LEO Dining Guide: Meat-free dining goes mainstream

[Robin Garr]

LEO Dining Guide: Meat-free dining goes mainstream
LEO's Eats with Robin Garr



If you're not convinced that the world is about to turn, consider this: Bill Clinton is a vegan now. Long a fanatical devotee of McDonald's burgers bought by the sack, our ex-prez is now on a plant-based diet.

Quadruple bypass surgery no doubt argued in favor of a lifestyle change for Bubba, but he's far from alone in the growing realm of celebrities who are turning to plant-based diets these days. Alicia Silverstone, Emily Deschanel, Natalie Portman and Ellen DeGeneres have all come out as vegans. Jessica Chastain and Woody Harrelson choose flora, not fauna, for their daily bread.

Call it vegan, vegetarian, plant-based or just moving away from the industrial agribusiness grid, meat-free dining seems to be trending, and this evolution is showing up on the Louisville dining scene. Vegetarians no longer need to bring angry attitudes to dinner, prepared to do battle to keep a burly chef from forcing pig meat or rare, bloody beef down their throats. With more plant-based options and a welcoming attitude, Louisville's top chefs are adding interesting, creative non-meat options to their regular menus.

What's driving the change? It's not entirely age-related, according to local chefs, who see hipsters, middle-agers and even those still eligible for the children's menu saying "No meat for me, please." Though young diners may take health into account, more are driven by ethical considerations as basic as "If I wouldn't eat my cat, I shouldn't eat a pig" and concerns about inhumane feedlots, gestation crates or chicken batteries in the big-ag pipeline.

I'm old enough to remember when the Beatles and Elvis were new, and I'm often choosing the veggie option myself these days. Chefs make it easy with great choices like the frequently changing Farmer's Plate at Lilly's (when I dined there recently, the offering was an artfully plated feast of root veggie cakes, fluffy quinoa and creamed spinach on butternut squash veloute with crispy root-veggie chips). That's a far cry from the traditional vegetarian offerings of grilled portobello, pasta primavera or three vegetable sides served together on a dinner plate.

"Vegetarian food has to be just as good as the rest, or people won't order it," says Dallas McGarity, chef at Theatre Square Marketplace. "If we don't make people excited about it, they won't want the dish."

Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/meat- ... mainstream

And in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/dining-guid ... mainstream

Check out the full contents of LEO's annual Dining Guide, at your nearest free news stand or online at this link:
http://leoweekly.com/dining

I hope Ryan never has to take that tofu off the menu - we really enjoy it and love having a vegetarian BBQ option.

We'll keep it as long as we can get our hands on it. We've currently bought out our normal supplier, so it looks like it might not make our limited Harvest Homecoming menu unfortunately, as the demand for it has been fantastic.
Great article Robin and thank you for including us.

[Robin Garr]

We'll keep it as long as we can get our hands on it. We've currently bought out our normal supplier, so it looks like it might not make our limited Harvest Homecoming menu unfortunately, as the demand for it has been fantastic.
Great article Robin and thank you for including us.

Could you hit up Coco at Roots - Heart & Soy, Ryan? They've got a Taiwanese tofu-makin machine with enough capacity to handle a pretty solid retail sales point in addition to the restaurant.

We'll keep it as long as we can get our hands on it. We've currently bought out our normal supplier, so it looks like it might not make our limited Harvest Homecoming menu unfortunately, as the demand for it has been fantastic.
Great article Robin and thank you for including us.

Could you hit up Coco at Roots - Heart & Soy, Ryan? They've got a Taiwanese tofu-makin machine with enough capacity to handle a pretty solid retail sales point in addition to the restaurant.

They DO make a fantastic tofu. And there's variety: spiced, fried, or plain. Not expensive, at all.

Great article, Robin - thank you.

We'll keep it as long as we can get our hands on it. We've currently bought out our normal supplier, so it looks like it might not make our limited Harvest Homecoming menu unfortunately, as the demand for it has been fantastic.
Great article Robin and thank you for including us.

Could you hit up Coco at Roots - Heart & Soy, Ryan? They've got a Taiwanese tofu-makin machine with enough capacity to handle a pretty solid retail sales point in addition to the restaurant.

That was the initial plan before we open, but they wanted 50lb orders at a time (Which seemed like a lot at first). I need to go back, now that we can sustain that, and see where they are at.

(Happy dance!)

Bummer that there won't be tofu this weekend...I just asked about it on Facebook after I noticed it was missing from the menu. Glad it's a good seller though.