The people have spoken! Or written.

LEO published its annual Readers’ Choice Award winners in its Sept. 23 issue.  Included in the wide-ranging, highly subjective awards was, as always, a lengthy dining section.  Here’s a summary of the headlines:

I mean, clearly:  Jack Fry’s is clearly the best place in town…taking first place in the overall restaurant, fine dining, and romantic dinner categories.

And Ramsi’s Café on the World is clearly the second best place in town…taking second place in the overall restaurant and late night dining categories, as well as a third place in the buffet category.

Convinced?  I thought not.  Notably absent from the list are Bardstown Road neighbors Asiatique and Seviche, which both consistently offer high-quality, creatively conceived dishes, served in unique, comfortable atmospheres.

Foreign delights:  The sheer number of categories honoring foreign cuisine (10 in all) speaks volumes about Louisville’s affinity for the foreign food scene.  But what about African food?

Africans make up 15 percent of the Ville’s foreign-born population, and their options for authentic cuisine are disproportionately limited.

The Great Pizza Push:  Competition was fierce once again in the pizza category.  Readers got it right though, selecting Tony BoomBozz as Louisville’s best.  If only beer was served beer at all locations.

Speaking of beer:  BBC won in the local brewery and wait staff categories, both of which are hard to dispute.  Nachbar won the dive bar category and, inexplicably, had the third-best beer list in town.  Aren’t those distinctions mutually exclusive?

Missing categories:  While some of the responses to categories were pretty funny (“outside” for best place to smoke, “sex” as the second best reason to use social networking sites, “The Ville Voice” for best local news blog—wait, what?), gone were the categories that are funny in themselves.  Where are the “Most likely to find spit in your food” and “Best after-hours hook-up booths” categories?

See everyone at the free LEO party celebrating the Readers’ Choice Award winners.  It’s at 6 p.m. on Sept. 24 at the Gillespie.

Renewals: After a long renovation, The Wine Market on Bardstown Road has reopened. Read about its new offerings.

Dining Events: If you’ve been pining for a good, reasonably-priced meal, go and support the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation by eating a four-course meal at the Prospect Bristol on Thursday, May 28. If you’re up for a short drive, you may want to check out the Wine and Microbrew Festival in Corydon on May 23. This event features wine and microbrew tasting, live music, and an art pavilion.

Try Something New: Asiatique’s Chef Looi has added several new starters, salads, and entrees to the restaurant’s menu for the summer with choices that incorporate quail, tilapia, scallops, and lamp chops. Check out what’s new on the menu at the recently-renovated Highlands Boombozz.

Reviews: Last week we announced that a new restaurant named Captain Pepper Jack’s had opened on Taylorsville Road. This week it got a scathing review.

Coming Soon: There’s good news for Hoosiers that love great pizza: Wick’s Pizza’s fifth store will open in July on State Street in New Albany.

Now Open: Captain Pepper Jack’s is a new restaurant on Taylorsville Road across the street from Bowman Field, offering menu items such as chicken and dumplings, lamb gyro, and babaganoush. [HotBytes Forum]

Double Vision: After more than a year away from the restaurant business, Anoosh Shariat will oversee the opening of two restaurants this week: Brownings at Louisville Slugger Field on May 12 and Bunz Burgers in the Highlands on May 14. [C-J]

Dining Events: If you like Chicken and Dumplings, you’ll want to head out to Brownsboro Road next Tuesday, May 19, for the Chicken & Dumplings Throwdown. Then, on May 22, restaurants and bars along the Highlands Bardstown Road stretch will provide live music and food samples and specials to individuals walking down Bardstown Road for the sixth annual Bardstown Road Bound festival.

Variety in Dining Deals: If you want to try the new White Castle BBQ Pulled Pork Slider, you can get a coupon for a free one on the White Castle website. Through the summer, Asiatique is hosting a Friday’s After Five happy hour featuring live music, discounted drinks, and smaller-portioned meals on Fridays from 5-7 p.m.

Ready to Grill: If you need a new grill this summer but can’t afford it, the C-J ran an article this week that explains some ways you can renew your old grill for another season or two.

Read more from Jessica at her Louisville blog.

Corbett’s, an American Place, will greet the New Year with a seven-course dinner for $100 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Chef Dean Corbett has created an elegant menu just for the occasion. His culinary team, including chef Chris Howerton and corporate chef Kevin Rice, will prepare the meal, and director of wine and spirits Troy Ritchie will ensure that each guest has a glass of bubbly for the New Year’s toast.

