwinkle when I just have to. So, yo, Bar Belle! You’ve got it all wrong when you go hatin’ on El Camino! How did this debate work out? Well, our conversation went something like this:

Your Humble Critic: We checked out El Camino the other night. It’s the new place with the Cali-Mex surfer/tiki-bar vibe that’s run by the Silver Dollar peeps in the old Avalon space on Bardstown. It is truly awesome.

The Bar Belle: I went the other night and wasn’t impressed.

Critic: Whaaa? Continue reading No, Bar Belle! El Camino is surfin’ good →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Bistros, Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, Frankfort Ave., Clifton, Crescent Hill, underSlideshowEntries, Voice-Tribune review

Make Mine Grilled Cheese, Pleese!

Ahh, it finally feels like autumn, and I’m thinking of comfort food.

This nostalgic meme rarely attaches itself to the light, low-calorie and cooling dishes of summer. “Comfort” means stews and hearty soups, spaghetti and meatballs or maybe a thick pan of lasagna – the kinds of warming, stick-to-your-ribs dishes that Mom used to make, or at least you wish she had. Nor need comfort food be complicated or hard to cook.
Continue reading Make Mine Grilled Cheese, Pleese! →

$ Budget (under $30), Pacific Rim, QuickBytes, South End, underSlideshowEntries, Voice-Tribune review

Vietnam Kitchen: 50,000 K8’s Sold?

Okay, let’s run the numbers here. Vietnam Kitchen has been open for about 20.5 years, six days a week. That’s roughly 6,500 days of serving the public since Alex and Kim Lam brought this lovable institution to town in 1993.

Thinking out loud, that means that if every day they sell five orders of “K8,” the menu shorthand for H? ti?u Saté, a delectable rice-noodle dish that’s surely one of Vietnam Kitchen’s top hot-and-spicy dishes, they must have stir-fried way more than 30,000 orders of it by now.

If the Lams were more boastful types, they could put out a flashing sign that boasts, “Nearly 50,000 K8’s sold!” (Yeah, I know I guesstimated 30,000, but hey, nobody fact-checks Mickey D’s “billions and billions” either, right?)
Continue reading Vietnam Kitchen: 50,000 K8’s Sold? →

$$$$ Luxury ($80 and up), Bistros, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, LEO's Eats, New and noteworthy, underSlideshowEntries, White tablecloth, deluxe

Brasserie Provence shows grace and good eats in dinner rush

“Je vais avoir le canard,” said my friend Anne, summoning a French teacher and one-time expat’s easy fluency.

Our server looked puzzled, though. “Maybe you could point it out on the menu,” he said, blushing a little. “I’m still learning the dishes.”

I’m not picking on the guy, though. He showed Hemingway-esque grace under fire as our party of four spent the evening on a lavish meal at Brasserie Provence. We enjoyed his service, a fine Loire Cabernet Franc and an excellent, mostly authentic Provencal meal while allowing plenty of slack for a kitchen slammed by capacity crowds on its first full weekend. Continue reading Brasserie Provence shows grace and good eats in dinner rush →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Bistros, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, LEO's Eats, underSlideshowEntries

Rye will make you eat your brussels sprouts and beg for more

Somewhere out there in this wonderfully diverse world, there is bound to be at least one human who truly loves, loves, loves brussels sprouts.

I have not yet met this person. Let’s face it, a brussels sprout is nothing but a tiny cabbage, with all of the faults that its bigger sibling is heir to, but – in my opinion, at least, and apparently that of many others – few of the virtues. Overcook them and they get stenchy. Undercook them and they stay hard, without the saving grace of crunch. And no matter what you do with them, it seems, they remain, well, tiny cabbages.
Continue reading Rye will make you eat your brussels sprouts and beg for more →

$ Budget (under $30), Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, LEO's Eats, QuickBytes, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, underSlideshowEntries

We sing the praises of Shady Lane Café

I’d like to sing the praises of Shady Lane Café, but I expect that café owner Susi Smith, an outstanding professional singer, could warble it far better than I; and her husband and co-owner Bill Smith, who’s not only a mean hand on the short-order grill but also a poet of some repute, could probably sling some better verses on the topic than I, iambic pentameter or free verse, either way.
Continue reading We sing the praises of Shady Lane Café →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Mexican, Cuban, Caribbean, QuickBytes, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, underSlideshowEntries, Voice-Tribune review

Don’t judge the name. Try Hay!! Chi Wa Waa

Hey, Chihuahua? What kind of a name for a restaurant is that? With a wacky Señor Gonzales accent? Really? Are they talking about the state of Chihuahua in Mexico, or calling a little dog? Or maybe, just possibly, poking a thumb in the eye of “Yo quiero Taco Bell“?
Continue reading Don’t judge the name. Try Hay!! Chi Wa Waa →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, Bistros, Germantown, LEO's Eats, underSlideshowEntries

Food Network loves The Coach Lamp, but who loves Food Network?

Okay, I am just going to come right out and say it: I am so over Food Network. Have been for years, really.

She’s like an old flame, full of bad memories of a romance that I try to suppress now that I’m no longer quite so young and stupid. Oh, I loved her back then, I truly did. It was late coming to Louisville, and I lusted after it in my heart when I read my friends’ stories online about her seductive wiles. And when she finally came to town, sometime around the turn of the millennium, as I recall, I was smitten, so smitten. Continue reading Food Network loves The Coach Lamp, but who loves Food Network? →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Bistros, Breakfast and lunch spots, sandwich spots, Frankfort Ave., Clifton, Crescent Hill, slideshow, Voice-Tribune review

North End Cafe: Now a local institution

North End Cafe has just about become a Louisville institution, and it didn’t take all that long to do so. Co-owner and Chef Christopher Seckman celebrated the 10th anniversary of the original North End Cafe on lower Frankfort Avenue last spring – it’s a place of enduring popularity. Now the second North End Cafe, located at the Douglass Loop in the former Club Grotto location, appears to be going strong after a year and a half.
Continue reading North End Cafe: Now a local institution →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Bistros, LEO's Eats, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, underSlideshowEntries

Vibrant Village Anchor Pub & Roost thrives in old Anchorage

When Village Anchor Pub & Roost and its companion watering hole, The Sea Hag, opened three years ago this past summer, I thought they were pretty cool. But I wondered if they would stick.
Continue reading Vibrant Village Anchor Pub & Roost thrives in old Anchorage →