“Volare, oh oh … Cantare, oh oh oh oh … Let’s fly way up to the clouds …” With Dean Martin’s classic rendition of the pop Italian ballad firmly planted in our ears, let’s talk about Volare and how it fits into the pantheon of Louisville’s top Italian tables.
It’s all connected, after all, and goes back to the 1970s, when, for a century or more, “Italian” food had meant the hearty, tomato-sauced American-immigrant fare that families brought through Ellis Island from Calabria and Sicily, Italy’s poverty-ridden deep south. Continue reading Volare continues the upscale Italian tradition→
Ever since North End Cafe opened in Clifton nearly a decade ago, the name of the place seemed a little odd to me. When I grew up in Louisville, we sorted our town into East End, South End and West End, and back in those Baby Boom days of Elvis, tail fins and ducktails, those were the urban ends of the city, not the suburbs. There was not much out there but farms, as far as we knew.
So the arrival in 2003 of this comfortable, casual bistro in Clifton made little geographical sense to me. What’s a North End? Someplace over in Indiana? Nope, it’s right there on lower Frankfort Avenue, inner end of what we used to call the East End. Continue reading East End, South End, where’s the North End?→
“I went to Oriental House for lunch the other day, and we had a really good Chinese meal that didn’t cost us an arm and a leg.” This statement would have been perfectly grammatical, and factual, in 1960, and it still is. Continue reading Top-notch Chinese a tradition at Oriental House→
Life’s little frustrating moments: You’re watching an earnest worker trying to put together your lunch. He fumbles. She slips. You ask for this. He gives you that. Oops, a fresh bit just hit the floor. You’re glad you’re watching, deeply suspicious that if the deed had gone unobserved, the five-second rule would have come into play.
This is taking longer than it should, and things don’t get better. You want to offer advice. Then you want to walk around the end of the counter and help. Continue reading The small stuff punks Taco Punk→
Back in the day, trendy new eateries like the Bristol and Myra’s fired up a generation of Louisville foodies with the revelation that fine dining could be about more than white tablecloths, surf-and-turf and fancy Italian cuisine.
But it didn’t take long for us to become blasé. Even as the city’s dining revolution burst all around us, with still-standing landmarks like Equus, 610 Magnolia and Le Relais, we were soon whining for more. “Get us Greek food,” we ranted. “We want a real Jewish deli! And Indian food! We need an Indian restaurant!” Continue reading Kashmir keeps on keeping on→
What’s a diner? This question would be easy to answer in New York, New Jersey, and across much of the Northeastern U.S., where diners abound. In Louisville, not so much. There’s a fine line between a diner and a family restaurant.
If it’s located in an old railroad dining car or a building made to look like one, it’s definitely a diner; but this is by no means a necessity, and in fact I can’t think of any railroad-style diners in or around this town. (If you know of one, please let me know.) Continue reading Diner delights at Frontier on Dixie→
Let’s consider the economics of steak. Hungry for a sizzling rare boneless strip? Meijer had USDA choice for $7.99 a pound this week. (Kroger had flatiron, a chunk of chuck, for just $5.99 a pound, but let’s keep things upscale with strip or rib eye.) Bring it home, slap it on the grill, add a potato and a salad, and you’ve got steak dinner for two for $10. Such a deal.
Remember those old commercials for Certs? “It’s a breath mint!” “It’s a candy mint!” “It’s two, two, two mints in one!” And then there was the goofy spoof from the gang at “Saturday Night Live”: “It’s a floor wax!” “It’s a dessert topping!” I think the lesson most of us ultimately drew from this is that a product that tries to be two things in one ends up doing neither very well.
Let’s welcome the Voice-Tribune’s move to NuLu late in 2011 with a word of praise for another long-time St. Matthews institution that’s thriving there. The classy bistro Wiltshire on Market is a direct descendant of Susan Hershberg’s much-loved Wiltshire Pantry, which got its start on Wiltshire Avenue in St. Matthews.
Its always appealing menu is based on American culinary traditions with international touches, and a strong emphasis on fresh, local produce and meat. Wiltshire opened on Market in April 2009, so it’s practically an institution by the fast-moving standard of its trendy neighborhood. Continue reading Wiltshire is thriving on Market→
In the ancient Bible story of the exodus, when Moses encountered a burning bush in the desert on Mount Sinai, it was a transforming event. The voice of his creator directed him to face down Pharaoh and lead his people to freedom. Now, that’s serious stuff.
In the 1986 comedy classic “The Three Amigos,” when Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Steve Martin encountered a singing bush in the Sonoran desert, it was a slapstick moment. They got a wacky a capella concert of golden oldies. That’s something, anyway.
When Mary and I trekked out to Prospect recently to check out Burning Bush Grille Mediterranean Café, we got lunch. It was OK. It wasn’t slapstick, but it fell well short of being transformational. Continue reading This Burning Bush doesn’t have much to say→
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