QuickBytes

The Sushi battle is joined!

Photo of Toki Masubuchi Huie
Toki Masubuchi Huie: Maido Essential Japanese co-owner and sushi-maker Toki Masubuchi Huie fashions “Dragon King’s Daughter Reborn” bites at Sushi in the City.

LEO’s Eats with Louisville HotBytes

By Robin Garr.

Gather ’round, young ‘uns, and I’ll tell you a story about days gone by. Way back in the dark ages … well, the 1980s … sushi was only a wild-eyed rumor here in Louisville, and most people didn’t believe it would be either appetizing or healthy to eat raw fish.

When this Japanese treat first hit town, it was available only as a Thursday special at a downtown luncheonette, sparsely attended by a small group of zanies (yes, I was one of them) who understood that 125 million Japanese can’t all be wrong. Soon the proprietor went off to start the city’s first real sushi bar, Sachicoma. But it was years before Louisville worked up enough of a sushi craze to support more than one.

Continue reading The Sushi battle is joined! →

$ Budget (under $30), Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, Italian (and Pizza)

The Boombozz theory of evolution

Boombozz
The most recent addition to the Tony Boombozz empire is the brand-new upscale casual Boombozz Bistro in Jeffersontown with an expanded menu and table service. The walls are bright and bold, the colors of tomato sauce and mozzarella, artichoke and sun-dried tomato. Photos by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with Louisville HotBytes

Like a primordial anchovy creeping out of the sea and beholding bigger and better things on shore, the first Tony Boombozz pizzeria burst into view just a decade ago as a tiny but portentous creature.

Louisville’s pizza lovers looked upon it and saw that it was good. So it wasn’t long before the small pizzeria moved into larger quarters on Frankfort Avenue, then spawned a second location on Bardstown Road, cannily providing artisan pizzas on both of the city’s primary restaurant rows.

Now there are four, with the addition of a fast-casual dining room in Springhurst, and, out past Jeffersontown in the distant ‘burbs, the subject of today’s sermon: a brand-new upscale casual Boombozz Bistro with an expanded menu and table service. (Coming later this year, an expanded Bardstown Road operation and tap room with 30, count ’em, 30 draught microbrews.)
Continue reading The Boombozz theory of evolution →

QuickBytes

Hot? Not.

Boombozz
A Skyline Chili five-way topped with “Extreme Habanero” cheese.

The currently trendy Habanero pepper, meaning “guy from Havana,” is said to be one of the hottest peppers on Earth, or at least one of the hottest you can buy at your average grocery store. Food scientists measure its heat in the range of 300,000 Scoville units, which is 10 times the strength of a Cayenne pepper, 100 times that of a jalapeño and a gazillion times that of a green bell pepper. Or, in less technical terms, “Wooooeeee!”

Naturally when I saw an advertisement for Skyline Chili’s EXTREME Habañero cheese – inscrutably spelled with a tilde over the “ñ,” an affectation not known in the pepper’s Cuban homeland – I had to try some right now. Continue reading Hot? Not. →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Bistros, Southern Indiana

Four people drove up the hill …

RockWall
Long known for its lovely setting tucked into an old rock quarry on the Floyds Knobs hills high above Louisville, RockWall has kicked things up a notch or two under Chef Alex Bomba, who arrived last summer. Photo courtesy of Guy Sillings/RockWall Bistro.

LEO’s Eats with Louisville HotBytes

So the other night, four people drove up a hill in Southern Indiana to enjoy a classy evening of fine Indiana wine and upscale cuisine.

What’s the punch line? Get ready for it …

OK, there isn’t any punch line. This is no joke. It’s no surprise to find a touch of comfortable class at RockWall Bistro. Long known for its lovely setting tucked into an old rock quarry on the Floyds Knobs hills high above Louisville, RockWall has kicked things up a notch or two under Chef Alex Bomba, who arrived last summer.
Continue reading Four people drove up the hill … →

$ Budget (under $30), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, World Food

We bring the heat in icy February

Sitar
Sitar Indian Cuisine in the Highlands is the first Louisville property for a tiny chain. The restaurant offers a hearty Indian lunch buffet daily and an expansive Indian menu. Photos by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with Louisville HotBytes
(Sitar Indian Cuisine)

It’s cold. Too darn cold. Ice-on-the-sidewalk, snow-on-the-roof bone-chattering cold, and I don’t like it one bit. April and its green leaves and balmy breezes can’t come too soon for me.

In the meantime, when it comes time to warm the inner man, I look for something hot and spicy to sear my palate and warm my soul. Happily, my need for heat was amply rewarded by the recent opening of Sitar Indian Cuisine in the Highlands, which follows the December arrival of Royal India in St. Matthews as Louisville’s second very good new Indian restaurant in recent months.

Sitar, named after the Indian stringed musical instrument that Ravi Shankar and the Beatles made famous, is the first Louisville property for a tiny chain with four properties in Tennessee and one in Alabama. Sitar offers a hearty Indian lunch buffet daily for $6.99 cheap, and an expansive Indian menu that includes both standard Northern Indian dishes and, on a separate sheet titled “Dosa Hut,” less familiar South Indian specialties.
Continue reading We bring the heat in icy February →

$ Budget (under $30), BBQ, Burgers & Down-Home, Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown

Turkey Joe’s

Turkey Joe's
Hot wings are the specialty at this new East End dining spot. You can take your pick of chicken, turkey or boneless chicken.

Another day’s quest for hot-and-spicy warmth took me out to the East End to sample another new arrival on the local dining scene, Turkey Joe’s (“Wings, Burgers and More”). A collection of U of L and UK athletic memorabilia and beer signs sets the scene, and even the servers wear Cardinal red or Wildcat blue jerseys.

Hot wings are the specialty, and you can take your pick of chicken, turkey or boneless chicken. We went with six chicken wings ($4.55) and three turkey wings ($4.55), and threw on a turkey burger ($7.95), just for the experience.
Continue reading Turkey Joe’s →

BY PRICE FOR TWO, Seafood & Water's Edge, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs

Mazzoni’s moves east

Mazzoni's
Mazzoni’s will celebrate its 125th anniversary next year in new quarters in Middletown. Inset: Chili, fish sandwich, rolled oysters. Photos by Robin Garr.

(Mazzoni’s, Voice-Tribune, Feb. 14, 2008)

Mazzoni’s, one of Louisville’s oldest restaurants, will celebrate its 125th anniversary next year. It’s also brand-new.

This seeming contradiction is easily explained: Founded in 1884 in downtown Louisville by Philip Mazzoni, a recent arrival from Genoa, Italy, Mazzoni’s remains in family hands a century-and-a-quarter later, ranking it as the city’s second-oldest eatery. (Only Cunningham’s, founded about a decade earlier around the time Aristides won the first Kentucky Derby in 1875, boasts a longer local heritage.)

But Mazzoni’s as also as new as last week, when it reopened in shopping center quarters in suburban Middletown, having moved from the spot across Taylorsville Road from Bowman Field that it had called home since the 1980s.
Continue reading Mazzoni’s moves east →

$$ 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! →

Louisville's top spot for talk and reviews from the food and restaurant scene