OK, so there are some restaurants that get a bad rap for serving up unrealistically small portions; television and movies love to make fun of nouveau cuisine and a large plate with one tiny slice of meat, accompanied by one olive and one baby carrot. I can’t say that I’ve ever had any dinners like that, but as absurd as the tiny portion restaurant is, so too is the place that serves up pounds of food worth a couple thousand calories.
The entrance to Copeland’s Cheesecake Bistro in Atlantic Station in Atlanta.
I was thinking about this the other day when looking at the menu of Copeland’s Cheesecake Bistro in Atlanta. Johanna and I were on our way to see what kinds of finds we could scare up at Scott Antique Mall. We were both a little hungry and Johanna had a hankering for a Thai wrap she had at Copeland’s a while back. I had never even heard of Copeland’s, which I learned was a New Orleans-based restaurant. OK, I said, and pulled off the freeway and into the Atlantic Station shopping mall.
I have eaten at the Cheesecake Factory once, long ago, and don’t remember anything about it. I don’t think I even had a slice of cheesecake there. Anyway, we were seated at a small booth near the open kitchen, which allowed us to see other people’s orders coming up and sitting on a shelf under a heat lamp, waiting to be picked up and served.
Since she already knew what she wanted, the Thai Chicken Wrap ($9.99), Johanna didn’t need to look at the menu very long. I, on the other hand, needed a while to cull through all the options. This being a NOLA-based restaurant, I had to go through all of the Cajun and Creole and sea food items carefully, not wanting to miss anything good. And there did seem to be some great-sounding entrées at first glance. Take, for instance, the BBQ Shrimp Linguine or the Pasta Del Maré. Both at $17.99, I was a little confused how these simple meals could be so expensive. But upon further review, I caught the missing fact. Both pasta dishes were served on what the menu said was “our original cheese pizza bowl.”
The BBQ Shrimp Linguine at CCB featured jumbo shrimp sautéed with green onions, Creole seasoning and lemon butter garlic sauce over linguine served in a cheese pizza bowl!?!
Let me get this straight. You can get an order of pasta (carbohydrate) served in a “bowl” made from a pizza (more carbs). They might as well hang a flashing neon sign in the window stating: “No Diabetics Allowed.” And it wasn’t just those two items. Sitting next to the food waiting to be served, every plate was large and piled high with fried and cheese-covered offerings.
Now, I’m not one to get up on my deep-fried high-horse very often, and I do enjoy “bad-for-you” food just as much as the next guy, but this seemed to me to be a little overkill. I eventually ordered a Hickory Cheddar Burger ($9.99) and onion strings.
While waiting for our orders to come up, a group of some seven or eight people walked past us on their way to their table, each one of them wearing black and gold New Orleans Saints garb (The Saints were in town to play the Atlanta Falcons the next day). Obviously, this group of New Orleaninans knew where to find some good home cooking in the enemy city.
The Thai Chicken wrap featured roasted chicken, crispy noodles, green onions, lettuce, cilantro, sweet oriental mayonnaise and a spicy peanut vinaigrette.
So, when our food arrived, Johanna’s wrap looked good, and after a bite, I can see why she wanted to eat it again. The wrap featured roasted chicken, crispy noodles, green onions, lettuce, cilantro, sweet oriental mayonnaise and a spicy peanut vinaigrette. It was the vinaigrette that made the thing taste so good.
My burger was simple—an 8-ounce chuckburger topped with tangy BBQ sauce, diced yellow onions and grated cheddar cheese—and took up maybe one-fifth of the plate, the remainder of which was covered and piled high with onion strings. The burger was OK, but not worth 10 bucks. And while the onion strings were good, there were just too many of them and I ate about a third of what was delivered.
All in all, the trip to Copeland’s Cheesecake Bistro was a mixed bag. The Thai Chicken Wrap was great, the burger overpriced. And after eating that burger of lunch, I had no desire to even sample the cheesecake.
Copeland’s Cheesecake Bistro
Atlantic Station
265 18th Street
Atlanta, Ga. 30363
404.815.8800
www.copelandscheesecakebistro.com
Post by and photos credited to Gregory Watkins.