Yum, I love me some fine diner fare. That’s fine “diner,” now, not fine “dining,” which I like, too, but which might be a little out of place in the noisy and very casual environs of The Silver Dollar, whose retro-style sign out front blares “Whiskey By The Drink.”
]Now that I think about it, Chef Jonathan Schwartz and sous chef Dave Hawkins do an estimable job of fine cooking, too, but they keep it in the blue-collar style of Bakersfield, Calif., a dusty Central Valley town where agriculture and oil, the Dust Bowl diaspora and the Chicano diaspora meet and blend in an environment that gave birth to the Bakersfield Sound in country music and, it goes without saying, honky-tonk saloons. Continue reading Fine diner brunch and honky-tonk at The Silver Dollar→
Grouper fingers at the Brewery.It’s been a quite a few years now since a couple of Louisville’s favorite neighborhoods sprouted so many eateries that we dubbed them “Restaurant Rows.” Bardstown Road arguably came first, starting with the Bristol in the 1970s, quickly joined by Jack Fry’s, Cafe Metro, Lilly’s and many more. Frankfort Avenue, with Deitrich’s on its leading edge, quickly gained critical mass in the ‘90s. Then St. Matthews grew into a dining and nightlife zone, and now we’ve seen Nulu burst like the finale at Thunder Over Louisville.
Now something new is happening: All these prosperous restaurant rows are growing into each other, melding into one gigantic, delicious city-wide restaurant zone!Starting in the bustling quarter around the Yum Center, an ambulatory diner could easily work his way out through Nulu and Butchertown to Frankfort Avenue, strolling right out to St. Matthews with few breaks in the action all the way to Oxmoor. Or you could hang a right from Nulu onto Baxter, push through its busy nightspot zone and on out Bardstown to the Watterson. You’d rarely be more than a minute’s walk from an eatery either way.
Stick a pin into the epicenter of this culinary earthquake, and you’d probably jab it down on Baxter, right about where The Brewery recently opened its doors.
Wait! The Brewery? Wasn’t that a popular watering hole back in the ‘80s and ‘90s?
Why, yes!
It closed around the beginning of the new Millennium, though, leaving thousands of bereft fans nostalgic with memories of a lively setting for good music, tasty pub grub and plenty of cold beer.
But now owners Mike Ryan and Dan Evans are back, joined by restaurateur Kevin Daly, with a new Brewery that looks a lot like the old Brewery but maybe even better. Open for lunch and dinner daily, until 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays, its expansive space includes the dark, amiable tavern with its historic bar, a 5,000 pound installation that once served the 19th century Vienna Bar and later Kunz’s; a lighter, brighter dining room, and a patio.
The beer list features mostly the usual suspects but adds a couple of upscale imports and one or two microbrewery locals (NABC Hoptimus and Falls City Ale). The menu remains heavy on the kind of delicious salty, crunchy fried goodies that go so well with beer, plus a broad selection of sandwiches and burgers, virtually all under $10. If you’re feeling more like a restaurant meal, a half-dozen more substantial entrees range in price from $8.95 (for linguine with meatballs and marinara sauce) to $12.95 (for a grilled 10-ounce sirloin or grilled or fried fresh Florida grouper, both served with veggie and potato).
We found everything satisfactory during a recent visit, but perhaps as befits a place named after a beer factory, the beer-friendly starters shone the brightest. Cheese bites ($4.95) consisted of two or three dozen small cubes of Cheddar and Monterey Jack, perfectly fried, crispy without and molten within, with a gently spicy remoulade for dipping. Grouper fingers ($7.95) were on the mild side for grouper, perfectly fried, too, and generously portioned.
A single-size mushroom-and-olive pizza ($6.95) and the Brewery’s famous Brew Burger ($5.95) passed muster, and a spinach salad ($5.95) was, well, a salad. But here’s our advice: Say hi to the new Brewery, much like the old Brewery: You can’t go wrong with a crunch bar snack and a cold beer.
Dinner for three, with a couple of pints of the local brews, was $46.65 plus a $10 tip.
Back in the day, when I was young and stupid, I would often make the long drive down California’s agricultural Central Valley, burning up the Golden State Highway to visit a girlfriend at UCLA.
When I hit the dusty town of Bakersfield, surrounded by oil rigs and potato fields, I knew I was within 100 miles and a couple of fast-driving hours over the Santa Monica Mountains to my destination. Sometimes I would reward myself with a pit stop and a cold beer at some dark and noisy honky-tonk, where the dominant sound was invariably loud country music. Continue reading Echoes of Bakersfield at The Silver Dollar→
Hey, let’s go get a beer! And some pulled pork! And … some vegan wings made out of seitan? Beer and barbecue make a natural pair, and Against The Grain Brewery and Smokehouse does both admirably. But add some really good vegetarian dishes to this mix, and you’ve got something quite out of the ordinary. Continue reading Against the Grain — brewery, BBQ and vegan!?→
The Garage Bar looks so much like an old, run-down country gas station that I can barely go in without feeling tempted to pick up a few packages of peanut butter crackers and a cheap six-pack and go out back with my buddies to smoke, tell dirty jokes and drink beer in the dark. Continue reading Fill ’er up at the Garage Bar→
AP Pub burgerI have to confess that I was uncertain about Westport Village at first. Sure, the aging Camelot shopping center was due for replacement. But as Camelot’s modern replacement rose on the site, its offbeat architecture looked funny, somehow, prompting wisecracks about sets at a Universal Studios theme park. Moreover, the choice of several national franchise operations among early tenants didn’t inspire my confidence.
