Category Archives: $$ Modest ($30-$50)

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, World Food

We eat with our fingers, tastefully

Queen of Sheba
Ethiopian restaurant Queen of Sheba recently moved into the old Mazzoni’s building across from Bowman Field. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

“Don’t eat with your fingers!” This nugget of parental advice is known to just about every child. It’s an integral part of the process of growing up with good manners.

From time to time, though, there’s a certain pleasure in casting aside knives and forks and diving right in. This casual approach works with fried chicken, for instance. Or the appropriately named finger sandwiches. Or a rack of juicy ribs. Just bring plenty of napkins.

Aficionados of ethnic food know another finger-food delight that, with a bit of experience, can actually be consumed with a degree of delicacy in a white-tablecloth setting. We’re talking about Ethiopian fare, an East African alternative that may currently be enjoyed at two local eateries.

Both Blue Nile and Queen of Sheba serve Ethiopian food in the traditional style, all dishes spread out on a large, communal plate lined with thin, spongy injera bread, with more of the bread served in rolls that replace our Western knives and forks.
Continue reading We eat with our fingers, tastefully →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Chinese, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Dim Sum touch our hearts

Jade Palace

Centuries ago, long before “small plates” became trendy and before the Spanish came up with the idea of placing a little dish with a snack on top of their Sherry glasses to keep the fruit flies out of their wine, the Chinese realized that a procession of small plates bearing bite-sized snacks would be a civilized way to while away a convivial meal.
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$$ Modest ($30-$50), Commentary, Guest columnist, Seafood & Water's Edge, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Unchained Macca’s delights at Westport Village

Macca's
Macca’s Florida Seafood Grill & Bar holds down a prime spot in the Westport Village center. Outside seating, clean restrooms and a full bar, with plenty of scurrying employees wearing matching attire, put Macca’s squarely in the upscale-casual realm. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com, with Guest Critic Kevin Gibson

If Macca’s Florida Seafood Grill & Bar, with its clean, corporate, angular design and requisite marine-centric décor, looks like it could be part of a chain, that’s probably more than coincidental – this sleek, family-friendly restaurant was originally going to be an R.J. Gator’s franchise, but corporate expansion plans by the Florida-based restaurant chain got put on the back burner, reportedly for economic reasons.
Continue reading Unchained Macca’s delights at Westport Village →

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

Make mine migas at North End Café

Migas at North End Cafe
North End Café’s migas are the Tex-Mex breakfast of champions. Photo by Robin Garr.

Looking for a tasty Tex-Mex breakfast? One of my favorites comes from North End Café, a popular eatery renowned for its breakfast but not often counted among the city’s destinations for Border Country cuisine.

North End’s expansive breakfast menu features more than two-dozen goodies, including such traditional items as biscuits and gravy ($4.75), steak and eggs ($11.99), or even a warm bowl of oatmeal ($4.79). Some dishes add creative touches – you can get your biscuits, for example, with the option of vegetarian mushroom gravy; and French toast ($5.49) gets a subtle touch from the addition of orange spice flavors.

Down at the bottom of the menu you’ll find a tasty Tex-Mex snack: Continue reading Make mine migas at North End Café →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown

The Yankees’ loss is our … hey!

Slugger Field
We’re great fans of the Louisville Bats and thoroughly smitten by Slugger Field, but we’ve found ballpark food service consistently disappointing on Centerplate’s watch. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Centerplate Inc., the South Carolina-based arena and ballpark catering company, has been getting a rough ride lately, with the New York Yankees dumping the company as Yankee Stadium concessionaire after a 40-year ride, and its shares plunging on Wall Street in the wake of blows ranging from financial bad news to a discrimination lawsuit by a Yankees’ bartender.

But Centerplate still rides high in the Derby City, where it not only sells us our hot dogs, peanuts and Cracker Jack in Slugger Field and Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium but is slated to be concessionaire in the controversial downtown sports arena, and also recently emerged as operator of the new Wolfgang Puck Express, an upscale fast-food emporium in downtown’s Kentucky International Convention Center.

Does New York know something that Louisville is missing? Continue reading The Yankees’ loss is our … hey! →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, World Food

Puck chain brings a taste of California downtown

Photo of Wolfgang Puck Express from outside
Photos by Robin Garr.

