Dish Spotting: Pork Slope’s Shrimp Po’ Boy

With a name like Pork Slope, it may seem a transgression to order anything off of the menu that didn’t formerly have a snout.   After all, items like Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Ribs, Hot Dogs, and the house special Porky Melt (sausage patties, caramelized onions and melted cheese on marble rye), serve as edible mission statements for the swine-adulating roadhouse — perfect for pairing with beer and pool under the glassy-eyed gaze of the two taxidermied boar heads on the wall.  In chef Dale Talde’s hands, however, a seriously substantial Shrimp Po’Boy is anything but a cop out or a half-hearted gimme to the other-white-meat adverse.  In fact, like most of Talde’s re-worked working class creations, it’s not only delicious, but also a gold standard of its kind.

Instead of the expected French bread (a sturdier, more reliable conveyance for the overstuffed innards of the average New Orleans sub), Talde substitutes two infinitely tastier slabs of his addictive black pepper butter toast.  They give way almost instantly under the considerable weight of their contents, but no matter — the lights are dim enough that no one will notice the streams of sriracha and lemon zest-spiked mayo dripping from your chin.  As for the crustaceans themselves, a generous handful justifies the $18 price tag (we’d already eaten a good four or five escapees before we tackled the actual sandwich).  Extra large and perfectly cooked, the freshwater flavors shine through the crackle of a rice flour and water crust.  Shredded romaine lettuce, rounds of tomato, and half-sour pickle slices help complete the crunchy, creamy, sweet and spicy picture.

The promise of porcine pleasures may be Pork Slope’s primary calling card, but with wide-ranging offerings as tasty as that Shrimp Po’Boy sandwich, they’re certainly not the only reason to come calling to this beer and whiskey bar with seriously good pub grub.