This year’s menu will include corned beef and cabbage rolls as the first course and then move on to lobster medallions with white lentils and pickled yellow beets, followed  by a salad of Bibb lettuce, blood oranges, applewood smoked bacon, and blue cheese vinaigrette.

The fourth course attraction will be sautéed bluenose grouper with fried Weisenberger grit cake, asparagus, and chestnut cream sauce, and mimosa sorbet will set the stage for the fifth course, which is seared Tanglewood duck breast, accompanied by bourbon-smoked barley, winter squash, and huckleberry reduction. For the sixth course, diners will tuck into Creekstone prime beef tenderloin with creamy fingerling potatoes, haricot vert, and truffle demi-glace. The meal will conclude a chocolate trilogy, followed by mignardises, those tiny, bite-sized goodies that have become all the rage at trendy restaurants.

Corbett’s, located at 5050 Norton Healthcare Boulevard in Old Brownsboro Crossing in east Louisville, will have New Year’s Eve seatings available until 10:00 p.m., and reservations can be made my calling (502) 327-5058.

More New Year’s Choices after the Jump…

At Equus, chef Josh Hillyard will wow guests with a celebratory five-course dinner for parties of five to 10 people, which will cost $85 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Seating will be available through 10:00 p.m., with a complimentary champagne toast at midnight.

The special New Year’s Eve menu will feature signature modern-American dishes with sophistication and an emphasis on the edible delights found across the Bluegrass. “Having been open for over 20 years, we’ve learned how important it is that guests end the year on a high note,” says Hillyard. “This year, in order to reach that goal, we’ve contacted our very best Kentucky suppliers and created five-courses that will not only please our guests for the evening, but give them a sense of Kentucky pride to take into the New Year.”

This year’s menu will begin with pumpkin-lobster bisque with crème fraîche and then progress to Kentucky Bibb salad with pickled pearl onions, and orange-fennel citronette. The third course will feature pan-roasted Kentucky striped bass served with creamed leeks and roasted chestnuts, and for the fourth course diners will be treated to Creekstone Farms beef tenderloin with roasted parsnips and apple compote. The repast will end with a “banana prepared three ways.”

Jack’s Lounge, located next door to Equus, will also be open and serving its regular menu. However, they will also offer some special dishes and drinks. Equus is located at 122 Sears Avenue. Normal hours of operation are Monday through Saturday from 6:00 to 10:00 pm. For more information or to make reservations, call (502) 897-9721.

At the English Grill in the Brown Hotel at Fourth and Broadway revelers can enjoy a five-course New Year’s Eve Dinner that includes an appetizer of sautéed scallops followed by Malpeque oyster soup and an intermezzo. A choice of entrees such as sautéed marlin log, filet mignon or pan-seared venison loin comes after that, and the meal concludes with a salad of butternut squash and eggplant goat cheese terrine on winter baby spinach and a dessert of chocolate Grand Marnier mousse cake. The price is $135 per person, which includes tax and gratuity, party favors, live music and dancing, and a midnight champagne toast. Seating times are 7:30 p.m., 8:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. For reservations, call Neal Ward at 502-736-2998.

In addition, hotel packages are available that include the Private Party for Two (a club deluxe room; an elegant three-course dinner for two in your room; a bottle of Moët et Chandon Impèrial Rosè; continental breakfast in the club lounge and valet parking) for $459, the Celebration Package (a luxury king room; bottle of sparkling wine; chocolate-covered strawberries; breakfast buffet for two in J. Graham’s Café and valet parking) for $269, and the English Grill Gala Package (a five-course dinner at The English Grill; a midnight champagne toast; party favors; live music and dancing; choice of a deluxe, luxury or club room; breakfast for two in J. Graham’s Café and valet parking) that starts at $469. Reservations for room packages can be made by calling 502-583-1234. For more information, visit The Brown’s website or call 502-583-1234.

Bardstown Road’s Asiatique will offer a spectacular four-course dinner that features flavors of the Pacific Rim for New Year’s Eve. For $65 per person, which does not include alcohol, tax or gratuity, guests will start off with a salad of local hydroponic baby lettuces and sweet chili-basil or hoisin-truffle vinaigrette and then choose a “first flavor” as an appetizer.

