LEO/LHB Eats: Something scary this way comes

[Robin Garr]

<table border="0" align="left" width="285"><tr><td><img src="http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/frankelbl.jpg" border="1" align="left"></td></tr><tr><td>There's nothing sweet about sweetbreads - Palermo Viejo chef Francisco "Frank" Elbl shows off the Argentina delicacy, which consists of ... wait for it ... a calf's thymus gland. LEO Photo by Nicole Pullen.</td></tr></table>LEO's Eats with Louisville HotBytes
Something scary this way comes
<b>("Challenging" dishes at Palermo Viejo, Tokyo Japanese, India Palace)</b>

It's Halloween, blustery winds are whistling through the eaves and rattling the leaves, and there are ghosties and ghoulies and things going bump out there in the night. Let's eat something scary!

How about a nice plate of sweetbreads, my dearies? The name sounds so appealing. Sweet meets bread. A dessert of some sort? A comforting sweet roll? Well, no. "Sweetbread" is a culinary euphemism, actually, for an organ that would be a much harder sell if it were explicitly identified as a calf's thymus gland. It's innards, OK? And it's delicious.

Today let's celebrate Halloween with visits to three local favorites for a trio of "challenging" dishes that tickle the taste buds but may require the diner to willingly suspend disbelief long enough to get them down. Trick or treat!

<b>The sweetbreads at Palermo Viejo</b>

Louisville's only Argentine restaurant has been a favorite since it opened in 2001. Its exposed brick, leather-look table coverings and open kitchen with super-hot Argentine-style parilla grill come together in happy combination with an authentic Argentine menu.

You can order the sweetbreads a la carte, although it's not listed on the menu. My favorite option here, though, is La Parilla ("The Grill," $16 per person), which brings out three-quarters of a pound of mixed grilled meats on an individual black-metal parilla: a chunk of rare flank steak, a strip of thin-sliced, flanken style short beef rib, a deeply earthy length of house-made Spanish chorizo sausage, and, of course, a bite of sweetbreads.

The sweetbread is a squarish piece of meat about the size of a rough-textured iPod Nano. Take a nervous taste, and if you can manage not to think too deeply about internal organs, you'll be rewarded with a taste surprise as your teeth burst through the golden-brown, crisply seared surface to reach a rich interior with a deeply intense veal flavor and a texture that's somewhere just to the solid side of heavy cream. Three or four bites and it's gone, and you will wish you had more.

Full reports in LEO and on LouisvilleHotBytes.

Love sweetbreads. Used to be my favorite menu item at Cafe Metro. You just can't really spend any time thinking about what they are ...

I sincerely dig sweetbreads. They are cholesterol bombs, but oh so delicious. I like PV's version, but I also like them fried so that they are extra crispy on the outside.

GREAT concept for a Halloween column

You just can't really spend any time thinking about what they are ...

My first job was as a caddy at an exclusive Jewish country club. Occasionally, the members would give us half of their sandwich at the 12th hole snack bar -- most often, beef tongue. I love the taste, but I couldn't (and still can't) let my mind drift to a vision of a cow in a sweltering field with that tongue hanging out and that saliva drooling to the ground!

GREAT concept for a Halloween column

I totally agree with the concept - great imagination! I have never had sweet breads, but will try almost anything. Not always without trepidation, tho! Is the texture like liver?

Am I the only one who never thought of a fish as having a liver, let alone an edible one?

[Robin Garr]

GREAT concept for a Halloween column

I totally agree with the concept - great imagination! I have never had sweet breads, but will try almost anything. Not always without trepidation, tho! Is the texture like liver?

Not at all like liver, Kim! Here's my brief description from the full-length review:

<i>The sweetbread is a squarish piece of meat about the size of a rough-textured iPod Nano. Take a nervous taste, and if you can manage not to think too deeply about internal organs, you’ll be rewarded with a taste surprise as your teeth burst through the golden-brown, crisply seared surface to reach a rich interior with a deeply intense veal flavor and a texture that’s somewhere just to the solid side of heavy cream. Three or four bites and it’s gone, and you will wish you had more.</i>

[Robin Garr]

Am I the only one who never thought of a fish as having a liver, let alone an edible one?

