Category: Food and Dining

Food and Dining

Le Relais logoWhat Boulevard would choose from the spring menu at one of our favorite restaurants, Le Relais:

  • Escargots de Bourgogne: snails in garlic herb butter. $11
  • House salad: Groganica greens, fresh goat cheese, strawberries, toasted almonds, herbs, sherry vinaigrette (half portion). $5
  • Steak frites: pan-roasted 9 oz. prime New York strip, pommes frites, spinach, bordelaise sauce, bone marrow butter (half portion). $22
  • Café Glacé: house-made coffee ice cream topped with espresso and served with Chantilly cream. $9

From the restaurant:
Situated in the historic airport terminal of Bowman Field, Le Relais offers a fine dining experience like no other in Louisville. You’ll find exquisite French cuisine, prepared with only the finest, freshest ingredients, combined with relaxed, first-class service and an intimate, 1940s art-deco interior reminiscent of the café from the movie “Casablanca.”

Reservations on OpenTable, or call 502-451-9020.

And speaking of Casablanca . . .

Food and Dining

julepIt’s the drink that prompted Ernest Hemingway to throw his glass against a wall. Even Teddy Roosevelt had a recipe of his own, according to Town & Country’s history of the Derby favorite.

To be sure, there are lots of variations on the traditional recipe. The Ralph Lauren-owned Polo Bar’s version is made with Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey, muddled with strawberries and served in a glass etched with the clothing designer’s signature Polo pony motif, says Vanity Fair.

At Churchill Downs, nearly 120,000 juleps are served over the two-day period of Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby weekend, according to the official Kentucky Derby site. Today, Derby Day, juleps are all across Twitter.

Food and Dining

Fried green tomatoesLast night in Fontleroy’s restaurant. Fried green tomatoes: blue crab, roasted corn chow chow, and Comeback sauce. $13.

The restaurant’s Facebook page serves as its website, where it describes itself as a “modern southern kitchen offering our region’s hottest food trends. Local and seasonal offerings paired with original artisan libations.”

Named after Louisville Mayor James Fontleroy Grinstead, the restaurant opened last fall at 2011 Grinstead Drive in the Highlands. It serves breakfast, lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday; breakfast and lunch only on Mondays.

Fontleroy’s is also on Yelp, plus Open Table and TripAdvisor.

Food and Dining

Comfy CowComfy Cow: 4:10 p.m., Saturday, behind the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, where the premium Louisville ice cream maker’s mobile stand was busy during Thunder Over Louisville. Boulevard enjoyed a large serving of Secretariat, which the company describes this way:

Comfy Cow joined forces with Penny Chenery and the Secretariat team to make this special commemorative ice cream honoring Big Red. Paying homage to the iconic blue and white silks of this super horse, this treat includes Barry Callebaut white chocolate ice cream loaded with chunks of our very own homemade blueberry cobbler.

Launched in 2007, Comfy Cow now has eight locations, including five in Louisville.

Food and Dining

OMG, these coffee bean write-ups sound exactly like food porn

Boulevard’s favorite coffee for home-brewing is Peet’s, a San Francisco Bay Area company that helped birth Starbucks. But out of the house, you can often find us at Heine Bros., Please and Thank You or Press On Market.

A sampling of premium varieties; weights vary:

PeetsPeet’s, Emeryville, Calif. Kona, $24.95 for 8 oz. The pitch: The region known as Kona on Hawaii’s big island has been synonymous with superb coffee for more than 150 years. Steep volcanic hillsides and a microclimate of sunny mornings and cloudy afternoons create the perfect conditions for cultivating smooth, sweet-flavored beans. The taste is mild and mellow, with a hint of tropical sweetness; it’s like Hawaiian hospitality in a cup.

HeineHeine Bros., Louisville. Kentucky Dream, $15 for 12 oz. The pitch: This blend of Nicaragua and Sumatra has a warm aroma of gooey cinnamon buns. It is sweet with a medium body, and a dry smoky finish. You can feel extra good about purchasing this tasty blend because $5 from the sale of each bag will be donated to the Forecastle Foundation to further their efforts to restore the world’s natural awesome here in Kentucky through their efforts on the Green River with The Nature Conservancy and on Pine Mountain with Kentucky Natural Lands Trust.

StarbucksStarbucks, Seattle. Reserve Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Chelba, $17.50 for 8.8 oz. The pitch: To deliver something truly unique, 700 smallholder farmers near the village of Chelba separated out their finest-quality coffee cherries for natural processing. Those cherries bask gracefully for a period of 20 days, soaking up the rich flavors and juicy body present in this vibrant cup. Driving through this region is magical in itself. The landscape lets you know something special flourishes and evolves here. The air gets lighter and the smell of brick-red top soil is always present—suggesting a light rain was just ahead of you. This is one of the highest altitudes you will find in Ethiopia as well. As you go deeper into the thicket of the coffee trees, soft limestone crumbles with blocky basalt begin to expose themselves on small stream banks. In the distance, sparkling water drops fall off bright red cherries causing you to squint in awe—you’ve finally discovered the treasure!

Good Folks.jpgGood Folks Coffee, Louisville. Columbia Microdot, $19 for 12 oz. The (spare) pitch: A Castillo and Columbia varietal grown by farmer Enodth Paz Mosquera on the Deporcali farm in Columbia’s Cauca region at an elevation of 1,500 meters. The roaster notes the coffee’s hints of floral, banana and white grape.

Related: Gralehaus is more than a Highlands breakfast spot. The Forecastle Foundation’s GuideStar profile.