Category Archives: Commentary

Robin Garr’s musings about food and restaurant matters that don’t fit neatly into the “review” category.

$$ Modest ($30-$50), Commentary, New and noteworthy, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, World Food

Plus ça change at Café Lou Lou

Cafe Lou Lou
One of the reasons Café Lou Lou’s new locale works is the retention of the original look, including striking art pieces. LEO photo by Nicole Pullen.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

The 19th century French satirist and polymath Alphonse Karr was not, as far as we know, a food critic. But when he penned the lines, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (“The more things change, the more they stay the same”), he might as well have been talking about Louisville’s Café Lou Lou.

A lot of us obligate urbanites were horrified to learn earlier this year that Chef Clay Wallace and co-owner Helen Ellis planned to move the popular eatery’s quarters from Frankfort Avenue in Clifton to St. Matthews, literally across the street from where Sears used to be.

Leaving the artsy, hippy-dippy diversity of Clifton for almost-suburban St. Matthews? How can this be, we wailed! Café Lou Lou can’t possibly stay the same! How can it survive in the whitebread land of SUVs?

As it turns out, the answer to these questions turns out to be, “Very nicely indeed.” Or, if you prefer, “Plus ça change.”
Continue reading Plus ça change at Café Lou Lou →

Commentary

G3 – A Great Bite at Proof on Main

(By Jim Murphy. Republished with permission from G3 Illustrated)

Proof on Main is just about the coolest place in Louisville. With avant-garde art displays, hip chic interior and one of a kind ambiance atmosphere, Proof is the destination spot for Louisville Area gays and straights.

I have gone to Proof many times: G3 galas, business lunches and wonderful dinners with close friends. I have never had a bad time or a bad meal. I leave feeling reminiscent of New York or Chicago.
Continue reading G3 – A Great Bite at Proof on Main →

Commentary

Big and bigger steaks at Frank’s

Frank's
The interior of Frank’s Steakhouse – dark, heavy wood beams and roughly quarried blocks of limestone – create an old-house atmosphere that seems just right for a steakhouse environment. LEO Photo by Nicole Pullen

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

There’s something about a good, old-fashioned steakhouse that builds enduring popularity. The old reliable Pat’s in Louisville (formerly Min’s), for example, started grilling its steaks and chops in 1958, and some of its clientele have been dining there regularly ever since.

Boasting almost as durable a record of longevity on the Sunny Side, the estimable Frank’s Steakhouse in Jeffersonville has been around for at least … well, let’s ask. “Uhhh … 30-something years,” guesstimated a longtime server. Close enough!

And now, more than a generation later, Frank’s has come to Kentucky. Taking over the East End quarters lately abandoned by the abrupt closing of Garrett’s (another popular casual American spot that grilled a few steaks in its day), Frank’s opened a Louisville outpost just off Hurstbourne Lane around Derby time.
Continue reading Big and bigger steaks at Frank’s →

Commentary

G3 – A Great Bite at CarlyRae’s

(By Michael Tierney. Republished with permission from G3 Illustrated)

When I was little, my favorite family member was my Aunt Mooie. Her real name was Mildred; nobody ever really talked about how she got the nickname. Anyway, she was like the small town version of Auntie Mame, but instead of Martini’s and progressive education, Aunt Mooie was all Rice Crispy Treats and vacation bible school. For me, she was a rare and exotic breed of hostess who treasured her guests and poured love and care into every meal she put on her table – from her pea salad to fresh fruit cobblers – she made every guest feel like her most special one.

So this month we discovered Carly Rae’s, a place that is as warm and inviting as the comfort food it serves.
Continue reading G3 – A Great Bite at CarlyRae’s →

Commentary

G3 – A Great Bite: One person’s opinion

Faux CJ front page

(By Jim Murphy. Republished with permission from G3 Illustrated)

Taste and palate are extremely personal and subjective. A restaurant review is simply one person’s opinion – their view, attitude or appraisal of a particular dining experience. It is not, nor should it ever be, a definitive statement of superlative or the death knell of any restaurant.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case in our little burg. Citizens apparently take heed of our locally published restaurant reviews. As a result, La Rouge, which had the possibility of being one of Louisville’s shining dining destinations, was unable to survive in light of one man’s assessment of his meal (which I am given to understand he consumed completely during yet his third dining venture to La Rouge).
Continue reading G3 – A Great Bite: One person’s opinion →

Commentary, QuickBytes

Does wireless come with that shake?

