{"id":211,"date":"2005-12-19T12:23:33","date_gmt":"2005-12-19T17:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/creator\/2005\/12\/19\/211\/"},"modified":"2005-12-19T12:23:33","modified_gmt":"2005-12-19T17:23:33","slug":"211","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/2005\/12\/19\/211\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

David Flora<\/a> requested restaurant recommendations of me for a nice, sit-down, dress-up dinner with his family. Lisa<\/a> had already plugged the Mayan Gypsy, which I could only second, but I tagged in a few of the other places Maria and I have come to regard with naked hunger in the past couple years. I’ve never done a broad-spectrum restaurant writeup before, so I’m stealing my letter back; if you are in Louisville looking for great food, these places will not do you wrong.<\/p>\n

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The Gypsy<\/a> has my highest recommendation, especially the dish which is either called the “Tierra y Mar<\/a>” or the “Beef and Shrimp Diablo<\/a>,” depending on the day, with the beef cooked medium rare. It is god-food. Be sure to order the fried plantains, and Maria recommends the sangria if you’re drinking.<\/p>\n

I also had some fantastic food (baked provolone, fresh bread and a steak) at Palermo<\/a> on Bardstown, which is one of Evan’s favorite restaurants–you may want to ask him about it, since I’ve only been there once. Lilly’s<\/a>, also on Bardstown, is fantastic, but dinner there will cost you a shit ton (lunch is more affordable). Palermo is Argentinian, I think, with a lot of spicy pasta; Lilly’s is a kind of combination of French and Kentuckian (eg duck spring rolls and chicken pot pie).<\/p>\n

If you want something simple like really good barbecue, the best onion rings in the world and microbrewed beer, there’s the Bluegrass Brewing Company (BBC)<\/span> on Fourth Street–did you go with us last time you were in town? I can also recommend Third Avenue Cafe<\/a> in Old Louisville, which has imaginative sandwiches and sweet potato french fries, Trivial Pursuit cards on the tables, and Elvis.<\/p>\n

My personal favorite restaurant in Louisville is North End Cafe<\/a> on Frankfort, which has a little of everything; its specialty is tapas (Spanish-style appetizers), of which you can get three or four and make a meal for three people–the baby back ribs are amazing. They also have salmon, half a roast chicken, cheeseburgers, etc.<\/p>\n

Oh, and you know about Lynn’s Paradise Cafe<\/a> on Barret, right? It’s… different. Breakfast is their specialty, as is being very brightly colored. Maybe not the place for a nice dinner, but atmospheric and fun.<\/p>\n

You’ll definitely want to make a reservation ahead of time at any of these except maybe BBC and Third Avenue, and maybe there too, for a Friday. Also, next time you’re in town alone and want to try something farther afield, remind me and Maria to take you to Saffron’s<\/a>, Safier<\/a>, Maido<\/a>, Le Relais<\/a> or Ramsi’s Cafe on the World<\/a> (have you been to Ramsi’s? Everybody’s been to Ramsi’s…).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Flora requested restaurant recommendations of me for a nice, sit-down, dress-up dinner with his family. Lisa had already plugged the Mayan Gypsy, which I could only second, but I tagged in a few of the other places Maria and I have come to regard with naked hunger in the past couple years. I’ve never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,10,72,29,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-flora","category-food","category-lisa-brown","category-maria","category-plugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}