Third Avenue Cafe

Third Avenue Cafe's Reuben, top, is made with brine-cured beef brisket. Add a side of vegan basil potato salad. The vegetarian Reuben, below, substitutes thin slices of tempeh for beef and adds a side of wheatberry soybean. (Credit: Arza Barnett, The Courier-Journal)

In a world filled with guilty pleasures, the Reuben sandwich is as guilty and pleasurable as food can get. Stacked tall with brine-cured beef brisket, Swiss cheese, thick smears of creamy Thousand Island dressing and scoops of sauerkraut, it's a treat guaranteed to delight the taste buds even as it raises your cholesterol count.

The Reuben ($8.95) at Third Avenue Cafe in Old Louisville fits the classic archetype. The hand-carved corned beef is lean, tasty and plentiful. There's plenty of everything, including sturdy slabs of marble rye that hold the messy wonder together.

I'm a dedicated fan of the original, so it was tough for me to muster any interest in Third Avenue's vegetarian Reuben ($8.75). In fact, the very idea of a vegetarian Reuben struck me as silly -- a meat-free answer to a question no sensible diner would care to ask.

But since the Third Avenue Cafe places a lot of emphasis on vegetarian and vegan specialties, I took a chance, skipped over the classic Reuben, and ordered the meat-free version. And as strange as this sounds -- I'll never go back (that is, unless skyrocketing soy prices put the vegetarian version out of my price range).

In Third Avenue's vegetarian Reuben, thin slices of tofu's tangy cousin, tempeh, stand in for the typical corned beef. Smoky, slightly salty and seared, the tempeh is a perfect foil for the sauerkraut and sweet, spicy salad dressing.

Overall, more than half of Third Avenue's menu is vegetarian-friendly, and on balance the dishes are well executed. Soups ($3/$5) are by turns chunky (corn-leek chowder) or velvety (tomato-dill). A wheatberry salad (one of several sides included with sandwiches and entrees) was studded with bright green edamame, slivers of almonds, crunchy kernels of wheat and sweet chunks of apple. House-made mesquite potato chips come with a mellow house-made ranch sauce for dipping. A Greek pasta entree ($11.99, with salad) was the unpleasant exception -- a slapdash, tasteless assembly of penne, chunks of feta, long strips of red and green bell peppers, and far too many capers in a slick pool of olive oil.

The place has a bright feel that melds pop-culture whimsy (plenty of Elvis-related gewgaws) with a nice sense of being connected to its Old Louisville neighborhood (a mural of Victorian homes, hipster vibe and broad windows that look out on Third Street). Sidewalk dining makes a nice alternative on fine spring days.

Service is cheerful and cafe-casual -- sometimes it may feel as if your server arrived on the scene just moments before you did, and hasn't yet learned the menu or the beer list. But on several recent visits -- including one where I inadvertently showed up five minutes before closing -- meals were quick and coordinated.

Omnivores who simply can't subsist on vegan meatloaf ($10.99) or curry roasted vegetables ($12.99) can opt instead for pan-seared salmon ($13.99) or other seafood specialties, including a Hot Brown where seared grouper and garlic shrimp replace the usual turkey filling.

In the meat department, the owners are dedicated to the cause of locally raised Green River beef, and the burger was big, juicy, crusty and cooked to a nice pink medium-rare.

Desserts are made off-premises, but it's hard to complain when the source is the estimable Desserts By Helen. Having avoided caloric guilt with my sandwich choice, I dug into a slice of cool, bracing Key lime pie.

As the tart citrus overtook the tang of sauerkraut and kosher dill, I felt a sensation that's rare after a full-bore Reuben bender. I felt … virtuous.

Freelance restaurant critic Marty Rosen's review appears on Saturdays. You can e-mail him at cjdining@gmail.com.

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