Local To Do Lists Update

Remember my Louisville Restaurants and Louisville To Do lists? During a kitchen cleaning session, it was requested that they be removed from the fridge, as we’ve accomplished most of the items on the lists. They have come down (although I will add both lists to my paper collection), and I thought I should revisit both.

To Do lists

It’s true, we tried all but one of the restaurants on our “Places to Eat” list — and then some. We hit up the vegan Swan Dive the last weekend it was open, and its replacement, Hammerheads, is one of our favorite spots to take visitors. We first visited Hillbilly Tea around this time last year, and after a long brunch followed by a walk around downtown, went back for late-afternoon tea (there were drinks at the Galt House and beers at the Main Street BBC in between the two visits. It was a decadent day). Sadly, the closing of the Sherman-Minton bridge has added another obstacle to reaching New Albany, so it’s been a while since we’ve been back to Bank Street Brewhouse (the biggest obstacle in reaching New Albany is laziness. Crossing a river, regardless of bridge conditions, somehow makes a drive more arduous). Since our last visit, I’ve developed a taste for Bloody Marys, so I’m ready to go back to brunch and the Build-Your-Own-Bloody Mary bar. And sometime last spring, I finally made it to Bodega, the tapas bar in the Highlands. The food is pretty tasty, but the bar is what keeps drawing us back.

There are places that never got added to the list, but became goals as they opened: Garage Bar, Harvest, and most recently, Rye. We’ve tried them all, and now we’re aiming for Maa Sha-Allah, a West African restaurant Gabe learned about through work. Louisville is a great city for eating — in fact, we’re currently second to Lafayette, Louisiana in Southern Living‘s “Tastiest Southern Towns” competition (you can vote here).

There is only one place on our restaurant list that we still haven’t hit: “the Filipino place,” or Sari-Sari. It’s still open. It’s right next to El Mundo on Frankfort Avenue. According to their website, it’s even been mentioned in Southern Living (this blog post is turning into a mini-advertisement for a magazine I don’t even read). And they have a buffet on Fridays.

As for the “Louisville to Do” list, it’s a little less complete, but most of the unchecked boxes are for sights outside of Louisville: Cumberland Falls, Mammoth Cave… ok, those are the only two, but add the Red River Gorge and Cave City to the list. Locally, I still haven’t been to the drag show at Connections or visited the Muhammad Ali Center. And this year, I’ve really got to get to the Derby, even if it rains.

I’m thinking with some good planning, I could knock out the local To Dos in a weekend. Dinner at Sari-Sari, followed by a drag show, and then a museum visit the next day. Who’s in?