For the chefs competing for a $500 culinary scholarship at Winston’s on Monday night, the ingredient du jour was pistachios.

The Jeffersonville-based importers of Dumante Verdonece, the Italian pistachio liqueur, presented the “Dumante for All Seasons” event on the campus of Sullivan University, where student chefs concocted savory dishes and cocktails that all included Dumante as the featured ingredient.

The 30 or so in attendance were each treated to six miniature cocktails and six small-plate dishes, which were judged by a panel of experts that included Chef John Castro of Sullivan, John Carlos White of Food and Dining Magazine, John White of Jeff Ruby’s, Chef Jim Gerhardt of Limestone and former Eats writer Steve Coomes, now of the Courier-Journal.

The master of ceremonies, Paul Najjar of WBKI, described the contest as a “battle royale,” akin to a Food Network-worthy challenge, though the competition between the food items was much tighter than between the cocktails.  The winning dish was a lemongrass-seared scallop with Dumante lemon beurre Bbanc and edamame mash—prepared by Erica Sung—though it could easily have been the duck confit, the rack of lamb, or the seared mahi-mahi.  The scallop also won the people’s choice category, which was voted on by the public.

The judges’ cocktail winner was a drink called the Chocolate-Dipped Pistachio, made by Sarah Abshire, with Dumante, Godiva liqueur, and milk, served on the rocks.  The public’s favorite cocktail (and the writer’s) was the Dumojito, a mojito with equal parts Dumante and rum.  Minty-er than most mojitos, the drink complemented the scallop dish perfectly.  Look for both of those items on local menus in the future.

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]

Mark Your Calendar: The Louisville Original second-quarter discount gift certificate sale will begin at 10 a.m. on July 16. [Originals]

Contemporary Piano Bar: Dress up like F. Scott Fitzgerald and bring your date to the Brown Hotel lobby bar on Thursdays and Fridays from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. to enjoy half-price signature cocktails and tapas while listening to Broadway and jazz-era hits by professional pianist Sue Ann Stone.

More Music and Deals: On Thursdays evenings this month from 6 to 9 p.m., you can enjoy live music and half-price wine at the Prospect Bristol Bar and Grille.

Better than a Date at Olive Garden: Be at the old Ferd Grisanti Restaurant on June 14 to experience Taste of Italy, an Italian buffet feast featuring dishes from several local Italian Restaurants. Proceeds of this event will benefit victims of the April 6 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy. [Courier]

More Tastes: The 2009 Taste of Frankfort Avenue is set for June 28 in the Clifton Center. The event features tasty fare from 28 local restaurants. [Clifton]

What More Could You Ask For: Anything that combines books and food sounds like a good time to me. On the second Wednesday of every month, The White Oak (at the old Artemesia location) is hosting a dinner and book club discussion featuring books with a food theme. [Courier]

Read more from Jessica at her About Louisville blog. 

How are you at wine and cheese events?

For me, it’s mostly about the cheese because I’m a teetotaler, but I usually find a way to participate by ordering a Sprite or Sierra Mist and having a bit of cranberry juice poured into it. If I’m lucky and no one notices that soda bubbles are three times the size of wine bubbles, it looks like a blush and I can look like I’m the one guy at the party who never seems to get drunk. Is it the reputation I want? No, but it serves.

So how would I fare at a wine and cheese event held at one of the most prestigious addresses in Louisville, namely 1400 Willow? Perhaps I would have to step up my game and use ginger ale and pomegranate juice while enjoying a cube of Caciocavallo Podolico.

Okay, so that’s mere speculation, but there is an event coming to 1400 Willow this Sunday, May 31 at 2 p.m.  Sponsored by the Cherokee Triangle Association, and is called “Wine and Cheese and Trees.” Along with the vino and fromage, there will be a discussion of the upcoming tree census being conducted by the Kentucky Division of Forestry.