(Wolfgang Puck Express, Voice-Tribune, Mar. 13, 2008)

Wolfgang Puck, the smiling, round-faced Austrian-turned-Californian with the Schwarzenegger accent, has finally arrived in Louisville.

Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that Puck’s fast-casual dining chain has arrived: The 80th unit of his Wolfgang Puck Express opened recently in the Kentucky International Convention Center, but you’re no more likely to find Puck building pizzas here than you are to run into Col. Harland Sanders frying chicken at your neighborhood KFC.
Continue reading Puck chain brings a taste of California downtown →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, Bistros

Incredible Dave’s: Flawed Inspiration

Photo in Incredible Dave's
Chuck E. Cheese on steroids: If you’re unfamiliar with the Incredible Dave’s concept, imagine a Chuck E. Cheese on steroids, and with a bar. While the concept carries a touch of inspired brilliance, in practice there are flaws. Photo by Nicole Pullen.

Leo EATS with guest columnist Kevin Gibson.

Incredible Dave’s is a fantastic world of sound and color; the kind of place that makes children’s eyes nearly pop out of their heads when they walk in.

“Oh … my … gosh,” one girl, who looked about 7, said recently upon entering with her younger brother and parents.

My girlfriend Jen and I went to Incredible Dave’s, which opened last month on Westport Road in the site of a former Kroger store, on a recent Saturday around 4 p.m. We had hoped to beat the dinner rush, but the place was packed. Packed. For an establishment that had been open only a few weeks at that point, it was quite impressive to see.

If you’re unfamiliar with the restaurant’s concept, imagine a Chuck E. Cheese on steroids, and with a bar. Incredible Dave’s is kind of a Dave & Buster’s that caters to families, giving the adults a chance to dine, enjoy an adult beverage or two and watch the ballgame on big screens while the kids blow their minds on arcade games, bowling, Xbox and Wii lounges, and plenty more.

Continue reading Incredible Dave’s: Flawed Inspiration →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, Italian (and Pizza)

Treat your sweetie on the cheap: Share!

Halibut at Primo
Primo’s Ippoglosso di Ligure, mild white fish poached in olive oil with basil, is influenced by the cuisines of the Liguria region around Genoa. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with Louisville HotBytes

Here’s a cheeky way to treat your sweetie to a Valentine’s Day dinner (or other romantic occasion) at a fancy restaurant, enjoying an expansive meal while keeping the price under control: Share dinner.

I’m talking serious sharing here, the kind you would only want to undertake in the company of someone close enough that you don’t object to taking food from the same plate.

This approach need not be cheap or sleazy, and any good restaurateur will gladly accommodate you in your plan. We tried it the other night at Primo, one of my favorite restaurants.
Continue reading Treat your sweetie on the cheap: Share! →

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Bistros, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

60 West Bistro & Martini Bar

BBC
The 5-year-old Cafe Emilie reinvented itself with a new name and image as 60 West Bistro and Martini Bar.

Cafe Emilie, the comfortable eatery in the Burdorf Center (the former Bacon’s department store in St. Matthews) has won quite a few fans – including me – since it started out as a simple lunch spot just over five years ago. We’ve watched it mature into a cozy neighborhood bistro and bar through a couple of chef and staff changes, and it has earned its popularity the old-fashioned way.
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$$ Modest ($30-$50), Italian (and Pizza), Southern Indiana

Take that short drive to Stratto’s

Jerome Pope
Jerome Pope is now the chef at Stratto’s in Clarksville. Look for his new menu after the first of the year. LEO Photo by Nicole Pullen.

LEO’s Eats with Louisville HotBytes

If you’ve been meaning to check out some Southern Indiana dining spots but worried that it’s a little too far, consider this: It took me just 11 minutes to drive from my house in Crescent Hill to Stratto’s in Clarksville on a rainy Saturday night.

OK, maybe I couldn’t have made it that fast during a weekday rush hour, but it’s still a quicker trip for me than a ride out to The Summit or Brownsboro Crossing in endless suburbia.

What’s more, the comfortable historic-house setting and hearty Italian-accented comfort food at Stratto’s makes it well worth the short trip across the finally repainted Kennedy Bridge.
Continue reading Take that short drive to Stratto’s →