But what a difference a few years make! Over the past three years or so, Westport Village has evolved into a new and desirable kind of suburban center, its hard edges softened by landscaping and its character shaped by the mostly local independent businesses that now dominate its roster: Wild Eggs, Boombozz, Napa River Grill, Westport Whiskey & Wine, Hiko-A-Mon, Jade Palace, Heine Bros., the Comfy Cow and many more.
With frequent parades, picnics, concerts and other events, Westport Village has become a virtual center of its community.
And now Tony Palombino, papa of the growing Boombozz pizza mini-chain, has upped things another notch with AP Crafters, a new eatery that fills the sizable vacant space left by the departure of Indigo Joe’s, a link in a 50-unit sports bar chain based in Southern California.
Palombino (I can barely overcome the impulse to identify him as “Boombozz”) is as well-known for creating, incubating and spinning off new restaurant ideas that might morph into chains. For instance, he created Thatsa Wrapp, Bazo’s, Benny B’s Sandwiches and more. And now he appears to be embarked on a similar quest with AP Crafters, which has a chain-like look – in a good way – based on the currently trendy “gastropub.”
What’s a gastropub? To define it by example, Louisville’s uber-popular Blind Pig is a gastropub. So is Anchorage’s Village Anchor Pub and Roost and New Albany’s Bank Street Brewhouse. Get the idea? It’s a pub … but it pays more attention to fine food than you’ll get at your typical bar and grill.
Indeed, AP Crafters’ menu offers a wide selection of filling, appetizing burgers, bar fare and hearty comfort food. It’s all priced for a recessionary economy, too, with few of the many dishes reaching over $10 save for specialty items like mussels ($14) or Huli Huli Chick ($11), grilled chicken with Hawaiian-inspired sauce and grilled pineapple.
More than a dozen burgers top out at $10.50 for “The Double” or the Carnegie, which dresses your ground beef with an order of pastrami and Swiss. A variety of soups, salads, appetizers, sandwiches and “long platter” entrees fill out the oversize menu page, and full bar service includes a decent selection of craft beers and interesting, affordable wines.
We sampled a pair of pork “rollers” ($9), grilled, smoked pork “lollipops,” a round of tender meat attached to a bone “handle,” served with caramelized onions and sweet-tart barbecue sauce; excellent charred chicken wings ($8), good-size wings dry-rubbed with a peppery smoked-paprika mix and finished on the grill; and the signature AP Pub burger ($8.50), quality ground beef brilled rosy pink and taken upscale with applewood-smoked bacon, aged Cheddar and a tangy “zip sauce.”
Everything was well-made and ample – we brought enough leftovers home in a box to make lunch another day. Desserts looked great, too, and the warm doughnuts with caramel sauce ($4.50) have received rave reviews from LouisvilleHotBytes.com scouts. Still, if you have any room left after a fine AP Crafters meal, the Comfy Cow is, after all, just down the way.
An excellent lunch, with a Coke and iced tea, totaled $29.15 plus a $6 tip.
Exchange burger plate. PHOTO: Ron JasinWhat’s a gastropub? This is more than a trivial question, as more and more open up in the area. Counting eateries that embrace the title, and those that earn it whether they claim it or not, I immediately think of Blind Pig, Bank Street Brewhouse, Village Anchor and Eiderdown. I’m sure there are more.
Now NA Exchange joins the pack, prompting me to repeat the question: What the heck is a gastropub? Is it a neighborhood saloon that serves pickled ginger rather than pickled eggs, beef tartare instead of beef jerky? Or is it a fern bar with microbrewery beer?
Quality beverages are one sure criterion: craft beers, some of local provenance; artisanal wines, as likely to be from France as California; trendy cocktails, if licensure permits. Neither dive bar nor fern bar, the gastropub offers classy cooking and thought-provoking beverages in a comfortable, casual environment.
NA Exchange self-defines from the majestic Oxford English Dictionary: “gastropub, n. Brit. A public house which specializes in serving high-quality food.” OK, fine. So what the heck is a public house? “British. A tavern,” the “Random House Unabridged Dictionary” laconically reports.
We’re making some progress here, but these are murky waters. Perhaps it’s best to head straight over to a convenient gastropub and figure it out in person. With that in mind, the other night we shot across the Sherman Minton Bridge and up the hill above New Albany.
