LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Selections from Shandaar Indian Restaurant's lunch buffet
Let's touch down for a couple of quick hits on the metro dining scene this week. Uptown Café has been a Bardstown Road landmark for 20 years, serving always reliable fare in a friendly setting that keeps bringing people back for more.
Shandaar Indian is so new that its well-crafted Facebook page still has that new-page smell. So far out in the East End that it feels closer to downtown Shelbyville than downtown Louisville, it proved to be well worth the trek.
I didn't bring high expectations to the 20-mile trip, frankly. Sure, the gang of foodies on the LouisvilleHotBytes Forum had been talking the place up, but its aggressively suburban location placed it well outside the region's usual good-eats zones.
Moreover, it is housed in the spacious facility that was once occupied by a Chinese buffet that justly earned one of my lowest review ratings ever. And just to put the onions on the naan, it features a lunch buffet, not always the most inspiring culinary option.
But, Indian! We fired up the jalopy, headed east, and were rewarded with a delicious Indian meal - yes, from the buffet - that was loaded with flavors that snap, crackle and pop. ...
Shandaar Indian Restaurant
1801 Priority Way
261-7391
http://shandaarlouisville.com
https://facebook.com/ShandaarIndianRestaurant
Robin Garr's rating: 90 points
To understand Uptown Café, it is helpful to recall the story of its now-departed older sibling, Cafe Metro, which opened around 1981, joining the then-growing Bardstown Road dining scene as an upscale, relatively conservative dining room tuned for the well-heeled diner who sought a good meal in an elegant setting without too many culinary surprises.
It thrived on that demographic for nearly three decades, but the Great Recession dealt it a mortal blow, and it closed abruptly in the autumn of 2009, citing "declining business."
Fortunately, though, in the mid-90s, owner Nancy Shepherd planted Uptown Café right next door. Kicked up with light renovations, it remains a popular dining room and watering hole. Executive Chef Matt Weber reliably turns out appetizing fare, and the friendly, stylish bar appears consistently full. ...
Uptown Café
1624 Bardstown Road
458-4212
uptownlouisville.com
Robin Garr's rating: 84 points
Read the full reviews on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/somet ... ething-new
See this column also in LEO Weekly:
http://www.leoweekly.com/2015/04/someth ... thing-new/
