Dining out at the ball game, dining out at the park

Opening Day at Slugger Field

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out to the park.
Buy me some peanuts
($3) and Cracker Jack ($2.50) …

Hold on just a minute! We’re only three lines into the song, we’ve already spent more than five bucks, and all we’ve had is salty and sweet snacks?

You’ve got that right, Bubba … concession pricing at Louisville Slugger Field may not be quite up into major-league territory (but then, neither are the Triple-A International League Louisville Bats), but an evening at the ball park isn’t a cheap dinner. By the time you pack in a bag of peanuts and a box of Cracker Jack, not to mention a 1/3-pound burger ($4), an all-beef hot dog ($3) or the irresistible joys of a fried bologna sandwich ($2.75), not to mention a soft drink ($2) or a 20-ounce plastic cup of cold beer ($4.25), you’re looking at a tab for dinner that wouldn’t be out of place in some of the lower-end Bardstown Road bistros. And frankly, your dinner won’t be nearly as good.
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Food, wine star at Avalon

Eat'n'Blog
Avalon’s patio is one of the hottest spots in Louisville.
LEO Photo by Brian Bohannon

LEO’s Eat’n’Blog, April 19, 2006

By Robin Garr

Writer STEVE COOMES takes a turn in LEO’s pulpit today, choosing the chapter of Avalon from the book of Good Eats. This popular Bardstown Road bistro, he says, offers one of the most approachable dining rooms on the strip, an understated venue that lays back so the bill of fare can strut its stuff without distraction on an unadorned stage. Here’s his report:

Avalon’s split-level space bears a simple black, tan and pale-yellow color theme, straightforward tables and chairs, soft lighting and wide, uninterrupted sight lines … perfect for people-watching. The second level’s soaring ceiling is indirectly lighted, with an abstract metal sculpture adding a touch of elegance to an otherwise understated space.
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Saffron’s Buffet serves it up

Eat'n'Blog
Illustration by Gina Moeller

LEO’s Eat’n’Blog, April 12, 2006

If you’ve got a hankering for some hearty home cooking, and plenty of it, you can hardly do better than to hit the buffet at Saffron’s Buffet, where for a paltry 8 bucks you can load up on heart-warming goodies like Mom used to make. Who wouldn’t like to get on the outside of a portion of aush reshteh, for instance? Or maybe a bowl of koofteh and a little chicken tacheen with barberry rice.

What? You say your Mom never made anything remotely like that? Next I guess you’ll tell us that she wasn’t even Iranian.

But you don’t have to be Iranian to learn to love the aromatic and not-so-exotic Southwestern Asian goodies that Majid Ghavami and crew dish up at Saffron’s Buffet.
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LouisvilleHotBytes in LEO

LEOA brand new look for LEO’s dining reports
Notice something different in your weekly LEO? Wednesday, April 12, we launched LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with LouisvilleHotBytes, a new look in the local alternative weekly’s dining, food and drink reporting that’s a team effort in more ways than one.

The boundary between print media and the Internet begins to blur as we undertake this venture, with Louisville journalist Robin Garr in charge of a team of food-savvy writers – including familiar faces from both LEO and LouisvilleHotBytes – who’ll provide bold, incisive and unabashedly opinionated “blog-style” commentary, in print and online, about good things to eat and drink in the Metro and where to find them.
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Maturing Volare’s star shines bright

Volare

Sunday seafood brunch is a Lucullan feast

When Volare popped up on Frankfort Avenue the summer before last, I gave it a warm if somewhat mixed review, placing it somewhere between the ’50s-style Italian-American vibe of Lentini’s and the more upscale Northern Italian ambience of Vincenzo’s. It lost some ratings points for unfulfilled pretentiousness and good-but-could-be-better food and service, but I marked it as a place to be watched and with room to grow.

Quite a bit has changed since then: A Chicago-based partner has moved on, the affable Majid Ghavami, popular proprietor of Saffron’s and a veteran of front-of-the-house years at the old Casa Grisanti and Vincenzo’s, has moved in as a partner and maitre d’, and Chef Dallas McGarrity (hey, at least there’s a vowel on the end of his name) has grown from good to better with a little experience under his toque.

Volare just recently added an expansive, seafood-rich Sunday brunch to its offerings, and an indulgent sampling today left me persuaded that this place is now offering Mr. Ghavami’s former employer, the other Big V, a serious run for its money as the city’s top Italian table.
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Danielle’s is sweet in more ways than one

Danielle's

There’s a lot to like about Danielle’s, one of a cluster of hot new spots that’s opened around town this month. Sweet! I’d like it even better, though, if only “sweet” wasn’t an adequate one-word description for just about everything on the bill of fare. More about that anon.