As Louisville residents are painfully aware, given the tree debris cleanup project after the January ice storm, many shade trees have been lost in recent years. The Association will have an expert there to speak to the ginger ale and pomegranate crowd and long-term plans will be discussed, too. The CTA is pretty good at long-term, originating in 1962 and achieving Historic Preservation District status for the Triangle 10 years later. As you might imagine, they take their neighborhood pretty seriously.

If you’ve made plans to go, it can be inferred that you are into trees. Perhaps you’re into birds as well. If so, you could bid on a tree and bird painting by artist (and 1400 Willow resident) Fritz Hilton that will be auctioned off. The proceeds will go to the Cherokee Triangle Association tree committee. Wow. No neighborhood I’ve ever lived in had it’s own tree committee. Or its own wine and cheese events.

And I bet no one from any of my old neighborhoods has ever even tasted pomegranate.

That made a recent visit to Champions Sports Pub (280 W Jefferson Street, 671-4246) in the Marriott downtown all the more fun when my wife and I watched the Cards drub Boise State several days ago. That win turned out to be sort of a mixed blessing in that the crowd never really got loud or raucous; the outcome was fully predictable early on. Nevertheless, I’d forgotten how fun it can be to watch a game with complete strangers bound by their love for their team and relaxed with some social lubricant.

But I digress: What I aim to say is Champions is a pretty swell place. Well lit—and thankfully non-smoking—comfortable tables and seats, good noise level (music wasn’t blaring, high ceilings swallowed up much of the crowd chatter), friendly and efficient service, good grub and good drinks.Yeah, so I admit to drinking Cosmos during a ball game. What of it? Though some good buddies of mine question my masculinity for doing so, they’re excellent, though past-trendy sippers, and the bartenders at Champions have them down pat. They’re worth the ribbing, I say, but be prepared, they’re not inexpensive. It was a rare overnighter treat for my wife and I (we stayed downtown that evening, a rare splurge I also strongly recommend), so I wasn’t looking at the bill. But my guess is they’re in the $8 range.

Though not served piping hot, Champions’ Asian wings are excellent, about as good as any I’ve had locally. Free popcorn on each table is a good plus as well.

The place draws a friendly, civil and diverse crowd as well. (Perhaps the higher prices keep the real rowdies out? If so, I’ll pay the steeper fare.) Despite its hotel location, the majority of the folks there clearly were locals—sometimes easily identified by their U of L apparel—from all parts of town, and they were into the game. (If you’ve traveled much, you know the oppressive lameness of watching a game in a bar where no one cares about your team.)

Champions has no shortage of TVs, though its largest screens have color issues reminiscent of old-style projection TVs. It wasn’t a high-def experience, but we had a good view nonetheless.

Beer selection there is exceptional for this type of pub and includes a wide-ranging mix of imports, locals, domestic microbrews and the standard horse-drawn creek runoff from that place in St. Louis (I don’t drink its swill, but let’s hope I’ve got some mutual fund holdings in it). We’d been to The Pub (great beers, fantastic burger with goat cheese, too) on Fourth Street earlier, so we’d had our fill of brew, and therefore I don’t know about prices. But one sign that they might be a bit steep was a guy at a nearby table started with a premium import on round one, but switched to Miller Lite for every round afterwards. Perhaps sticker shock drove the change.

Pantoja’s son, Enrique, president of Rodulfo Realty & Building Co., told the paper, “We’re not trying to cut any corners.”

Click here for more info (subscribers only).

Multiple restaurant changes to Oxmoor Center: Panera Bread, long a tenant of The Mall St. Matthews, is moving to Oxmoor Center and will reopen March 14. The move will place it in a growing group of restaurants, including Yang Kee Noodle (which will add outdoor seating this year), California Pizza Kitchen, and BJ’s Restaurant, a pizza, pasta and craft-brew-centered concept to open Feb. 24. Click here for more info (subscribers only).

