You don’t need to know nearly as much French as you used to do in order to enjoy dinner without assistance at La Coop. Well, you don’t need a French dictionary much, anyway, once you translate the moniker “Bistro à Vins” to discover that it means something like “unpretentious eatery and wines.” Continue reading You Don’t Have To Speak French To Love La Coop
Real German comfort food at Gasthaus
If you grew up in Louisville and have roots here more than three or four generations deep, it’s likely you have more than a few Germans perched on the branches of your family tree. Indeed, Louisville’s identity is shaped in substantial part by a German heritage that dates back to the 1840s, when a tide of German refugees from political and religious persecution came over to America in search of freedom.
Few of us speak German now; and if we do, we probably learned it in school, not at home. But when we think of comfort food, chances are that our family favorites have German roots. Continue reading Real German comfort food at Gasthaus
Corner Café, dishing up comfort food for 20 years
Think of a quintessential Louisville neighborhood, and chances are your thoughts will turn to Germantown or Clifton, the Highlands or Crescent Hill.
“That stretch out past Lyndon where Whipps Mill twists around the railroad tracks and tangles with Lagrange Road,” not so much. Continue reading Corner Café, dishing up comfort food for 20 years
Asiatique does fusion even when fusion isn’t a thing
Hey, when did fusion cuisine stop being a thing? It seems like only yesterday – well, OK, maybe it was the ’80s and ’90s – when top chefs had everyone oohing and aahing over such multicultural goodies as Wolfie Puck’s smoked salmon and caviar pizza at Beverly Hills’ Ma Maison or Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s pricey Thai-French mash-ups at his almost-eponymous Vong restaurant in New York City. Continue reading Asiatique does fusion even when fusion isn’t a thing
Small distinction, big difference
My long-suffering fiancé and I, peckish on the day after Derby, decided to try a hip new-ish spot. It’s not so new that they shouldn’t be on point already, but still new enough that most folks we know hadn’t been there yet.
We didn’t make a reservation. Continue reading Small distinction, big difference
Celebrate the Noble Noodle at Thai Noodles
Life as a hunter-gatherer was hard, no question about that. As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously put it, this life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
But at least paleolithic humans didn’t have to make many decisions at supper time. Knock over an animal, whack off a chunk and chow down. Cooking it was optional, once people learned to tame fire. It was only when humans settled down in agricultural societies about 10,000 years ago that culinary life got complicated. Continue reading Celebrate the Noble Noodle at Thai Noodles
Loop 22 is a fine addition to the Highlands restaurant scene
When baby boomers were kids, our parents overcooked our veggies until they were mushy and bland. A generation later, baby millennials got their veggies crisp and barely cooked, reflecting the then-trendy restaurant style. You’d think that by 2014, some kind of balance might have been achieved between the extremes of ’70s mush and ’90s crunch, but noooo … Continue reading Loop 22 is a fine addition to the Highlands restaurant scene
Cottage Cafe Shines on Middletown’s Old Main Street
Middletown’s Main Street, a quaint strip of Victorian houses, steepled churches and storefront shops, served as the suburban community’s main drag for many years as its commercial center and a slow-down, look-around opportunity for traffic on the old U.S. 60.
Then came the age of the suburb. Middletown got a four-lane “bypass” that sped traffic around the old town center and that quickly sprouted with shopping centers and strip malls, and Main Street settled into a quieter, gentler place. Continue reading Cottage Cafe Shines on Middletown’s Old Main Street
The ‘ritas are the wildest thing at Wild Rita’s
So, just how wild are the ‘ritas at Wild Rita’s?
Well, this new spot just east of downtown, within the noise penumbra and particulates shadow of the Great Bridge Boondoggle, offers 10, count ’em 10, variations on the margarita, not to mention tequila cocktails, tequila tastings and nearly 100 fine tequilas by the bottle or drink. It would take more effort than I’m willing to expend to answer this question definitively. Continue reading The ‘ritas are the wildest thing at Wild Rita’s
No meat, no booze, no matter at Roots
Roots, with its next-door companion Heart & Soy, is coming up on its third anniversary this summer, and both spots appear to be going strong, filled with happy diners nightly.
So how does that work, when neither upscale Roots nor street-food Heart & Soy offer so much as a bite of meat or a sip of booze? I think it has something to do with what restaurateur Huong “Coco” Tran calls Roots’ “mindful, compassionate cooking,” a plant-based cuisine so good that even the most obligate carnivore can chow down without even missing animal flesh. Continue reading No meat, no booze, no matter at Roots