Danielle’s Chef Allan Rosenberg is young, but he’s on a fast trajectory. Trained in New York under iconic chefs Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Daniel Boulud, he served as chef de cuisine under one of Louisville’s top chefs, Anoosh Shariat, at Park Place on Main. Now he’s opened his own establishment, and it’s looking good.

Danielle’s fits in to the Frankfort Avenue scene with a genteel, upscale casual vibe, tasteful burgundy and cream walls and discreet modern art, that reflects more of a Baby Boomer sensibility than the chef’s 20-something status. Continue reading Danielle’s is sweet in more ways than one

Proof proves out

Proof on Main

First, a rant: I’ve always thought there’s something kind of needy and pathetic about the way that Louisville looks to New York to validate the things we do here. Bring in a speaker from the Big Apple to make your fund-raiser a success; punch your chef’s ticket by jetting off to Gotham to cook dinner at Beard House. Get a review in The New Yorker or a mention in The New York Times, or choose a New York architect for your landmark building … if it doesn’t earn a New York stamp of approval, we seem to think, it must not be worth much.

So naturally it comes as no surprise that the strong New York connections of the city’s hottest new item – Proof on Main – have dominated the early buzz and almost fawning media coverage about this stylish new spot on West Main Street, our neighborhood that’s often, and accurately, compared with New York’s SoHo for its impressive collection of historic cast-iron storefronts.

For the record, yes, we know Proof on Main is managed by a prominent New York restaurant firm, Drew Nieporent’s Myriad Group, the folks who operate such culinary Manhattan landmarks as Tribeca Grill, Nobu and Montrachet.
Continue reading Proof proves out

Diamante’s a diamond, but not rough

Diamante

One bold statement may be made about Diamante Bar & Grill without serious fear of contradiction: It is surely the city’s best restaurant located in a former gasoline station.

But we don’t need to cut our definition so fine in order to praise this amiable establishment. Yes, it really is built around the original beige-tile facade of the 1920s-era Diamond Gulf Station, and once you know that, you can easily see how the big open squares that give access to the cozy bar might once have been fitted with overhead garage doors. Suddenly you wonder if a sputtering 1937 Maxwell might pull up next to your table with a happy yell, “Fill ‘er up!”

The casual, arty and urban mood of this Bardstown Road favorite is only the starting point. It’s not at all stuffy, but clearly a step – or several – up from your basic city saloon … Continue reading Diamante’s a diamond, but not rough

Sweet Peas shows promise

Sweet Peas

The Frankfort Avenue space abruptly vacated by Furlong’s last year didn’t stay vacant for long: Sweet Peas Southern Bistro, a new venture involving Christopher Seckman of the popular North End Cafe, opened last week in this location, and it’s been packing in crowds all week.

Seckman’s new spot has great potential. It’s comfortably upscale without being stuffy, offers excellent service and fine, well-prepared food. But it still seems to be groping a bit for a clear identity. With a down-home comfort-food menu that bears a close resemblance to the bill of fare at, say, Cottage Inn, it needs to come up with a way to justify prices that significantly exceed downscale diner fare. And if it plans to reach that goal with creative fusion that might be dubbed “nouvelle Southern,” it needs to take bolder steps than merely garnishing pot roast with barely cooked veggies in place of the long-simmered country custom.

Call it “good but not great” for now, but based on North End’s trajectory into one of the city’s most popular dining rooms, there’s every reason to expect this sibling to build on a good start and grow into something even better. This is one to watch.
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La Rosita: A second bouquet

La Rosita

For some time now, since a growing number of Latino immigrants has joined the tide of diversity that adds a healthy variety of ethnic accents to our region, it has become necessary for serious lovers of South-of-the-Border cuisine to subdivide this dining niche into categories.

No longer can we define “Mexican” in terms of Tumbleweed and Chi-Chi’s; not when we can choose among a delicious array of Latino eateries that range across the stylistic spectrum from upscale sit-down dining rooms to lovable “hole-in-the-wall” taquerias where English-speaking monophones are welcome but may be well advised to bring along a Spanish dictionary.

Now something new and delicious has been added: Just over the bridge in New Albany, Israel and Lidia Landin, the proud owners of La Rosita on Charlestown Road, one of the newest and best of the taquerias, have opened a second location in the Southern Indiana suburb. This one’s no mere taqueria, though. Call it “crossover” or “breakout” Mexican, it brings the Landins’ fully authentic (and delicious) native cuisine out of the taqueria category and presents it, in fluent if slightly accented English, in the bistro-style setting of a prettily renovated New Albany building that once housed a 19th century general store.

Continue reading La Rosita: A second bouquet

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