At the time of our visit, the name of the place appeared to be “Grand Opening,” but more informative signs may be on the way. It’s not hard to find if you know your way to New Albanian Brewing Co., formerly known as Rich O’s and Sportstime Pizza. Stay in the same shopping center, then proceed south through a maze of parking lots for maybe 100 yards, and you’re there.
Formerly MyBar, a neighborhood saloon with no gastropubbish pretensions, NA Exchange has undergone a thorough interior renovation that confers a more upscale look, but the bones of a friendly tavern remain, and that’s a good thing. Chef David Clancy, formerly of Bistro New Albany and other good local spots, is in the kitchen, and that’s an even better thing.
On Tuesday evenings there’s generally a $2 special, recently taking the form of “Bells and Burgers,” with a draft beer selection from the excellent Bell’s Brewery of Kalamazoo, Mich., and a slightly downsized version of the Exchange burger going for $2 each. That was enough to bring us in. We immediately ordered two-buck glasses of hoppy, crisp Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale and examined the menus.
Subdivided into Starters, Salads, Light Fare and Specialties of the Chef, the evening bill of fare was substantial and varied, ranging from fairly traditional bar food to more upscale gastropub grub; but even the basics generally came with a tasty twist. For example, wings ($7.95) arrive in a generous order of 10, tossed with Vietnamese Sriracha sauce and served with Gorgonzola in place of the usual domestic blue cheese. Hummus ($5.95) adds a dose of smoky chipotle-pepper heat, plus pretzel bread toast in lieu of pitas. Nachos ($6.95) are topped with bison chili, and so it goes.
Four light-fare items were affordably priced from $7.50 for a chicken sandwich made blackened and with smoked cheddar, to $9.95 for the locally beloved fried cod, here dredged in a porter batter. Seven chef’s specialties start at $12.95, including pappardelle pasta with peppers in a spicy tomato cream sauce, with chicken or shrimp. (Enjoy a vegetarian version for $10.95.) The menu tops out at a still reasonable $17.95 for a black-and-blue sirloin, made from grass-fed, natural Virginia beef from Davis Creek Farms, blackened and topped with crumbled Gorgonzola.
We started with a shared order of fried green tomatoes ($5.95), which were just about as good as it gets. Five tangy, crisp thick slices of pale-green tomato were tightly cloaked in perfectly fried batter, golden brown and grease-free, neatly composed on a bed of spinach and artfully decorated with a subtly flavored lemon-dill aioli.
The spinach salad ($6.95) was elevated with toasted walnuts, wedges of hard-boiled egg and, considering the season, a surprisingly juicy tomato. Bacon bits, crumbled Gorgonzola, marinated onion slices and crunchy croutons topped it off.
Mary’s Exchange burger, reasonably diminished in size for $2 night (it’s normally $7.95 for a half-pounder), was excellent — a hand-formed burger, perhaps a bit past the requested medium-rare but still juicy and tender, garnished with the standard lettuce-and-tomato and, for a 50-cent surcharge, crumbled Gorgonzola. The burger was fine and so was its bakery-style bun, and fresh chopped dill tossed with crisp house-made potato chips made them something special.
My more substantial entrée, seafood risotto ($12.95), was a bowl of tender short-grain rice in a fennel-and-lemon scented broth, loaded with tender medium shrimp and fresh mussels in the shell. It wasn’t quite a traditional risotto but a delectable seafood-and-rice dish all the same.
The benefits of $2 night held the toll down nicely: A dinner that surely would have set us back $75 in a Frankfort Avenue or Bardstown Road bistro rang up a $36.47 price on the register in Southern Indiana, and careful, courteous service earned a $9 tip.
NA Exchange
3306 Plaza Drive
New Albany, Ind.
812-948-6501
Rating: 88
Poutine. Pronounce it “Poo-teen,” as the Canadian French do. Say it in a cardiologist’s office and hear the alarms go off. Utter it in a restaurant in Montreal, and you’ll be delivered a bowl of classic Quebeçois blue-collar fare.
Nearly 20 years after its opening as a pioneer on the Frankfort Avenue restaurant row, the Irish Rover has settled in to its neighborhood setting so comfortably that it feels as if it’s been there as long as the 150-year-old brick building it inhabits. While it’s as authentically Irish as a pub in Limerick, maybe, or Killarney, the Rover makes a perfect fit in Clifton. With its dark but cozy bar and its sunny, lace-curtained dining rooms, it’s almost two pubs in one, both as Irish as can be. Continue reading Irish Rover’s winter menu offers seasonal comfort→
Rootie’s Sports Bar on Westport Road doesn’t look like anything special — just another sports bar, with lots of TVs and a few pool tables.
But owner Marty Stein knows a thing or two about the classic Buffalo wing. He and the original Rootie’s location hail from Buffalo. He’s been making Buffalo wings for more than 30 years, having bounced from upstate New York to South Florida and now to Louisville, with stops on “The Today Show” and “Regis and Kathie Lee” along the way. Continue reading Rootie’s wings are the real deal. Really.→
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