Food Friday Louisville Edition: Havana Rumba

The good thing about living in a city like Nashville, where most people you meet are from somewhere else, you know just who to go to for recommendations when you travel. A few years ago a group of us trekked up to Louisville for the Forecastle festival and we needed a spot to have lunch. Lucky for us our dear friends Gillian and Taylor spent some time living in Louisville and knew just the spot! Havana Rumba is a really good Cuban restaurant tucked off a main road in an out-of-the-way strip mall. Unassuming on the outside, Havana Rumba is spacious and well decorated on the inside, with friendly staff and tasty grub.

We went to Havana Rumba after a long night of celebrating Lauren's birthday. We were all looking pretty weary and the hotel coffee just didn't cut it that morning (it kind of tasted like tree bark). Lucky for us Havana Rumba's house coffee was delicious. It was fairly strong and had a great flavor, enough for me to drink it black.

Steve and I were super hungry so we ordered some empanadas to hold us over until our main dish arrived. These were chicken empandas with a roasted red pepper sour cream sauce for dipping. I'm a sucker for empanadas and  I think they are one of the world's most perfect portable foods. They were lightly fried and crisp. Tasty and NOT dripping with oil. I mean, look how perfect and pretty they are!

Steve and I are pork people. We love some pig and Cubans sure know how to cook a pig. Steve went with the Masas de Puerco which is basically fried pork chunks. The pork chunks are covered with grilled onions. Steve though that the pork itself was a little bland, but tasted much better when eaten with the onions. Unfortunately, there weren't enough onions for Steve's liking on the plate. The side dishes were traditional congris (rice and beans) and fried plantains. The plantains were really good! But honestly, I don't think I've had a plantain that I didn't like.

I ordered the Lechon Asado which came highly recommended by Gillian. Lechon Asado is a pulled pork dish where the pork has been marinated in citrus and spices. This dish was a winner. The pork was tender and had just the right amount of fat. The pickled onion on top was a nice contrast. Have I mentioned before how much I love pickled things and vinegar in general? The Lechon came with congris and yucca. I wasn't always the biggest fan of yucca. I usually found it dry and stringy. But I really enjoyed Havana Rumba's take on it. They cooked it long enough that it wasn't tough and stringy, plus the added spices on top gave it much needed flavor. This was a very large portion of food for me. We wound up taking half of it home to Nashville and our car smelled like pork for days.

Nashville only has one Cuban restaurant and it's fairly small with a limited menu. I've been craving Cuban for a while and getting to have lunch at Havana Rumba was such a treat! Now how can we get them to open one in Nashville?

Food Friday Louisville Edition: 610 Magnolia

I have a bucket list of restaurants at which I want to eat before I die. The list gets longer every year and I have started making trips to certain cities based on food. While I haven't made it out to the French Laundry just yet, I've been hitting a good chunk of my southern favorites. When my sweet friend Lauren asked me to go to Louisville with her to celebrate her birthday and left dinner reservations up to me (what a good friend!) I knew exactly where I wanted to go.

Enter 610 Magnolia. I'm a pretty big Top Chef fan and I like to try to eat at the restaurants of some of my favorite contestants. During Top Chef Texas I was a big Edward Lee fan. Even though he didn't win (robbed I tell you!) he was my favorite of the season and thus, his small restaurant in Louisville ended up on my must-eat list.

610 Magnolia is not your normal dining experience. For starters, they are only open Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. The place is teeny-tiny and reservations are hard to come by. When I called to make a reservation I was told they were totally booked-up. I asked to be put on a waiting list and pretty much decided it wasn't going to happen. Two days later I got a phone call and we were in for a 6pm slot! The food gods were smiling down upon me... or so we thought, until we were on the way and discovered the highway between Nashville and Louisville was totally closed due to a major accident. We were able to figure out a back road route, but we knew we would be way too late for our reservation. I think I left the saddest voicemail in history on 610's answering machine: "We are coming from Nashville! Highway is closed! It's my friends birthday! PLEASE?!" I was elated when they called me back and agreed to hold the table for us until 7:30. The customer service at this place is top-notch! But what else would you expect from a Top Chef? And to add to the "BOOYAH" factor, they gave us complimentary glasses of champagne to toast Lauren's birthday!

After our complimentary champagne courtesy of our kick-ass waiter Chad (PS: love you Chad) we decided to order some cocktails. Since we were in bourbon country I opted for an old fashioned. It was really good and not overly sweet. Plus there was a nice fat cherry waiting for me at the bottom. Steve had their version of a Singapore Sling and it was light and refreshing.

The menu at 610 works like this: you pick a 3 course or a 4 course dinner, and you select from a list for each course. Those are your only options. Because I am an A+ eater I opted for the 4 course meal. Actually, both Laurens did 4-course and our man friends did 3. LADY POWER. The first thing brought to us was an amuse trio. On the left is whipped celery and mashed potatoes with a crisp potato chip- their take on chips and dip. The center was a mixture of clams and greens with a dried ham chip. HAM CHIP is my new favorite phrase and term of endearment. On the right was their version of a BLT, but honestly all I could taste was the porky goodness from the minced pork belly in the center.