Your Mom never made you gag down cod liver oil when you were little?

The best sweetbreads I ever had were at this tiny bistro in the 14th in Paris. They were served in a lidded copper pot with sauteed chanterelles, all in a thick sauce of reduced veal demi glace and cream. On the side was a bowl of hot buttered egg noodles. There were so many sweetbreads and chanterelles in that pot that I could not finish them all, but they were so delicious with a bottle of Ogier Cote Rotie.

The best sweetbreads I ever had were at this tiny bistro in the 14th in Paris. They were served in a lidded copper pot with sauteed chanterelles, all in a thick sauce of reduced veal demi glace and cream. On the side was a bowl of hot buttered egg noodles. There were so many sweetbreads and chanterelles in that pot that I could not finish them all, but they were so delicious with a bottle of Ogier Cote Rotie.

Ha! That's where I got a little cocky about my French skills and saw a dish on the menu with "veau" in the description. Veal sounded good. I didn't understand the "Rognons de..." part of the dish description. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to ask for a menu en Anglais. Rognons de Veau = Veal Kidneys. No innards for me. One day I'll get more adventurous. They were probably excellent.

i've got to ask, because it's been bothering me for far too long.

the reporting is fine, but why do the photos always look like they were shot on an incredibly dated camera photo?


seriously, it makes the articles look lackluster.
in fact, it almost puts me off enough i don't bother reading unless it's a restaurant/subject i'm very interested in.



by my estimates, it's either super poor camera quality, or a bad re-sizing job with an even worse program.



hate to break it down like this, but even though the CJ has a professional photo team, even when their photos look bad, they look 10x better than the best photos on LHB articles. at least the photos look crisp and don't look like an oversized, stretched out thumbnail image.


a 5.0+ megapixel camera won't run you over $100 these days.




no image would be better than a bad one.
(this from a readers point of view, and from a professional.... i'd hate to see my food look that bad in photo-quality, it does little favors.)


2 cents.

The best sweetbreads I ever had were at this tiny bistro in the 14th in Paris. They were served in a lidded copper pot with sauteed chanterelles, all in a thick sauce of reduced veal demi glace and cream. On the side was a bowl of hot buttered egg noodles. There were so many sweetbreads and chanterelles in that pot that I could not finish them all, but they were so delicious with a bottle of Ogier Cote Rotie.

Ha! That's where I got a little cocky about my French skills and saw a dish on the menu with "veau" in the description. Veal sounded good. I didn't understand the "Rognons de..." part of the dish description. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to ask for a menu en Anglais. Rognons de Veau = Veal Kidneys. No innards for me. One day I'll get more adventurous. They were probably excellent.

I like some offal but not all. I've not had the rognons yet, but I saw plenty of them in Paris. I have had a lot of liver (calf and lamb) and even lamb hearts.

i've got to ask, because it's been bothering me for far too long. the reporting is fine, but why do the photos always look like they were shot on an incredibly dated camera photo? seriously, it makes the articles look lackluster.in fact, it almost puts me off enough i don't bother reading unless it's a restaurant/subject i'm very interested in. by my estimates, it's either super poor camera quality, or a bad re-sizing job with an even worse program. hate to break it down like this, but even though the CJ has a professional photo team, even when their photos look bad, they look 10x better than the best photos on LHB articles. at least the photos look crisp and don't look like an oversized, stretched out thumbnail image. a 5.0+ megapixel camera won't run you over $100 these days. no image would be better than a bad one. this from a readers point of view, and from a professional.... i'd hate to see my food look that bad in photo-quality, it does little favors.) 2 cents.

Is it a poor quality camera or the lack of a "food stylist" that affects the images? In my opinion the most incredible photos of food are in Louisville Food and Dining mag. They're better than photos in Southern Living, Wine Enthusiast and Bon Appetit. Is it the camera? I thought it to be a combination of mostly lighting, "food stylist" and photographer skills and, to a some degree, the equipment.

How were the photos taken on your website? Surely you had more than just a high end camera (?)

Whoa....y'all are worrying about camera shots and not giving any thought to the amount of toxins in sweetbreads? Hmmm...