And from The Courier-Journal …

Nan better than Royal India: C-J restaurant critic Marty Rosen’s righteous review of Royal India (4123 Oeschli Avenue) led me to put the restaurant at the top my must-visit list. Like Mexican food used to be here long ago, Indian food has largely been hit or miss. Thankfully, the former is now reliably fantastic, and over the past several years, increased competition has forced the latter to improve, as evidenced in this review. Here’s a mouthwatering sample of Rosen’s observations:

“The vegetarian Andhra combo ($10.99) paired savory masala dosa (a fine-textures rice-lentil crepe folded around sautéed potatoes, onions and plenty of fresh green herbs) with the less common idlis (steamed, egg-shaped rice-lentil dumplings). I smeared the dosa with a puréed chutney of coconut, green chilies, and cilantro — and the resulting dish looked like a roll of hay and tasted like the first warm day of spring. I soaked the dumplings in a smoky bowl of sambar, a lentil stew with an elusive spicy bite.”The Indian-food amateurs (yes, count me among them) appreciate the descriptions, Marty. Click here for the full review.

Trivial pursuits: Here’s a blend of two of my favorite things: trivia and food. Every Wednesday night during February and March, the Chick Inn (6325 Upper River Road) is hosting team trivia nights.

More high-end happy hours: Seems 2008 is the year of the happy hour at higher-end restaurants—hard evidence the restaurant industry is more competitive than ever—as more fine-dining spots scramble for pre-dinner market share.

Add Café Metro to the list hawking $5 martini specials and specially priced appetizers. The bargain bevs and bites area available Monday through Thursday (except for Valentine’s Day). Call 458-4830 for more info.

“At the Barney’s Beanery here, bartenders have assigned a brand of beer to each presidential candidate, inviting patrons to vote with their lips. In Leonia, N.J., a group of friends who have been gathering since 1980 to eat dinner and watch returns on election night will celebrate their first Super Tuesday meal over a nice tablecloth.”

With all the hype leading up to the race, bars and restaurants might do as well on Election Night as on Super Bowl.

Better taste, less travel: Business First reporter Robyn Davis Sekula penned a nice piece about how local chefs work hard to acquire local ingredients for the right reasons: customers’ palates and health. Flavor is better, they say, when food doesn’t have to travel far, and those purchases support local growers—folks you probably buy from at summer farmers markets. (Subscribers only.)

Best read, least time to finish it: I’m only two-thirds through with Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” and though I hardly feel I can put it down, I’m struggling to find the time to finish it. Thus far, it’s excellent and highly recommended, especially if you’re a fan of Eric Schlosser’s groundbreaking work, “Fast Food Nation.” You’ll equally love Pollan’s extensive research and frank and frightening look into our easily accessed food supply and how it’s harming us. Both books can be had cheap at the Amazon links above.

In her Velocity Nightlife column, The Bar Hopper, Harris talked up the hip selection of adult bevs, including the Finlandia Mango:

“I found it hard to stick to the two-drink maximum I had set for myself after having the Basil Mango Orange cocktail ($8.50), a mix of Finlandia Mango vodka, mango puree and fresh basil and orange. It was fruity enough to tame my sweet tooth, yet strong enough to help me relax.”

Kinda makes my filtered water taste even lamer right now.

Cocktails, anyone?

Multiple downtown restaurants are working to change this, however, by adding high-end happy hour programs (including Browning’s Restaurant & Brewery, Park Place on Main, Blu Mediterranean Grill) to draw customers not so pressed to get home.

Primo has added its name to the list with its Revive@5. Starting at 5 each evening in February, featured wines, imported beers and select cocktails cost $5. Nibbles from the sputini menu include ravioli fritti, salsicce piccolo (sausages mustard sauce), crudo (a seviche of rock shrimp, bay scallops and sea bass seviche), bruschetta con cece (chickpea puree), and salumi misti (Italian cured meats and figs).

Primo’s bar menu also is available.

For more info, call 583-1808