LEO's Eats with Louisville HotBytes.comAre you the kind of adventurous diner who has always wanted to experience an authentic Chinese banquet but have despaired after too many meals of sweet and sour pork, fried rice and the like at chopsticks houses and Asian buffets?
Here's good news: With a little advance planning, a willing spirit and a smile, you can enjoy a Chinese spread right here in Louisville that will take you surprisingly close to what you'd be served in Shanghai or Beijing.
All you have to do is get together a group of like-minded foodies, drop in on your favorite Chinese restaurant and ask the management's assistance in organizing a special banquet.
This approach probably won't work at a fast-food Chinese eatery or buffet. It requires a quality Chinese restaurant with a highly skilled chef. Louisville boasts several of these, my current favorite being
Red Pepper Chinese on Brownsboro Road, where Sichuanese Chef Shen Hong Huang boasts restaurant experience in Chicago and in Chinese embassies around the world.
Hostess Yuan Hua was eager to help us arrange a Sichuan banquet for 20 members of the LouisvilleHotBytes online forum, a group that would eventually grow to 31 without a hitch. Yuan Hua had just a few simple questions: How much did we want to spend per person, and did we have any specific food requests? After hearing that a local group of doctors had enjoyed a
Red Pepper banquet for $25 per, we decided to go for $30 a head, excluding tax, tip and alcohol. As for food requests, we asked only that the chef be asked to prepare a real West China banquet for adventurous foodies, no holding back for American tastes.
A few days later, we confirmed the number in the party, and
Red Pepper did the rest, constructing 16 dishes in a dozen separate courses, including a quartet of appetizers, fried and white rice and fruit for dessert.
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Red Pepper Chinese Cuisine2901 Brownsboro Road
891-8868