Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Blind Pig

The Blind Pig
1076 E. Washington St.
Butchertown

Sorry for the elapsed time between posts. We don’t want to disappoint our followers. All 35 of you! The Lunch Pail Gang has been awfully busy with other projects in our lives, but we found time to visit a relatively new and exciting eatery. Blind Pig was established in March of 2010 in Butchertown near Downtown Louisville. The restaurant’s owners proclaim it to be a “premier swine dining establishment”. I must say excellent choice of words. The architectural layout of Blind Pig will keep your eyes busy while you wait for your meal. With the open-air kitchen and exposed brick. The different art work and a vintage looking bar only add to what the food can’t offer in a dining experience.
For an appetizer the gang dived into the oyster fritters in champagne batter. I personally never had oysters before. I assume like most people I thought they didn’t look appetizing, but if you aren’t sure about a food, the best way to try something for the first time is eat it fried. The light batter does allow you to actually taste the oyster though. I was expecting a rubbery texture, but it wasn’t. Cooked to perfection that it melted in your mouth and the lemon aioli sauce it came with for dipping was superb.
For our main course, I enjoyed the special of the day. It may have been the best Rueben I have ever eaten. It had a healthy choice of pastrami and it wasn’t too salty which I prefer. Plus the homemade Thousand Island dressing was delicious. Chickadoo and Man 2 both devoured their sausage sandwiches on Blue Dog bread (best way I can describe this bread – thick and chewy…very good.)  Chickadoo had the chorizo sausage with swiss and dijon mustard.  Man 2 had the “Ivory Bacon” which is Boudin Blanc sausage, bacon, munster cheese and aioli. Both sandwiches looked the same in size and stature but had different tastes. I think I should point something out for our readers. We share our food with the rest of the gang, so when we go back and blog about our experience it’s our own account of how the food taste. Take a bite and pass around the table. Just because Man 2 liked his sandwich doesn’t mean I did, so when I say both sandwiches had different tastes I am speaking from my own taste buds perspective. Ok now that that’s cleared up, I have to mention the fresh cut fries that came with every sandwich, except if you get a salad like Chickadoo which she didn’t even eat. I think it’s because she saw how good our orders of fries were and it made her salad taste like crap (No offense to Blind Pig, the side salad looked just fine.)
To end this sure to be most interesting lunch yet, we decided to get a couple desserts. Not just any desserts either - a chocolate crème brulee with a slice of bacon on top and butter pecan bacon brittle ice cream. If I had to recommend one it would be the ice cream which was very good. Not to be dramatic, but the crème brulee took me on a rollercoaster of emotions. It might be the first time I started out loving something after the first bite and by the last bite hating it. Chocolate and bacon do go together, but in moderation. Not that the dish was big, but after two bites my brain and stomach was on overload. Proceed with caution. I would definitely recommend trying it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
All in all, a must visit on Louisville’s places to eat.  I give it a $$$ rating on the gang’s $$$$ scale. A bit pricey for lunch, but it was worth it.