Hillbilly Tea

I never would have associated drinking tea with backwoods country folk.

Well, maybe super sweet iced-tea, but not "artisan", organic, free-trade tea.

Leave it up to Kentucky to change my mind.

Right in the middle of downtown Louisville is a cafe called "Hillbilly Tea". Obviously, the place is famous for its selection of tea, both hot and cold. But Hillbilly Tea also serves breakfast on the weekends, lunch and dinner.

I found the restaurant during a bout of intense research into the local food culture in the city, and I wouldn't let it go. Every day, I bothered my friends about eating there. I don't think they were ever against the idea, but I am sure I annoyed the hell out of them talking about it.

Unfortunately, we only had an hour lunch break to visit the restaurant.

Although I would have liked to try the iced tea, which they had three varieties of, the day we visited was cold so I stuck to hot "gunpowder" matcha green tea. It came out in a mason jar, steaming hot. It took at least 10 minutes for it to cool down before I even tasted it. I like the mason jar thing; it is cute and allows for a huge portion.

Honestly, I have to say, it wasn't the best tea I have ever had. I was expecting, maybe foolishly, something extraordinary, and what I got was just plain old green tea. I regret not trying something else.

The lunch is served a-la-cart and the menu changes periodically.


I had the lunch special of the day, which was a "box lunch" of a chicken pot-pie, a small salad of bibb lettuce and pumpkin soup. The presentation was clever; the three items were served in a flat wooden crate.

Both the pot-pie and the soup were really good. The salad, I could have passed on. The dressing was some kind of weird corn salsa that just didn't really go with the lettuce.

My friend, Raven, tried the bison steak that was served with two small segments of grilled corn, and au jus. The portions are very small. I think we realized too late that you were supposed to order a couple items to make up a meal. My lunch was a fair enough portion, but the steak was tiny.



I really wish we had more time in Hillbilly Tea: time to sit and enjoy my tea, after it finally cooled off, time to eat several different dishes and time for dessert. The menu is full of unique items like roadkill stew, fried frog legs and Earl Grey scented chocolate cake.

After such anticipation, I let myself down by not sampling more of what Hillbilly Tea had to offer. If only I was in Louisville on my own time....

To check out Hillbilly Tea on your own you can visit their website (or fly to Louisville)

http://www.hillbillytea.com/hillbillyteacom.html

Feeling social

So, honestly, I have been avoiding this post because my pictures for this restaurant did not turn out. Although I feel that words cannot do this place justice, I will attempt to write visually enough to compensate.

While in Louisville, I ate at so many different places it is difficult to take the time to write about each one, even if it is only somewhat in-depth.

However, I visited so many special and memorable places that I feel it is almost my duty to talk about them: places like 732 Social.


The local restaurant serves organic food and wine, and locally grown/raised food whenever possible. The food is prepared in a rustic, French style and the menu changes with the season.

What really drew me into 732 Social, however, was not the food.

While dining at another restaurant, I asked the waiter where I NEEDED to visit while in town. He told me that the drinks at 732 Social were amazing and made like cocktails used to be. In other words, the drinks were old-school, and I was interested.

He was definitely right. Drinks like the "Long Stem Rose", a mixture of brut champagne, Peychaud, orange, grapefruit and peach bitters, rose water, sugar cubes, St. Germain elderflower liqueur and lemon zest, really are reminiscent of an earlier time.

While the drinks brought me to the restaurant, the food made me want to come back.

The menu I sampled was made up of fall flavors and hearty textures.

I had Tasmanian Ocean Trout that was baked in parchment paper with preserved lemon, heirloom carrots, fingerling potatoes and salsify.

Salsify is the root of a purple-flowering plant sometimes called "oyster plant" and has a very unique flavor. While some people say that it tastes like oysters, hence the nickname, I have to disagree. The vegetable has a sweet component to it; I think it almost tastes like a more savory and less intense fennel flavor.

Basically, the flavor is hard to describe, but it worked perfectly with the dish.

The trout was some of the best fish I have ever eaten. I want to say it is in the top five fish I have ever eaten. Baking fish in parchment, and even foil, leaves it so moist and tender that you barely have to chew it.

It was delicious.

I also tried the the "Mac-n-Cheese". Although I usually don't like when people re-invent macaroni and cheese (I am a stickler for the classic Old South recipe) this was an exception. Made with cavatapi macaroni, which has a unique spiral shape, bechamel sauce and rock shrimp, this rendition of the classic did not offend me.

