The Porch Restaurant & Bar

The Porch Restaurant & Bar Restaurant Review:

With its white picket fence, rustic décor and Southern charm, The Porch is a welcome refuge from the pretension that litters so many restaurants in midtown Sacramento. The menu elevates down-home Southern cooking to meet modern tastes with locally produced, organic ingredients. Consider starters like fried green tomatoes with bacon and feta, as well as skillet-baked pepper jack macaroni and cheese. Mains, appropriately titled "Low Country Dinners," include Mississippi catfish with andouille sausage and rémoulade, and barbecued Gulf shrimp with Gouda grits. A number of sharable sides are offered, too, from succotash to watermelon and, of course, buttermilk fried okra. The dessert list features more Southern favorites such as banana pudding and peach cobbler. Also indulgent are the specialty cocktails, many bourbon-based, including “pigs in a blanket” with bacon-infused bourbon and maple syrup with vanilla bitters; and the “ala mode” blending house-made apple pie mix with moonshine and buttermilk ice cream.