One of our favorite neighborhood restaurants over the years has been Porter & Luke’s. It’s tucked away on Metairie Road in the shopping center with Aucoin Hart, but I’m sure you know that. What you may not know is that Porter & Luke’s now has a clone called Sophie’s Restaurant. As is true of so many places around town, the restaurant is named for the owner’s kids. Just as Porter & Luke are the names of one partner’s boys, Sophie is the other partner’s girl.
Sophie’s is Porter & Luke’s Part 2. The chairs are the same, the tables, the bar, the art, the floors and walls are the same color. The menus. And I haven’t been to Porter & Luke’s in a long time, but my visit to Sophie’s made me think I’m overdue to revisit. While the look of the place was the same, the food at Sophie’s was not even close to the level of goodness at the flagship. I didn’t get the club sandwich, because I could only eat so much. To me, there is no better club sandwich out there than Porter & Luke’s.
There are so many things on the menu at Porter & Luke’s that I love, I had to try to push past them to get something new. The menu at Sophie’s is considerably smaller. And the special’s menu made my choices even more difficult. A fried softshell crab over pasta won out over the menu choices.
And I chose the West Indies Salad over the Triple Wedge. The Triple Wedge is a signature dish at Porter & Luke’s and it is superb: Three miniature iceberg wedges with shrimp remoulade on one, crabmeat maison on another, and fried oysters and Bleu cheese on the third. I love the salad, but this West Indies salad is something I am seeing all over town, so I felt I should try it.
We had another entree of fried speckled trout over pasta, and I got the crab dip with crostini as an app. And I started it all with the chicken andouille gumbo, which was very good. So good I ate it all as I waited for my dining companion. It was my intention to leave something to share, but I couldn’t help myself. I loved this gumbo. It was the perfect consistency and spice level. Dark roux. Excellent.
The crab salad came in a parfait glass stuffed with green on the bottom and topped with cold crab. It was too heavily dressed with a sweet dressing, and we both agreed this was too much. The delicate crab flavor was lost. Basic Lance saltine crackers came with this.
The hot crab dip at Porter & Luke's was never full of crab meat, but this Sophie’s version paled in comparison to the ones I’ve had previously. It was smaller on sight, and crabmeat pieces were sporadic throughout the creamy and cheesy dip. I wouldn’t get this again.
The smallness of the softshell crab entree struck me on sight. It was a softshell cut in half and a decent amount of pasta with the same cream sauce of the crab dip over the pasta, with bits of tomato and bell pepper scattered throughout. This was about as ordinary as it gets, and it was the most lackluster softshell I've had in recent memory. It was also a tad greasy, something I have not noticed at Porter & Luke's. Disappointing.
Across the table, the very large slab of speckled trout wasn't getting any better reviews. It had an odd flavor that we attributed to the
breading and not the fish. And there was more of the ubiquitous cream sauce.
The staff at the new Sophie’s was just as friendly as at Porter & Luke’s, where some of my favorite servers anywhere make all dining experiences better. I wish they could have closed the gap here between the food and the service. Sophie’s might be another example to add to the few I’ve had recently where Tom’s rule about not going to new restaurants should still apply.