The pasta was a huge portion, especially by French restaurant standards; it was served browned and buttery, overflowing from a large souffle dish. The flavors blended perfectly and actually created an umami flavor. Thinking about the small amount I tasted is making me crave the dish right now; it was that good.

The only let-down of the whole meal was, unfortunately, the dessert. My sweet tooth was definitely not satisfied by the red velvet and carrot layered cake that was available that night.

Visually, the cake was delicious. I was staring at the damn thing the whole night. Precise layers of red and cinnamon-laced brown layered perfectly between ribbons of cream cheese icing called to me from across the restaurant.

But my taste buds did not agree with my eyes. The cake ended up having a weird coating of crushed peanut butter cups, which I did not feel married well with the rich flavors of the cake. Also, the red velvet cake suffocated my mouth with its dry and crumbly texture. While the layers of carrot cake were tasty, the other components drowned the one good tasting element out.

I can forgive one night of bad dessert, however, with food and drinks as good as I tried that evening at 732 Social. Along with a unique atmosphere, open kitchen and friendly service, the night was fantastic.

I can definitely say that if I am ever in Louisville again, I will be back.

I think my cholesterol levels just increased...

The second day of eating in Louisville turned out to be a much more pleasing experience than my first night in the city. Although my breakfast was less than wonderful (a protein bar and a cup of coffee), things got better as the day progressed.

Considering I was in Louisville for a college journalism convention, and not just to sample the cuisine, I ended up doing quite a bit of food tasting.

I only had an hour between sessions for lunch on the second day, so I was thankful to find somewhere close to the hotel with good food. The Bluegrass Brewing Company, BBC, is a Louisville original and has three locations across the city, including one just a block away from The Galt House, where the convention was held.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to try the beer at BBC, considering it was at 1 p.m., but I'm sure that it would have been worth a tipsy afternoon. The company actually makes its own beer at the original location.

What I did have that afternoon, however, was delicious. Being in Louisville, I had to try an original local recipe, the Hot Brown. The sandwich, originally created in 1926 at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, has been a staple in the city for over sixty years.

The dish is an open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon and tomato lathered in a cheese sauce. When I asked the waiter about the dish he responded with "do you like cholesterol?". It is definitely not something I would eat regularly, but it was a delicious splurge.

I also tried a soft pretzel with BBC's homemade beer cheese. The beer cheese had a subtle flavor at first and finished with the strong taste and aroma of beer. It was awesome.

For dinner, I ate at 732 Social, another local restaurant. That meal, however, deserves its own post.

Desperation and free dessert

The first meal after a long day of traveling is usually satisfying no matter what it is.

That is probably why, I did not mind eating at The Old Spaghetti Factory my first night in Louisville, Ky. Now, the food wasn't bad or anything, but rarely will you find me eating at a chain restaurant. Plus, I was with a group of half-starved journalism students, so I definitely was not about to complain about it.

First, we tried cheese garlic bread and artichoke and spinach "dip". The garlic bread was good, but you can't really mess that up. The "dip", on the other hand, was a big disappointment.

I love artichoke and spinach dip, when it is done right and is gooey and cheesy. This, however, was like soup. Chunks of artichoke, spinach, and, oddly, shrimp drowning in a watery cheese sauce is not exactly appetizing.

The salad was also mediocre. I regretted not getting the Caesar once I saw that it had tomatoes on it and the house salad didn't. This place was getting stranger by the minute.

For my main course I had a sampler of four pasta sauces served with spaghetti called "Pot Pourri": marinara, clam, meat and their signature sauce Mizithra (a Greek take on macaroni and cheese).

All were edible, besides the clam sauce. I love clams and seafood pasta, but the clam sauce was just too fishy tasting. Something really has to be bad if I won't eat it. Like I said, the three other sauces were OK, but nothing special. I, sadly, would have rather eaten pasta at Olive Garden.

The best part of the meal, in typical fashion, was the dessert. And it was free. The complimentary treat was a scoop of Spumoni flavored ice cream, which is a combination of cherry, chocolate and pistachio flavors. I have always liked Spumoni, so I was happy.

All in all, the meal was pretty average, and what one would expect from a chain. I wouldn't recommend The Old Spaghetti Factory to anyone, but I also wouldn't completely dismiss it.