Next Tuesday, October 13, Buckhead Mountain Grill will donate 20% of your bill to Metro United Way. At all Louisville locations. All day long!

All you have to do is print this flyer:

CLICK FOR FLYER – PDF LINK

And give it to your server by the end of the meal and 20% of the entire table’s total goes back to MUW.

So, planning on eating out that day? Do it in support of MUW. Don’t forget to pass these out to friends and family.

The issue is not so great if you’re looking for reliable information about the food and its pricing.  High points: It’s huge, and devotes 17 of 68 pages to ethnic cuisine.  Low points: Joe Huber’s Family Farm and Restaurant is not in Louisville; chains should get their own section.
(While you can track Velocity’s Twittering on its website, don’t even try to find the dining guide.)

Awesome feature on cocktails located in the front of the magazine, though.  The Ernest Hemingway and Basil Ginger Julep, from Proof on Main and Bourbon’s Bistro, respectively, sound pretty refreshing.

Tomato Time: Chef John Castro will be featuring the heirloom tomato at a dinner at Winston’s on August 7 and 8.  The locally grown fruit will be incorporated into each of the meal’s seven courses, including a tomato soup with grilled cheese and a tomato melba on French toast for dessert.  Tickets to the annual event are $55 for dinner or $75 for dinner with four wine pairings. [Winston's]

Mimosa Returns! Café Mimosa is re-opening in the old Lentini’s building at the corner of Bardstown and Stevens.  Closed since a fire destroyed its Bardstown Road location in January, Mimosa is aiming for a mid-September re-open date.  We’re looking forward to the return of a Louisville dining icon.

Timing. . . Timing: How relevant is this.  A story highlighting Louisville’s status as a great restaurant city gets national prominence just two days after Marty Rosen’s pros and cons story about Louisville’s restaurant scene hits news stands.  John Mariani’s Forbes Traveler piece says, essentially, that the ‘Ville will never quite stack up against places like New York, Chicago, or New Orleans.  Still, though, the story notes there is plenty of excellent dining “in cities as small as Greenville, SC, Naples, FL, and Louisville.”  Whew.  [MSNBC]

Another fun Louisville fact: Louisville is (possibly) home to the country’s largest Cruvinet.  Come again? A Cruvinet is a giant Jaeger machine for wine, chilling wines, dispensing wines, and making it possible for wine bars to exist.  The ‘Ville’s own L&N Wine Bar and Bistro, at Story and Mellwood, has the largest Cruvinet in the state, and maybe the country, depending on where you get your info.  Neat. [Unusual Kentucky]

Does the “small” in “small business loan” refer to the size of the business, the size of the loan, or does it really mean nothing at all?

This question has to be raised in the case of a Metropolitan Business Development Corp. (METCO) small business loan, announced on Friday, that will allow a Louisville-based Qdoba franchisee to open a new store at 4th and Jefferson.

The $50,000 forgiveable retail loan was awarded to ZT of Louisville and will pay for plumbing and hood vents in the Marion E. Taylor Building.  METCO says the loan is designed to encourage businesses to locate in areas that “lack a strong retail presence.”  The new Qdoba in the Taylor Building will be located a block from 4th Street Live, perhaps the strongest (and best financed) retail presence in Louisville.

When commenting on the loan, Mayor/Lt. Gov. Candidate Jerry Abramson apparently quoted from the METCO website, saying, “Small businesses are the backbone of our city economy.”

But how small is small?  If you don’t know, ZT of Louisville is a partnership between two Louisville restaurateurs and businessmen, Michael Grisanti and Don Doyle.  Grisanti was an early investor in, and eventual director of, the company that became Qdoba.  Doyle is a former president of KFC.  Their company, as the region’s dominant Qdoba franchisee, has developed every Qdoba location in Louisville, Lexington, Nashville, and Birmingham.

At what point does a franchisee that is wildly successful—and a trip by the Bardstown Road Qdoba on any Friday or Saturday night, or the Breckinridge Lane Qdoba around lunchtime, will make it pretty clear that the local locations are that—cease to be categorized as a small business?  Does a company whose annual revenues are estimated at $8.5 million need 50 grand to build a venting hood?  Would that sum make a difference to any other local entrepreneurs in any other areas?

The corporate-fixture-to-franchise-magnate racket is one that is time-tested, well-known, and totally honorable.  Qdoba may have the best burritos in town.  But is it in the interest of Possibility City’s weakest economic sectors to help an established franchisee open a new restaurant next door to Louisville’s hottest of hot spots?

John LaFollette is a Louisville-based writer.

Gerstle’s set to grow; Vikings set to still suck: Having cleared its final re-zoning hurdle last week, Gerstle’s is poised to begin an expansion project that will allow the St. Matthews/Crescent Hill bar to accommodate a great deal many more Vikings fans this football season.  The plan is to use the property next door, vacated by a Christian bookstore, for indoor-outdoor seating, while adding angled parking and a new side door.  [Courier]

Shiraz has got us surrounded: From Poplar Level Road, good news for lovers of Mediterranean food.  Shiraz, the sprawling Louisville micro-chain (I mean that in a good way), is opening a new location in the Quarry Center, about a mile south of Audobon Hospital.  Besides the Frankfort Avenue location, there are locations on English Station Road (near the Gene Snyder), on Hurstbourne Parkway near Shelbyville Road, and in Holiday Manor.   The fifth store’s grand opening is in the about-a-week range, but it looks like there’s still plenty of work to do.

