Louisville, Kentucky-- The Hungry Drunk's Paradise.

We went there for a little weekend getaway, so I thought I'd give you the skinny (I'm not cool enough to say 4-1-1) on the Derby City's gastronomy and libations.  Think of it as Indy's reeeeally Far South Side.  Val Kilmer's character Doc Holliday in the Kevin Costner movie about Wyatt Earp (was the title Wyatt Earp?  Hell, I can't remember) says something like "Suh, I am NOT an acoholic, I am a drunk.  There is a difference!" 

Doc would love Louisville, which is a GREAT town in which to eat and drink until you CAIN'T take NO more.  Louisville is reputed (by the book 1000 Places in the US & Canada to See Before You Die) to have more restaurants per capita than any other city in the USA, and I believe it-- I dunno if it's because there is a semi-famous culinary school there or what, but there seem to be bistros on every corner downtown and in several other areas, and most of them are individually owned, not chain stores.  We got a reduced-rate room at the Seelbach Hilton (Priceline.com, baby!) and walked to Eddie Merlot's for a snack and a glass of vino.  I always feel you should get the local flavor when traveling, which generally means avoiding chain franchises, but we had a coupon and I wanted to see how the 'Ville's Eddie's compares to the EM's in Indy.  The place seemed comparatively small, but it has the Wall O' Wine like in Indy, and I was unable to see all of the main dining room from the bar, so maybe I was mistaken.  The artisanal cheese & fruit appetizer we had was THE BOMB.  It had the smokiest Jarlsberg and the freshest Roquefort I've ever eaten ("What's that smell? It's either really bad meat or really good cheese!")  The cheapest wine there is like $7.50/glass, but even that is O-so good!

Friday evening we hit Fourth Street Live! in the early afternoon.  It's a downtown collection of bars and eateries (and a bowling alley?) that line the street (which is closed to vehicles) with a large roof over the street, kinda like The Strip in Las Vegas, maybe? The places are trendy and many are chain franchises, like Ri Ra Irish Pub, TGI Friday's, J. Gumbo's, Red Star, and Maker's Mark Bar & Grille,  to name but a few.  One place, Tengo Sed Cantina, is the most in-your-face tribute to combat nightlife I've ever seen.  It is primarily a large room that has NO CHAIRS, just bolted-down stand-up height tables, a bar, and a bare concrete floor, I guess so there's no furniture to break and you can just hose down the mud, the the blood, and the beer after the night or the fight is over. 

We ate at Maker's Mark, which of course has a giant selection of bourbons.  They have what looks like an Ikea-inspired decor and serve what appears to be "nouvelle" quisine, which to a simpleton like me means "expensive, tiny portions" in English.  We did have a great night drinking there a couple years ago, though.  Every so often they have Distillers' Tastings, where for something like $10 a person you can sample from six or eight tables manned by representatives of the distilleries themselves, and they don't skimp on the samples.  The President of Wild Turkey was there to introduce Russell's Reserve (his name is Russell, duh!), and a member of the Van Winkle family handed out samples of Pappy Van Winkle's bourbons.  The Maker's Mark guy was just a salesman, but he was the nicest of 'em all, even let us take home some of the cool glassware (with their trademark wax on the bottom of the glasses).

I'm trying to remember where we ate brunch on Saturday (we never rise before 10:00 on vacation)....   Oh! It was Dish on Market, in the 400 block of W. Market St.  It's one of the myriad trendy bistros downtown, but they serve breakfast until 3:00 PM and the prices were unexpectedly reasonable.  They have outdoor tables in front, but it was already too darned hot for that. I had a western omelet with a side of REAL country ham (if you're not from the South you may not know what that is, and if you aren't from the South but DO know what that is, you probably don't like it) and they were both deeelicious.

Our first beer of the day was supposed to be at Sergio's on Story Avenue, which supposedly has some outrageous selection of beers from all over the World, but DANG, he wasn't open at 1:00 in the afternoon, so we went next door to Johnson's.  The sign doesn't say Pub, or Bar, or Tavern, just Johnson's, and when we got inside I still couldn't tell what kind of place it was.  The sign outside did say "NEWLY REMODELED" , but that was some kind of fortune-telling sign, I tell you what.  The front door was standing open, there was NO air conditioning on on a 90-degree day, and there was one old man at the bar drinking a can of Coke and wondering why he was sweating. There were junk furnishings and nick-knacks sitting around everywhere, as well as crates of stuff like dish soap with prices of $1.89 EACH on 'em.  A box on the bar displayed unwrapped glue sticks, 8 for a Dollar.... My wife read my mind and asked the grizzled lady behind the bar if they were open, in reply to which she displayed great coordination by grunting and nodding simultaneously.  I swear I thought I heard "Dueling Banjoes" playing in the back somewhere....  I will say that, true to most Louisville establishments, they had very, very cold bottled beer.  With the oppressive heat, however, I was sweating more than the bottles, and looking up at the ceiling I prayed for the motionless ceiling fans to begin spinning on their own to give us relief, no matter what amount of dust or dead insects cascaded down upon us as a result.  We skedaddled after one beer.

