From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published March 11, 2008 Chops Bistro 4$ Metairie: 111 Veterans Blvd. (Heritage Plaza) Reservations: 218-8967 Lunch Mon.-Fri. Dinner Tues.-Sat. AE DC DS MC V Steakhouse. Creole. www.chopsbistroandmartinibar.com "It's not the best steakhouse in the world," my wife said. "But who wants to go to the best steakhouse in the world every night? I don't have a problem eating here." This came up as we removed chunk after chunk of beef from steaks in a restaurant whose name implied that steaks were a specialty. For some reason, if such a restaurants can't claim to have the very best steaks imaginable, it runs the risk of being perceived as beneath notice. That happens even if it's pretty good, and even if it's an excellent value. Chops Bistro is both of those. Which, we agreed, is enough to bring us back in, as we persuaded ourselves that we weren't losers for failing to dine at Ruth's Chris instead. Chops Bistro was just getting started when the hurricane hit. Its doors opened a few months after the blow, early enough to accept the throngs looking for places to eat in those restaurant-short days. We were among them. But our first visit was so unimpressive that it was almost two years before I returned, and then with caution. That revisit showed a restaurant that had thoroughly reoriented itself. Mediocre foodstuffs were replaced by edibles of fine quality. The service staff was now outgoing and well-trained. It was a convincing proof that one should give new restaurants a lot of time to figure out what they're about. Chops inherited an attractive space built to its present configuration by Charley G's a decade and a half ago, and used by a few restaurants since. It doesn't have the finest floor plan. Most of the good tables are in two lines on a platform along the windows. Opposite that is an open kitchen, facing an area with a few truly undesirable places to dine. A big bar in the corner has a few banquettes, and is a comfortable place to have an after-hours cocktail. As many people who work in the Heritage Plaza do. There's no connection, but the menu has much of the spirit of the departed Charley G's, which was a very good restaurant in its prime. Chops goes well beyond the standard steakhouse menu in its offerings, with Louisiana flavor emphasized throughout. You start off, for example, with a duck-andouille gumbo with a good dark roux, big flavors, and plenty of the namesake ingredients. It's better than the corn and crab soup, which itself is plenty good enough. Among the appetizers is a unique dish called angry shrimp. For $9, an oversized oval dish is filled with medium but meaty shrimp, in a sauce somewhere between those or barbecue shrimp and shrimp Creole. The first bite is terrific. The third one persuades you that the pepper level may be at the limits of one's endurance level. You keep eating it anyway, saying that it might be a little too peppery--but you'll be glad you finished it. That's the best starter. Other good ones include fried oysters with a Buffalo-wing-style sauce that makes the oysters soggy (they need a crisper crust, is all). The crab cakes are pretty good, but just. The shrimp remoulade between fried green tomatoes has a pleasant hot-cold quality and a tangy sauce. The charcuterie plate needs a different name; it's a collection of sausage, boudin balls, and crabmeat with brie (all good) and the worst hogshead cheese I've had in some time. But at $12 for a plate that gave four people samples of all its elements, it's still a good deal. Another soup turned up one night: French onion, sweet and herbal, good stock, just-right melted cheese over the top. It was so good that it deserves to be available all the time. I waited until now to mention it because onion soup is a steakhouse classic, and I needed a springboard into that part of the menu. The steaks are identified as Buckhead Beef, the brand of a national distributor of quality meat. No grade is identified, so we don't have to worry which cuts are Prime and which aren't. I can say that the sirloin strip is terrific. That's the cut that shows the greatest quality increment from high grades, so regardless of the pedigree, it's good enough. At $28 a la carte, it's a good 30-40 percent less expensive than in the premium places. Steaks are served naked, but you can order sauces, including a New Orleans bordelaise (read: garlic butter) that would be better if it came out sizzling. The chef salts the steaks with a heavier hand than in most steakhouses. I found it perfect, but the ladies at my table found it a little over the top. Side dishes are all the usual ones, with a wide spread of quality, from the excellent sweet potato gratin to the really bad creamed spinach (has anyone else noticed how few restaurants know how to make this simple dish anymore?). Sides are $4; sauces $3. For $6, you can get a well-made, peppery Caesar salad, and for $7 a wedge of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese. Lamb chops come as a four-bone rack, crusted with herbs and served with a demi-glace that claims to include garlic, but only in the subtlest of ways. Not bad, but not exciting, either. Next time I have an appetite for this, I'll have them crust the lamb chops with pepper and grill them simply, because the lamb itself was more than good. Unless the double-cut pork chop, which looked good at the next table, gets my attention first. If you bypass the steakhouse stuff, you're still left with an interesting menu. The second-best entree in the house (after the sirloin strip) is a grilled redfish with tasso and brabant potatoes on one side, and a pile of crunch vegetables on the other. All napped with brown meuniere sauce, and very good. The caramelized salmon has sweet heat going on: brown sugar on the fish, green peppercorns in the sauce. Also here: blackened fish, grilled tuna with a guacamole garnish, panneed veal with fettuccine alfredo (when's the last time you had that?), and grilled chicken with potato salad. The standout dessert is bananas Foster, assembled (and flamed, they tell me) in the kitchen. It's a steal at $6. Decent wine list, pretty good bar, and a great attitude among the staff completes a very likeable restaurant with reasonable ambitions. It achieves them handily. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.