The Austin City Saloon, located in the heart of beautiful downtown Corbin, Kentucky, is a pretty cool place to eat. Just opened. Hostess one of those beautiful Kentucky girls you hear so much about with long blonde tresses that fell to the small of her back. A million dollar smile and tight blue jeans. Step this way she purred as she strutted her way among the tables in her high heeled cowboy boots. Food was good but the service was slow and the country music was so loud you couldn’t think. But I did call my hostess over a time or two for a little tete-e-tete which took away all the pain. Bottom line. Yep, I’d go back.
So I went to the bus station to pick up my young friend Victoria who was travelling from Nashville back to Louisville. It was about 8:00 in the evening on a cool spring night. It wasn’t quite dark yet.
Since we were downtown we thought it would be a good idea to have drinks at the 21C Hotel bar.
I drove the six blocks or so to the the hotel and parked out on the street. 21C was a favorite of ours. We really weren’t dressed for the place but in Louisville that didn’t really matter.
We entered through the restaurant and made our way to the bar and sat on a couch on the rear wall.
“Just like being in our own living room,” I remarked.
“Yeah, but better because of the people watching,” she said.
I ordered a Jack and soda and she had a Rum Coco. Something she had started drinking since she came back from Cuba a couple of months ago.
We had our drinks and some nice conversation about her latest trip to Missouri. She went there with her mother and grandmother to visit her uncle who was doing eleven years in the federal penitentiary in Springfield.
We looked the menu over but we didn’t see anything we wanted to eat so we decide to go the the Tavern in old Louisville to round out the night and get a late night snack.
We finished our drinks and walked out through the bar to the restaurant exit out onto the street. To our surprise it had started raining. It was really coming down and it was a cold rain. We ran the two blocks to car and got soaked. Once we were safely ensconced inside I was huffing and puffing from the exertion.
Victoria ventured, “I’ve never seen you run before.” And she let out a little laugh.
“Well it is is pretty unusual,” I said. “It doesn’t happen very often.” And I laughed too.
I caught my breath and drove to the Tavern where we had more drinks and shared an order of wings.
On the way there I was put in mind of a song I like by Beth Hart: Caught Out in the Rain.
I was having dinner the other night with my granddaughter at a Korean restaurant in Southern Indiana called The Rice Bowl. I had the Bibimbap and Jade was having the Korean Noodle Soup. While we were enjoying our delicious and succulent repast and having a pleasant conversation, I was reminded of something one of my first bosses used to say to me many years ago. I decided to share it with Jade.
“Don’t break your rice bowl,” he would say.
Now Jade allowed that this was a pretty cool thing to say, but I could tell by the quizzical look on her face that she wasn’t quite sure what it meant.
“What’s that mean?” she asked.
“Well.” I said, “if any of us were doing anything wrong he would warn us not to break our rice bowl. It was his way of saying, don’t put your job in jeopardy.”
She still didn’t quite get it so I further elucidated, “You see, when you work, you get money. With the money you get food. If you lose your job, you can’t buy food. Thus, don’t break you rice bowl.”
“Oh!”
It was an aha moment of the first magnitude. I could see the look of understanding cross her countenance which of course brought a smile to mine.
I had a hell of a time explaining guerrilla warfare to her father back in the 70’s.
I am going to have to rethink this whole Waffle House thing. Sometimes this is simply the best possible place to go at certain times under certain circumstances. You know what I’m sayin? I seemed to have found myself there on several occasions most recently. Usually late at night and usually with a hungry friend. You dig? So, I am re-evaluating my position. In any case, their coffee still sucks.
In this photograph we see a young Parisian couple dining at a sidewalk cafe in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The Flagrant Delice specializes in French Cuisine. The photograph illustrates perfectly a classic example of the juxtaposition of old and new and east meets west. Notice the male figure in the picture is probably one generation older than the female. He is Caucasian and she is Asian. Finally, he is reading a book, old technology, and she is reading her cell phone, new technology. Yes, Paris is indeed a movable feast.
Sunday September 20, 2015. Breakfast at Denny’s. Ordered the Santa Fe Skillet. Two eggs over easy. When I was a teenager and later a young man living in Louisville many years ago we would often go to the Waffle House after a late night out on the town. After I left Louisvile I never entered another Waffle House for 30 years. Never had the desire nor the inclination. Upon my return a few years ago several of my friends began waxing eloquent extolling the virues of eating at the Waffle House. They talked it up so big that my culinary curiosity got the better of me and I yielded to temptation. I actually visited a Waffle House one Sunday morning near where I live.
Big Mistake! It was just as awful as I remembered it. I barely made it home in time before my body nearly betrayed me, if you know what I mean.
So now, I just go to Denny’s. It’s not much better but it’s sufficiently middlebrow and the food is not bad especially the new skillets. I like Wid Eggs but they are really expensive, usually too crowded and a lit bit pretentious for my taste just have breakfast.
Louisville doesn’t exactly abound in Diners, which is actually my preferred place to eat. But I did recently find one in Old Louisville that I like. It may just become my new favorite place. I’s a joint called Burger Boy. Food’s good and they serve breakfast 24/7. It is loaded with atmosphere and intesting characters. My kind of place.
Ghost Dog 