We had dinner reservations for 4:30 (we're middle-aged, don'tchaknow), so we had time to visit two other little jewels in the Butchertown area:  Big Al's Beeritaville and the Rush Inn, both on Mellwood Avenue.  Big Al's looks kind of dive-like from the outside, but inside it was nice varnished wood (think Hooters') with lots of University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Green Bay Packers (huh?) memorabilia lining the walls. The staff was friendly and the regulars sitting around early on a Saturday afternoon were of the middle-middleclass type.  Louisville seems chock-full of these true almost British-style neighborhood pubs, and that ambiance is furthered by the fact that you often will see children in them, at least during the day. (I guess the ABC laws are different there than in Indy).  A neatly dressed 15-year old boy came in with his pool cue and drank a Coke while he shot a few games with one of the regulars before he left.  Big Al's has a nice big outdoor beer garden, too, but we'd just come from Johnson's and knew that it was just too danged hot for that.  The beer made up for the hot day though, being ice cold and reasonably priced.  I had a Kentucky Ale Light, made by a microbrewery in Lexington (I think).  The "Light" kind of reminded me of the Johnson's "Newly Remodeled" sign, as the nutrition info on the bottle was closer to the composition of Guinness than Bud Light.

The Rush Inn is an old but well-maintained little place in a grey stone building with lighted awnings, located at the corner of Mellwood and Brownsboro Road.  It has tons of New York Yankees memorabilia (I say again: huh?) all over the place.  The manager/bartender/cook made me a bourbon and Coke using Maker's Mark without even asking me, and if I read the ticket right he charged what I would consider to be a well drink price.  The juke box is, get this-- FREE!  Incredible!  We've never eaten there, but every time we go, he is cooking a burger that smells so good I have to get a napkin to wipe the drool from my chin.  Next time,come hell or high water or high cholesterol, I'm gettin' me one o' them burgers.  What a place!

At 4:15 we sadly waved farewell to the Rush Inn and headed for Pat's Steak House, about a mile away on Brownsboro Road.  To summarize Pat's for an Indianapolite, it is a little like St. Elmo's but not as expensive and it has a distintive Irish atmosphere.  The place is all thick carpet and old wood, and the waiters wear green sport coats and carry a towel over their arm to dust off your seat.  The steaks are hand-aged right on the premises, and they are to die for!  My wife and I shared the biggest filet mignon I've ever seen, 18 ounces worth, for something like $53.  The only drawback to Pat's is they accept cash only-- we sat near the cash register and saw several bills over $500 rung up.  No wonder we saw an armored car show up later on.  The do have an ATM machine right there, though.

As we started for home on Sunday, we ate a late lunch at Clarksville Seafood on Eastern Boulevard in (duh) Clarksville, Indiana.  I dunno why, but Kentuckiana has a large number of seafood places, and Clarksville Seafood is one of the best, if you like good cheap fried seafood in a relaxed casual dining room, or to go.  You can get a heapin' paper basket of nicely seasoned fried fish, clams, or oysters with fries for a little over seven bucks, and don't forget the fried onions-- they're not just rings, or strings, but kind of a combination of both, and you get enough for two folks for like $3.  Apparently a deep fryer is the only cooking apparatus the place owns-- for something different, try their deep fried hamburger.

For some reason everyone I know in Indy has eaten at Kingfish (four or so locations, but the one on River Road is the chain's flagship restaurant), which is good food at a reasonable price, although the service can be spotty at times.  My favorite (actually a photo finish ahead of Clarksville) is Mike Linnig's on Cane Run Road on the far southwest side of the Derby City, a family business open since 1925.  Mike's used to be a bare-bones casual place like Clarksville, but some years ago they remodeled, with a nice indoor dining room in addition to the outdoor picnic tables and little screen houses. They have a big selection of fish and other seafood, and the food & beer prices are really reasonable.  If you eat outside, you generally go up to the inside front counter to put in your order and then they call your name out on the PA when it's ready.  Years ago the PA system was so bad that you had to give them a name that was really distinctive, like "Maximillian" or "Heathcliff" so you could recognize it when they made the announcement.  They finally got a new PA system a few years back after they announced a tornado warning and six people stood up to get their orders.  BA DUM BUM, I'll be here all week, folks....