By Marty Rosen
Special to The Courier-Journal
Imagine Rodney Dangerfield dressed up for a tropical vacation and you'll have a pretty good sense of the flamboyant Goose Creek Diner.
Starting from the bottom, the place features squiggly carpet, booths of purple, orange and green, and bright yellow walls bedecked with whimsical images of cupcakes, peppers and mustachioed chefs.
 Goose Creek Diner's vegetarian omelet includes diced tomatoes, onions, green peppers and Swiss cheese. By Michael Hayman, The Courier-Journal |
Unlike Rodney, the Goose Creek Diner seems to be well respected by folks drawn by a varied, well-executed, affordable menu and good service.
As the name suggests, the menu is mid-American eclectic: sandwiches (turkey club, $6.75; bacon, lettuce and fried green tomato, $6.95), pastas (spaghetti and meatballs, $7.95; shrimp scampi, $10.95), and seafood, steak, poultry, and pork entrees that top out at $12.95 (for a 10-ounce rib-eye with two side items).
An extensive lunch menu is extraordinarily well priced, offering 10 options, like chicken potpie, chicken livers and meat loaf, for $4.95.
And though Goose Creek doesn't follow the "breakfast anytime" diner tradition, it does offer a breakfast menu on weekends and a brunch buffet on Sundays.
A recent dinner began with a complimentary basket of sweet little corn muffins and continued with a crisp salad ($4.95) dominated by iceberg lettuce but distinguished by crisp fresh croutons (many dressings are bottled, but a few, like ranch and thousand island, are house-made).
There's something innocent and old-fashioned about menus that make grand claims, but when Goose Creek claims that its fried green tomatoes ($4.50) are the best in Louisville, I'm inclined to agree.
The tomatoes themselves were crisp, tangy and juicy, but what set them apart was a pink "Creek sauce," a creamy concoction that feints with the richness of buttermilk ranch dressing and then slaps your tongue with a hefty dose of cayenne — just the thing to make you reach for a bottle of Sam Adams or Goose Island Honkers Ale.
My wife, Mary, dined on football-shaped salmon croquettes ($8.95, with two sides, from more than a dozen options, including hand-breaded onion rings, stewed tomatoes, greens and the like) covered in an old-fashioned creamed pea sauce. The croquettes themselves were a bit pedestrian in flavor and texture, but the sauce had about it the velvety feel of a spring day.
There was nothing pedestrian about turkey pot roast ($8.95), a wonderful bowl filled with chunks of long-simmered turkey, pearl onions and carrots swimming in rich beef broth (a side of white beans and ham was straight from the countryside).
And there was nothing pedestrian about the service. On a busy night, we were impressed to see white-clad kitchen staff helping servers by delivering piping-hot plates right from the stove to the table (though tables weren't being cleared with the same dispatch).
And when our server recommended a slice of apple pie ($1.95), she was right on the money — from the firm crust to the crisp, spicy apples.
Freelance restaurant critic Marty Rosen's review appears on Saturdays. You can e-mail him at cjdining@gmail.com.
Goose Creek Diner
2923 Goose Creek Road, Louisville, KY
502-339-8070
Rating: 3 stars
2 comments:
After this review ran, I received a charming note from Joan Dangerfield thanking me for mentioning her late husband. --Marty
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