Monkeys can do tofu?  Who knew?: Ray’s Monkey House (Bardstown Road) will begin serving hot breakfast food from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on the weekends, starting this Saturday, July 25.  The quirky, family-extra-friendly café (they have kids open mic night every Friday!) will sell made-to-order omelettes and tofu dishes in the neighborhood of $5, according to owner Nimbus Couzin.  If business booms on the weekends, they may start serving breakfast during the week as well.

Raising glasses, funds at O’Shea’s pub family: Highlands block brothers O’Shea’s and Flanagan’s, along with their St. Matthews cousin Brendan’s, have raised more than $202,000 in their three-year history of community fundraising.  The most recent Monday “FUND Day” garnered about $4,300 for Louisville Habitat.  The next one is on Monday, August 3, and will benefit the Volunteers of America Emergency Shelter.

There’s a reason it’s called a ‘secret recipe, Yankee: Another signature Kentucky industry is in danger of being overrun by New York-based entrepreneurs!  Ron Douglas, of Long Island, claims he’s cracked the secret recipe for KFC’s 11 herbs and spices and is about to publish his findings, as well as other imitations of famous recipes, in a new book.  Apparently, he only needed six tries to figure it out.  The Colonel must be pissed, right?  Wrong.  “Plenty of people have tried to duplicate the recipe over the years,” says KFC spokesman Rick Maynard.  “There is still only one place to get authentic Original Recipe Chicken.”  Maynard didn’t bother to point out (but I will) that one of Douglas’s ingredients, monosodium glutamate, couldn’t be purchased in the U.S. until 1947, a full seven years after Harland David Sanders developed his original recipe. [MSNBC]

Cure for a Case of the Mondays. This week’s LEO review of North End Café omitted that the Tuesday-Sunday restaurant is now open for limited hours on Mondays, from 8 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Those breakfast tapas sound pretty tasty. [LEO]

John LaFollette is a Louisville writer.

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.

When you’ve got a new product that has already flopped once, albeit in a slightly different form, how do you successfully reintroduce it to the American pubic?

Call Oprah and let her give it away for free.

That had to have been the thinking in the marketing department at Louisville-based Yum! Brands when repackaging the former boneless, skinless chicken and calling it Kentucky Grilled Chicken.The new product intro needed a really big marketing push. Critics say Yum! miscalculated public response to the free chicken giveaway.

In the company’s defense, it saw the handwriting on the wall years ago and changed the brand from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC. Execs knew that the word “fried” was getting an image problem because consumers were associating the term with poor health and nutrition. By going with KFC, it wasn’t all about “fried” food.

But back to the brainstorming session, I can imagine that someone said, “What about Oprah?” You can see people patting each other on the back and placing some calls. Then Oprah goes on television and gives people free chicken. And because Ms. Winfrey said it, the country went nuts. There were so many redemptions of the Internet-provided coupon that KFC began to run out of its new product and started offering rain checks as the restaurants replenished supply.

Critics called it a public relations nightmare. How does a high-gloss chicken shack run out of chicken? How could Yum! have miscalculated so badly?

It didn’t. In reality, KFC performed a public relations masterpiece. Think about it. What is the main thing you want to do when you introduce a new product? Get people to try it.

Yum! did that. When you’ve miscalculated on Chicken Littles and Kentucky Nuggets, you need to get people to taste it. Due to this perceived screw-up, how many millions put it in their mouths?

It’s too early to tell the net effect of the promotion. Will people eat it and like it or will they return to Original Recipe or Extra Crispy as they have done so many times before? New products are always hit or miss, but keep in mind that in recent years, KFC gave us back popcorn chicken after a sufficient amount of time had elapsed to make us forget about how MC Hammer embarrassed himself by dancing for it.

The Kentucky Grilled Chicken promotion seems to hold a bit more promise. The entire marketing department deserves a two-piece meal today. Don’t make them wait on the rain checks.

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.

It is with profound happiness that I’ve convinced my wife to let me break my diet in celebration of the culinary achievement of W. W. Cousins. In the upcoming June/July issue of Food Network magazine, W. W. Cousins is the choice as the home of Kentucky’s best burger. This article mentions the best hamburgers in all 50 states, preferring the wacky, the interesting and the fabulous.

Does a burger at Cousins qualify as fab? Absolutely. Wacky? Take a trip to the toppings bar and judge for yourself. You’ll find ketchup and mustard, but there are nearly 40 other ways to top your burger, so wacky is a distinct possibility. Just follow the map to your favorites, be it sour cream, Parmesan or tartar sauce. The price point in today’s economy isn’t a deal breaker, as you can get your Bluegrass best for $4.40 to $5.30.

