LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Tarte de tomates et chévre au basilic at Brasserie Provence.
"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast." Or maybe "beast." Everybody thinks the Bard wrote this, but it was actually William Congreve, a decidedly lesser poet who lived a century or so after Bill Shakspear trod the boards.
Whatever.
My breast was savage, and so was my beast, the other day. I was crabby. I'll admit it. And I showed few signs of getting better. What was gnawing at my liver? Let me count the ways. (The Bard really did say that.)
First, I was getting over a nasty infection and gobbling two flavors of antibiotics. One hyped me up as if I had chugged a half-dozen cups of coffee, with the attendant impulse to chatter. The other precluded beverage alcohol.
A delightful evening with friends at Brasserie Provence, a place that I really liked last time, was on the calendar, and I was aching to go. Then it turned out that Mary had a conflicting meeting and couldn't come along.
What to do? No bride to keep me company. I didn't feel great. No appetite for meat, poultry, fish. Didn't dare order an adult beverage to boost my sagging spirit. This was not a joke. We're not talking about "do not drive or use power tools or heavy machinery" here, but an immediate and dire risk of projectile regurgitation. No adult beverages: Not. One. Drop.
TMI? Fine! Let's move on. A food critic has to be fair, that's the prime directive. Mood matters. Could I possibly dredge a fair and balanced review out of a visit when I faced strict limitations, not to mention feeling like koala roadkill on a Tasmanian back road?
?Being aware of the issue is the key, I guess, harrumph. Staying home wouldn't make me better, and I could always deep-six the review if I felt too cranky after all. So I bundled up and headed out into a chilly night with a fierce wind blowing that reminded me a lot of a Provence mistral, only colder.
Before long, I wheeled into the suburban parking lot where Brasserie Provence beckoned with cozy lights and a table full of smiling friends. I felt better already! Owner Guy Genoud, a certificable Provençal who hails from Cannes, France, has turned the tired old venue that long housed the national Tony Roma's chain into a fresh replica of a French brasserie.
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/brass ... age-critic
And in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/brasserie-p ... age-critic
Brasserie Provence
150 N. Hurstbourne Parkway
883-3153
http://BrasserieProvence.com
https://Facebook.com/brasserieprovence