On offer will be Asiatique crabcake, sashimi of ahi tuna, Indocine-inspired grilled angus beef satay and asian pesto, wok-fried spicy lamb with red pepper and maui onion on sweet potato basket, Vietnamese-inspired shrimp-pork ‘cha gio,’ slow-cooked bbq pork rib and pickled root vegetables, and ‘Capriole Farms’ goat cheese with crabmeat spring roll and spiced miso aioli. For the main course, choices will include triple-crusted ahi tuna, wok-seared Pacific salmon with roasted shallot and Sichuan hot oil, lemongrass-scented angus beef medallion with sauteed grilled vegetables and wilted spinach, wok fried tiger shrimp with scallop and garden vegetables, and bacon-wrapped pork roulade with goat cheese, spinach and red pepper, just to name a few. To finish the whole thing off, dessert options such a trio of creme brulee with blackberry gastrique, and vanilla cheese cake with strawberry compote and peppercorn caramel sauce will be available.

All reservations made and seated before 6:00 will only cost $50 per person. However, all seatings are for two hours from the reservation time and are subject to additional charges for reservations seated past the two-hour limit. All reservations must be accompanied by a credit card and are subject to a 48-hour cancellation policy. Call (502) 451-2749 for reservations or for more information.
Over in Midway at Holly Hill Inn $75 will get you a multi-course menu designed by chef owner Ouita Michel with chive-and-potato blini, pulled lobster that is folded into sauce verte and served with basmati rice and avocado and sweet pepper aioli, creamy parsnip Vichyssoise with crispy Jerusalem artichoke chips, a salad of Belgian endive with sliced orange and spiced walnuts, extra-petite poussan on fallen mushroom soufflé with sauce supreme, a choice of carved filet mignon or roasted sea bass, and “spectacular desserts by Stella.” You’ll also be sent home with brioche for New Year’s morning. For $65, a vegetarian option can be had. Make reservation with Donna at (859) 846-4732.

by David Dominé, The Bluegrass Peasant

Local Hooters on the block: The Courier Journal reported that RMD Corp., a J-Town franchise group, wants to sell its 43 Hooters restaurants so its board chair, Neal Harding, can retire. Hey, he’s 66, so he’s earned it.

Though I’m not a big Hooters fan—in fact the only time I went to one was many years ago when my gay boss (go figure) took me and a coworker while on business in San Antonio—it’s fair to note that the local units are among the chain’s best run. What that means is this: When a chain of that size runs its operations well in a given market, that implies the market is competitive, i.e. a good one. Once again, props for the Louisville restaurant scene.

Got your local-grower orders in? Foodies who like to cook, now’s the time to get your orders in with your local growers so you can get fresh produce this spring, summer and fall. I just paid $250 for a weekly half bushel order from a grower in Oldham County whose produce I sampled last year. Nothing short of a bargain for pesticide-free, truly fresh, grown-by-a-neighbor food that I can’t wait to get my hands on. Don’t wait for yours, you might miss out.

Great reads: No, these are must reads, imo, if you’re even remotely interested in eating locally grown foods and care about what’s going into their stomachs: “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life,” by Barbara Kingsolver (non-fiction and on my mp3 player) and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals,” by Michael Pollan (on my end table).

Native Kentuckian Kingsolver’s book centers on her family’s effort to eat only what it grows, raises and can buy locally in rural Appalachia for one year. It’s a fascinating and endearing tale balancing solid study and her family’s hands-on experience in the garden. The book has its own Web site loaded with recipes and other resources.

Pollan’s book is another brilliant piece of thoroughly exhaustive research that will leave you never allowing your child to ingest another Chicken McNugget or looking at a field of corn the same. (The title doesn’t do the book justice at all; it doesn’t really say what it’s about, imo, so don’t ignore it for that.) If you liked Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” or Pollan’s other book, “In Defense of Food,” you’ll love this superb piece of journalism. It’s heavy reading, but it’s often funny and appropriately cynical.

Looi called the new spot “a marriage” of his Asiatique and August Moon concepts and said it will be housed in a free-standing building.

How’s that for an Asian-food fantasy?

Potential future sites for the bistro concept include Indianapolis, Nashville, Tenn., Atlanta, Bethesda, Md., and Tampa, Fla.

Evans was the first African-American graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., in 1947.

“It’s very gratifying … and my biggest (one) because it’s a national award,” said the ever-humble Looi. “That somebody from a smaller city, which is not a national dining destination, to be recognized for the work that me and my team from both restaurants have done is incredible.”

The honor places Looi among some of the nation’s best chefs who’ve also received the award, including: Marcus Samuelsson (Aquavit); Douglas Rodriguez (Alma de Cuba and De La Costa); and Robert Okura (Cheesecake Factory)

Looi will receive the award on March 8 during a ceremony at the New York Marriot Marquis Hotel in New York City. The award is presented by the Black Culinarian Alliance, a national non-profit, educational and networking group focused serving hospitality and foodservice professionals.