Reviewers: All Lousiville Restaurants A+++++, Would Do Business With Again

For the Voice-Tribune, Robin Garr hit up Mellow Mushroom, which is a franchised pizza chain —not a nickname for impotence. Speaking of flaccid, "I decided to walk on the pizza wild side, forgoing more traditional toppings for a small (10-inch) red skin potato pie ($12.99), which placed paper-thin slices of red potato on a thin, puffy-edge crust slathered with garlic and olive oil and caramelized onions, cheddar and mozzarella, topped with a spicy ranch dressing and a decorative swish of sour cream and scatter of chives. Our friends David and Catherine split an avocado hoagie ($5.99 half, $8.99 whole) and gave it two thumbs up, and David made short work of an oversized dessert, the half-baked brownie supreme ($5.50)." [Louisville Hot Bytes]

Marty Rosen gave Vietnam Kitchen no stars in both his Louisville Courier-Journal (out of four) and Metromix Louisville (out of five) reviews. But he did declare it his "favorite restaurant." So there's that. Or maybe Rosen was making a statement about restaurant rating systems. "This time of year, I often resort to the curative powers of Asian soups. That might mean the simplest pho tai — just an austere broth with plenty of rice noodles and slices of beef that I can doctor to my taste with jalapenos, sprouts, basil leaves and sriracha (B1, $7.95), or my condition might call for bub bo Hue, spicy and enriched with the flavors of pork hock and beef, lemongrass and mint (J1, $9.35)....But I'm a noodle nut, and when my wife, Mary, and I visit Vietnam Kitchen, the only real question is, 'which one of us is going to order K6, hu tieu ca Trieu Chau?'" [Louisville Courier-Journal]

Rosen scores the just-expanded Zaytun three stars out of four for the Louisville Courier-Journal (but just three out of five for Metromix). Rosen awarded it three stars back in 2009 too. "But the best way ["It's the best, Marty! The best!" " -Ed.] for a group to start is with Zaytun's Dream Dish ($9.50), a vegetarian platter that includes kashk e bademjan, a few falafels and your choice of hummus. The falafels are superb — fried globes with a tender, fragile crust and a lush, herb-inflected core; dip one of these into the generous bowl of tzatziki and you might just decide to have yourself a falafel feast — a falafel appetizer runs $5, and a falafel gyro runs $7.50. I've never run into a hummus I didn't like, but Zaytun's Tunisian hummus ($6 if ordered on its own) might be my new favorite." [Louisville Courier-Journal]

[Photo: Courtesy Big Sausage Pizza]