James Browdy
James Browdy, who’s retired from his job at Audubon Hospital, says he visits the Heine Bros. at Eastern Parkway and Bardstown Road four or five days to check out jazz videos through a Wi-Fi connection. Photos by Richard Meadows.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

While I’m over here in Italy checking out the wine and food and trying to find a WiFi hotspot so I can call home, Eat ‘N’ Blog contributor RICHARD MEADOWS has been toting his notebook computer around Louisville, checking out the state of the wireless Internet art at local eateries and watering holes.

Richard, a foodie and computer geek with plenty of opinions about both, has been surfing the WiFi waves since the ‘Net first went wireless. Here’s his irreverent report:

Sitting at Heine Brothers Coffee in the Highlands one cold, blustery evening, I looked up from my laptop and realized that the place was chock full of WiFi users, all gazing at their own laptops. Continue reading Does wireless come with that shake? →

Commentary

Italian postcard: Real pizza!

After two weeks as a wine judge and traveling wine writer, I’ve been dining very well indeed at some of the best eateries in Northern Italy’s Lombardy and Veneto regions. Not that there’s anything wrong with that: It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do it.

But on the eve of my flight home, I was almost desperately ready for something simple, earthy and divine: Pizza, of course, from the land of pizza, and if the Verona area isn’t quite as close to the mother lode of pizza as, say, Naples, it’s a lot closer than Louisville. Continue reading Italian postcard: Real pizza! →

$ Budget (under $30), Commentary, Seafood & Water's Edge, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Yummy fried fish is no penance

St. Augustine's fish dinner
St. Augustine’s Catholic Church is well known for its Friday fish fries during Lent. The fish is good – you can choose baked cod, fried cod (above), whiting or buffalo – and some of the sides are excellent. Try the cheese grits, which sub pimento cheese for cheddar. Photos by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(St. Augustine’s fish fry, Stan’s Fish Sandwich, KFC Fish Snacker)

It’s Lent again, the liturgical season when many people undertake modest symbolic sacrifices such as eating fish on Fridays. Crunchy, golden-brown, delicious, sizzling fried fish: You call that penance?

In Louisville, we don’t reserve fish for Lent. Most of us are crazy for seafood at any time of year, and that’s been so for generations, way back to the postwar era – post-Civil War, that is – when L&N express trains would rush fresh oysters on ice up from the Gulf to oyster bars like the still-extant Mazzoni’s.
Continue reading Yummy fried fish is no penance →

Commentary

G3 – A Great Bite: Lush and exotic Maido

Maido

(By Michael Tierney. Republished with permission from G3 Illustrated)

I grew up in a meat ‘n’ potatoes family. We never ate rice, not even Rice-a-Roni. Rice, we assumed, was reserved for rich families and exotic cultures. Perhaps this explains my fascination with Japanese food … the rice, the chopsticks … it seems so highbrow. So with my love for meat and potatoes, and a longing for things lush and exotic, I recently dined at Maido on Frankfort Avenue in Clifton.
Continue reading G3 – A Great Bite: Lush and exotic Maido →

Commentary, QuickBytes

And now to cool off …

Sweet corn ice cream
Palapa Azul brand Mexican-style sweet-corn ice cream is very strange … and strangely addictive. Photo by Robin Garr.

Aficionados of the primal fire know there’s no better antidote for that chile-pepper burn than a cooling dairy treat. Milk and cream will neutralize the capsaicins (chile oils), while beer, tea or water merely wash them around your mouth, delivering the heat to all the nooks and crannies that it hadn’t previously reached.

Once I’m on a chile high, there’s no better way to ratchet it down gently than a bowl of ice cream. Continue reading And now to cool off … →