Ponder this: An Indian cooking technique based on clay pot principles as old as civilization can generate temperatures up to a roaring 900 degrees F. That’s hot enough to put even your neighborhood pizza oven to shame, and it’s even hotter than your home oven gets when it’s self-cleaning at full-blast and locked up for your protection. Happily, you can sample food kissed with primal fire in the cylindrical clay oven called tandoor (“Tahn-DUR”) at quite a few local Indian restaurants. Continue reading Clay Oven fires up Indian goodies
Cheddar Box? Cheddar Box, Too
My friend Tom has been in Louisville for a few months now, and he knows his way around pretty well. But he got a little confused when we got together for lunch the other day at Cheddar Box Too.
Tom said his GPS wasn’t offering much help, but when he wheeled into the Chenoweth Square shopping center from the east, rolled past Majid’s and Paul’s and then spotted my car parked right under a sign that read “Cheddar Box,” he figured he was there. Not quite, Tom. But close. Continue reading Cheddar Box? Cheddar Box, Too
Take a healthy, tasty break at Earth Friends Cafe
’Tis the season … no, I’m not talking about that season. ’Tis the season for spectacular over-eating, indulging ourselves a the delicious risk of life and health because, well, that’s what we do at holiday time.
If you’re ready for a break, though, or plan to be later, allow me to suggest a trip to Earth Friends Cafe & Coffee Bar, where virtuous dining can also be delicious.
Continue reading Take a healthy, tasty break at Earth Friends Cafe
Is Eiderdown German? Is Germantown German?
Ah, Germantown, that lovable little urban neighborhood. Who can drive, stroll or bike through its tidy streets of shotgun houses and sturdy brick storefronts without feeling connected with our city’s German heritage?
Continue reading Is Eiderdown German? Is Germantown German?
The hardest part
Waiting for a table: How long is too long?
A recent spirited discussion on the LouisvilleHotBytes.com forum prompted me to think deeply about how long it’s appropriate to wait for a table in Louisville, and what circumstances might change the answer to that question.
The short answer for most people is: It’s complicated. There is a built-in butterfly effect that may consist of traffic patterns, what time of which day of the week it is, how hungry you are, and the current hipness level of the spot where you’re trying to dine.
Continue reading The hardest part
Economic recovery: The 99 percent get lunch
It is being reported that economic recovery is back, at least for the 1 percent, who get to eat $100 dinners at pricey new spots like Brasserie Provence, or nosh from the upscale end of the dinner menu at El Camino. For the 99 percent, though – the rest of us who are still struggling paycheck to paycheck – well, we’re getting by on a load of new lunch spots where an appetizing midday repast won’t cost you an arm and a leg.
Continue reading Economic recovery: The 99 percent get lunch
Fried pie? Boombozz fried pizza wins our applause
When I was a kid, I looked forward to road trips as an occasion for fried pie, a rare culinary treat that seemed to exist only in those exotic places where people lived among cornfields and tobacco patches and spoke in a slow drawl.
Fried pie! We never had anything like that at home. It was a pie-crust turnover, loaded with fruit filling – apple was as popular as Mom or the Flag – folded over, sealed into a fat half-moon and deep-fried until it sizzled. Hot and crisp, juicy and sweet, it was just the right size for eating out of hand. Yum!
A single fried pie probably packed 1,000 calories, but at that age I didn’t mind. Now I do, and I haven’t indulged for years, maybe decades. The other day, though, I ran across an even more tempting take on fried pie that I just couldn’t resist.
Continue reading Fried pie? Boombozz fried pizza wins our applause
No, Bar Belle! El Camino is surfin’ good
My pal the Bar Belle is also the boss of me when it comes to this column, but that sure doesn’t stop me from calling Bullwinkle when I just have to. So, yo, Bar Belle! You’ve got it all wrong when you go hatin’ on El Camino! How did this debate work out? Well, our conversation went something like this:
Your Humble Critic: We checked out El Camino the other night. It’s the new place with the Cali-Mex surfer/tiki-bar vibe that’s run by the Silver Dollar peeps in the old Avalon space on Bardstown. It is truly awesome.
The Bar Belle: I went the other night and wasn’t impressed.
Critic: Whaaa? Continue reading No, Bar Belle! El Camino is surfin’ good
LEO’s Dining Guide 2013: What helps one helps all
Good eats make good neighbors in ‘restaurant clusters’
Birds of a feather flock together, it is said. And now it appears that maybe restaurants do, too. For many generations, after all, the dining scene that our parents and grandparents knew required a trip downtown for that special dining-out occasion. Neighborhood dining was largely limited to your friendly corner bar and grill, a diner or cafeteria or maybe a Woolworth’s lunch counter, or perhaps one of the city’s early pizzerias or chop-suey joints.
But then the Baby Boomers grew up and things changed. The ’70s and ’80s brought us Bardstown Road as the city’s first “Restaurant Row.” A decade later, the Frankfort Avenue renaissance took off. And now there’s an even newer trend, not only in Louisville but around the nation. “Restaurant Row” is so ’90s now. Say hello to the “Restaurant Cluster.”
Continue reading LEO’s Dining Guide 2013: What helps one helps all
Make Mine Grilled Cheese, Pleese!
Ahh, it finally feels like autumn, and I’m thinking of comfort food.
This nostalgic meme rarely attaches itself to the light, low-calorie and cooling dishes of summer. “Comfort” means stews and hearty soups, spaghetti and meatballs or maybe a thick pan of lasagna – the kinds of warming, stick-to-your-ribs dishes that Mom used to make, or at least you wish she had. Nor need comfort food be complicated or hard to cook.
Continue reading Make Mine Grilled Cheese, Pleese!