In doing some research, a number of sources mentioned that Cousins is a copy of Texas-based Fuddruckers. Not having been to Fuddruckers, I can’t speak with authority on that topic other than to say my mother would have thought it was close enough to cursing that she would have slapped the burger (with toppings) out of my mouth. And perhaps that’s part of the allure of using that as your restaurant name, but I like the friendlier imagery of W. W. Cousins. Taking the family there wouldn’t give me a heart attack when my young children go to tell Nanna where we had lunch.

Not to rain on the parade, but would we have gotten a different result if Kaelin’s was still open, considering their claim to the invention of the cheeseburger? A check of the Kaelin’s website says that they are still remodeling. They’ve been closed since March.

Congratulations to our play-cousins at W. W. Cousins and look for the Food Network magazine on newsstands on May 5th.

The popular breakfast-brunch-lunch concept occupies 4,800 square feet at the Westport Village shopping center in the former Bountiful Bread restaurant. According to Business First, Hall and Rothberg, as Eggheadz LLC, signed a 10-year lease with renewal options with Underhill Associates, which owns Westport Village, so it looks like they plan on being around for a while.

Hall and Rothberg reportedly plan to open a third Wild Eggs by early spring of 2009, and the locations under consideration include The Summit Louisville and Brownsboro Crossings, both on Ky. 22 in eastern Jefferson County. Rothberg, along with Simon Fields, also owns Napa River Grill, another popular restaurant in the Westport Village complex, and if things go as planned, Wild Eggs is poised to become a regional chain.

Read the rest after the jump…

The first Wild Eggs location opened on Dutchmans Lane last year, and the menu at the new location will feature the same selection of breakfast and lunch items. Omelets, scrambles, frittatas, pancakes, waffles, French toast, sandwiches and soups will be offered seven days a week. Selections will include popular items like the fresh vegetable “Farmers Market Skillet” and “Kalamity Katie’s Border Benedict” with green chili cheddar corn cakes, topped with chorizo, two poached eggs, queso fundido, pico de gallo, sour cream, green onion and fresh avocado. Wild Eggs also offers custom blended coffee at an espresso bar and mimosas will be made with fresh squeezed orange juice at the cocktail bar.

Rothberg and Hall celebrated the second Wild Eggs’ grand opening with a preview party for a couple hundred people Jan. 30.  John Fischer from the Mayor’s Office was there to preside over the ribbon-cutting ceremony, and servers busily ran around offering tasty hors d’oeuvres of egg salad with pickled habaneros. Wild Eggs’ executive chefs J.J. Kingery and Chip Lawrence were both on hand to greet visitors and supervise the buffet, where there were “everything” muffins, breakfast bread pudding, wild mushroom and roasted garlic scramble, spinach salad and a chilaquile-inspired Mexican breakfast dish.

Guests also had a wide variety of drinks to choose from, including a wine bar; in addition, one corner had a hopping bloody Mary station and the bar was set up to dole out refreshing pomegranate mimosas with Pama liqueur. To find out more about Wild Eggs and what will be available at the new Westport Village location, go to the website.

by David Dominé, The Bluegrass Peasant

On Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 5:30 p.m. Morton’s at 626 West Main Street will host “Absinthe, The Green Hour” to give guests a chance to experience the mystique and allure of Pernod Absinthe. As I wrote before, absinthe is a high-proof distilled spirit made from grande wormwood and a blend of aromatic herb extracts that gained notoriety in the 19th century as the favored libation of great artists, poets, writers and patrons of Paris cafes.

It was often called the “Green Fairy” due in part to its characteristic emerald color. Pernod was the first to commercially distill absinthe in 1805 in France, but controversy about its adverse effects – entirely unfounded for the most part -  led to it being banned in France, the United States and other countries in the early 1900s. In 2007, the U.S. followed other nations and eased restrictions on distilling and selling absinthe, a fortunate turn of events which has slowly and surely put the enigmatic liquor on the shelves of most local wine shops.

Today, Pernod Absinthe, based on the original recipe, has regained its reputation and standing, and the March 13th event in Morton’s private boardroom will feature three Pernod Absinthe cocktails and Pernod Absinthe served in the traditional ritual, with ice water dripping very slowly over a sugar cube that is placed on a slotted spoon over a glass of absinthe. The water passes through the spoon slots into the drink, producing an opaquely green and flavorful drink. Participants will also feast on oysters Rockefeller made with absinthe, crab-stuffed mushrooms, sliced tenderloin on crostini, and Morton’s miniature prime cheeseburgers.

A Pernod Absinthe expert will guide guests through the tasting, and each attendee will receive a complimentary gift, (which I suspect might be a cute little absinthe spoon.) To reserve a spot at this event, call (502) 584-0421. Priced at only $45 per person, including tax and gratuity, it sounds like the perfect Friday evening to me. Friday, the 13th, no less. For more information, click here for more on Pernod Absinthe.

by David Dominé, The Bluegrass Peasant