Southwest Fare Sizzles at NuLu's Taco Punk

As I said in my last post, Esther and I like to try new restaurants, especially when aided and abetted by the fine folks at Groupon. When a place has some healthy options, so much the better. We managed to check off all three with our Friday night visit to the NuLu eatery Taco Punk.

NuLu is an emerging neighborhood between St. Matthews and Downtown, with a good bit of overlap with the latter. Taco Punk is located on Market Street, in a storefront that looks like it might date back to the early 1900's or before. This particular location used to be occupied by Toast, an excellent breakfast spot that has since moved further up Market. Back when it was Toast, I got the impression that the building might have been a horse barn at one point, but that's little more than speculation. Either way, it's a cool area and a cool building.

As mentioned above, Esther and I went in with a Groupon hoping to get a healthy option. Taco Punk specializes in gourmet TexMex made with fresh ingredients. Feel free to check out their awesome menu. Tacos are custom-prepared in front of you, a la Qdoba or Moe's. We knew we were in for a good meal when, upon stepping up to the counter to order, the cook informed us we'd have to wait a few minutes for them to finish a fresh batch of tortillas!

Esther and I opted to split a platter-we each got a bar-beer-coa taco, loaded with shredded cabbage, cilantro, and pickled onions. Platters come with tri-color chips and salsa, and one side. We chose smashed, spiced sweet potatoes, and added a side of chili-spiced kale to use up the whole Groupon. Salsa is laid out on a self-serve bar, and includes mild and hot salsa roja, salsa verde, pineapple habanero, and something called the drain cleaner that we were both too chicken to try.

Everything tasted great; fresh, interesting flavors and good texture from the fresh corn tortillas. We were a bit disappointed by the sweet potatoes; we're both big fans of sweet potatoes, but we couldn't detect what exactly made them "spiced." The prices were a bit steep compared to your Qdoba or Bazo's fare: we split a platter and extra side for about $15 (no drinks) but we were in a mood to eat light (the Groupon made it less, of course). You could easily spend $20-30 here for a serious meal, and it'd be worth it; just don't come in thinking it's just like Moes and expect to pay those prices.

All in all, a quality meal, and highly recommended if you don't mind paying a bit extra for high quality southwestern fare.

Taco Punk
736 E. Market St.; Louisville, KY
Price tag: $$

My rating: 4 stars
Esther's rating: 4 stars
Combined rating: 4 out of 5

Post-Race Brunch

This morning I participated in the Great Commission 5K, which Southern Seminary puts on every year to raise money for missions. It was a cold, rainy morning: NOT my ideal circumstances for a run, though I guess it could've been worse. Afterward, I was REALLY in the mood for some good, hearty food.

Enter The Silver Dollar on Frankfort Avenue. Its real claim to fame is that it's one of the best whiskey bars in the US, but they recently started serving brunch on the weekends, so we decided to give it a go.

(Does this look at all like a photo from a CD insert? Maybe I'm overestimating the power of Instagram...)

The Silver Dollar has great atmosphere. It kinda reminds me of a honky-tonk. Not that I've ever been to a honky-tonk. But it looks and feels like honky-tonks I've seen in movies and stuff...There was an record player behind the bar, cranking out music from folks like Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. And the building looks like it used to be a firehouse. Lots of exposed brick. Very cool.

The food at Silver Dollar is described as "American South meets Southern California": lots of Southern favorites with a Southwestern twist. Tom and I did our usual brunch custom of ordering one sweet dish and one savory dish and splitting them in half; Tom ordered cornmeal pancakes, and I ordered flank steak and eggs, and we also got a side of hashbrowns.

Before our food came out, our server brought three different kinds of sauce to the table--a Mexican hot sauce, a salsa verde, and a mild ancho chile sauce--all made in-house, which I think is pretty special. (Doh, it just now occurred to me that I should've asked if they sell them by the bottle, 'cause they were all pretty good.)

The flank steak had a nice coffee-and-spice rub and was served atop a roasted poblano sauce, and it came with two eggs, over-easy. The hashbrowns were the thinnest I've ever seen, and they tasted like they'd been cooked in an ancient cast-iron skillet (that's a good thing, by the way), though I thought they could've been cooked just a little longer. They went really well with that ancho chile sauce, though. The pancakes were enormous and really good. They were nice and crispy on the outside, thanks to the cornmeal, and soft on the inside, with a hint of sweetness; and they came with butter, maple syrup, and homemade blueberry jam. YUM.

My only real complaint was that I didn't feel like the prices for the steak or the hashbrowns really matched the amount of food we got; but everything was so good that I would definitely go back if someone else was footing the bill. Overall, I think it was a pretty good choice for a place to celebrate my 5K.

The Silver Dollar
1761 Frankfort Ave; Louisville, KY
Price tag: $$

My rating: 4 stars
Tom's rating: 4 stars
Combined rating: 4 out of 5