For my first course I went for the raw tuna with lardo. Lardo is a fancy word for fat. So basically this dish was raw fish, pig fat, bacon dust and a chestnut veloute. This makes me want to go to a sushi place, order a roll, and then pull raw bacon out of my purse and slap it on top.

Steve chose the king crab dish for his first course. The chefs at 610 love to make things into jellies. The crab here sat on top of a coconut-banana custard square. (The soy sauce in my tuna dish was actually tiny dots of soy jelly). This dish was tasty, but I loved the presentation. I want to eat it with my eyes forever!

For our second course we both ordered the beef carpaccio. I love a good dose of raw meat but 610 upped the ante by adding shaved foie gras on top. So this is basically raw beef with duck liver on top. It was absolute heaven.

For my main dish I ordered the duck because I am horribly predictable. It was a fatty duck breast and duck leg confit served in a cranberry-bourbon jus. Look how pink the center of the duck is! That is how duck is supposed to be cooked. Just like steak, I like my duck pink in the middle. This particular duck was gamey and had a nice layer of fat. It was pretty much heaven on a plate. I'm really happy I stuck to my standard order!

Steve ordered the Scottish Salmon (line-caught!) in a brown butter-pistachio puree. The salmon was good, but my favorite part of this dish was the tiny fingerling potato rounds under the salmon that were mingling with some good old meyer lemons.

Ah, the dessert course. My perennial favorite way to end such a fabulously filling meal. Ordering dessert is such a splurge for me, but I expected greatness from 610 and they delivered. I ordered the chocolate mousse (that brown circle in the center). Because the 610 chefs love jelly, it was served with a white chocolate ganache gel (those tiny white squares). My favorite part of the plate was the little scoop of earl gray ice cream. When I used to live in Boston my favorite snack was the early gray ice cream from Toscanini's. I haven't been able to find a place that makes it since. So tons of good college memories came flooding back to me with one bite of 610's version. 

This dinner was a big splurge and not light on my wallet, but it was absolutely worth it. The staff was incredibly helpful and accommodating and our waiter (love you Chad!) was one of the best servers I have ever met. And I think it goes without saying again, the food is top-notch first-rate fantastic. This is the kind of place you take a lady the night you plan on proposing (guys- take notes).

BONUS PHOTO: The Laurens get all cavewoman on some boar chop bones.

Lauren and Lauren do Louisville

This past weekend we had the chance to take a short trip to Louisville to celebrate my dear friend Lauren's birthday. I was lucky enough to meet Lauren 3 or so years ago when I started training for my first hula-hoop marathon. We were assigned to be on the same training team. Our friendship really blossomed when we realized during a Sunday morning training that we both went out on a date that week with the same dude. We both really disliked him, but the funniest part was that he thought we were the same person. Both Lauren, both sassy, both hula-hoopers. No wonder Lauren had a strange first date - the dude thought he was on his second!

But here we are three years later. She's engaged to the wonderful and incredibly funny Matt and me cohabitating with the Steve. I don't think I would have been able to get to my current place in life without Lauren's friendship. She helps me calm down when I'm being super uptight and she can always make me giggle. I'm super lucky to have found her!

On Saturday afternoon we drove up to Louisville. We stayed at the Galt House, which was a pretty nice hotel. What we didn't expect was that Kid Rock was playing a concert next door at the KFC Yum! Center and apparently all his fans had booked a room at the Galt House as well. I have never seen that much Bud Light, tube topped women in 30-degree weather, or camouflage sweatshirts in one location. There was even something in one of the ballrooms called "The Kick Ass Redneck Party." I did not attend.

On Sunday we went to the abandoned Lynn's Paradise Cafe to shoot some photos. Lynn's was the place where everyone told me I needed to eat when I visited Louisville. I was too late, as the establishment shut its doors this January with no explanation. I was bummed that we couldn't eat there - but I was still pretty stoked that we could take pictures with all of the kitschy stuff they have in their parking lot!

Ok, I know I'm wearing white socks with flats. I'm not super happy about this fashion choice but it was freezing out and this was the only pair of socks I had with me on the trip. Lauren was much braver than me and wore her cute flats sans socks.

Lauren's Outfit

Sweater: H&M

Jeans: Old Navy

Shoes: Urban Outfitters

This is yet another piece of cat clothing I picked up from Modcloth. I love the mint color and the pattern of sweet white kitties. The fit is just baggy enough to hide the food baby that I acquired from Cuban food lunch.

How wonderful is this claw necklace? I won it last month over on The Charley Girl (I love her blog SO much!). It's from Midnight Riders and is a recycled bullet talon! I'm so in love with this piece- I'm even wearing it again today!

My Outfit

Top: Modcloth

Jeans: J Brand

Shoes: Urban Outfitters

Necklace: Midnight Riders