Branching out

OPINION | RESTAURANT REVIEW: Cypress Social doesn’t disappoint in first dine-in excursion

Smoked onion butter tops Cypress Social's 6-ounce filet, which comes with mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Eric E. Harrison)
Smoked onion butter tops Cypress Social's 6-ounce filet, which comes with mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Eric E. Harrison)

After more than 13 months of pandemic-imposed exile from area dining rooms, now that we have a couple of shots in our arms and so have, we hope, most other folks, we are feeling freer to return, albeit on a limited basis.

Our choice for the first of these edible excursions is the upscale "Southern-inspired" menu at Cypress Social, on the site of the former Cock of the Walk, off Maumelle Boulevard just on the North Little Rock side of Maumelle.

It's possibly the Keet family's biggest project to date, a classy rebuild featuring a warm atmosphere, decent food and excellent service. And now that its dining rooms are more or less fully open and the weather has warmed enough to make dining on the pleasant pond-side patio (where we ate on our first visit), the place has been busy, with most tables occupied and a practically full parking lot, even on the two early weekdays on which we ate there.

The Keet family built Cypress Social on the site of the former Cock of the Walk, just off Maumelle Boulevard in North Little Rock. (Democrat-Gazette file photo/Eric E. Harrison)
The Keet family built Cypress Social on the site of the former Cock of the Walk, just off Maumelle Boulevard in North Little Rock. (Democrat-Gazette file photo/Eric E. Harrison)

That patio is really nice, by the way. It overlooks a pond with a waterfall-fountain-spray feature that recirculates the water and diverts diners' attention from whether there's any actual wildlife left in it. The restaurant has set up a couple of picnic tables beyond the porch to accommodate a few more customers who'd prefer to dine outdoors. The big main dining room has windows overlooking the pond and the patio. On our second visit we ate indoors, in a small subsidiary four-distanced-table dining room that can be closed off for private parties.

Nothing on the menu is more Southern, perhaps, than the appetizer-listed Delta-style hot tamales ($7 for three, $12 for six), with a beef tamale wrapped in cornmeal masa and served in the shucks with a chili sauce, a house-made ranch dressing and saltine crackers. We're not the best experts on Southern-style tamales — our colleague Rex Nelson will have to pass proper judgment — but we'd put these up against just about any others in the immediate area. They're just spicy enough and after a few bites we got over our initial impression that the cornmeal was perhaps a shade too thick. The pour-able chili looked scarier than it was, and though we're noted objectors to ranch, this one was pleasantly tangy.

The only problem: our server's assurance that the tamales were small and that we'd be OK ordering six for two people. They weren't small, they were the same size as everybody else's tamales. And after one tamale apiece we gave up and asked them to pack the rest up to take home. Three would have been plenty for an appetizer; six might have made a very decent (and also reasonably priced) entree.

Speaking of entrees, we enjoyed our Filet ($36), a 6-ounce, sous-vide beef tenderloin lightly topped with smoked onion butter. Except that while the beef tenderloin, which we ordered — and got — medium rare, was otherwise unseasoned, and while we advocate letting the flavor of the meat shine through, there wasn't much and the smoked onion butter didn't add much to it. We got two nice sides: a pile of butter-and-cream mashed potatoes and some fine grilled asparagus. (Oh, and by the way, the menu labels it as gluten-free.)

We successfully revisited the Blackened Redfish Pontchartrain ($29) that we had ordered to go back in January, and which the server identified as the most popular entree on the menu. The Creole dish looks, and tastes, better on a china plate than it did in a to-go box — firm-fleshed fish topped with a few huge, plump, firm shrimp; huge, plump, firm mushroom slices, though not as many this time around; crab meat (not a lot of crab meat, but enough to register); rice; and "trinity." (As we discovered in January, that's also known as "holy trinity" and is a Cajun/Louisiana Creole variant of mirepoix — whereas mirepoix is two parts onions, one part carrots, and one part celery, trinity is typically one part onions, one part green bell pepper and one part celery.)

We had an easier time this time accessing the fish and the blackening had a slightly bigger spicy kick. The balance of flavors and textures worked better as well.

Less successful: our BBQ Smoked Chicken ($18, also gluten-free), half a bird coated in a sweet-ish Asheville barbecue sauce. The sauce was a success but the chicken was too dry. This, too, came with the mashed potatoes, plus a side salad of mixed greens.

Cypress Social's patio overlooks a pond with a spraying fountain at the center. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Eric E. Harrison)
Cypress Social's patio overlooks a pond with a spraying fountain at the center. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Eric E. Harrison)

We're not ordinarily consumers of cocktails, but since Cypress Social has prided itself on its cocktail program, we were persuaded to try one. There are a dozen on the list — artfully named (by head bartender Samira Morshedi and bar manager Rob Armstrong) including Gussied Up, Grey Eyed Goddess, The Buzz Bumble, Royal Blood, Rain Is a Good Thing, Stiff Upper Lip, Hissy Fit, Lemon Berry Mule and Peachy Keet. Many use local products, including from Rock Town Distillery — whose triple sec joins 1800 Coconut Tequila, lime and ginger bitters to make a Hula in Jalisco — and, in the case of the Frozen Irish Coffee, Guillermo's coffee.

We engaged the help and advice of our server to find something that didn't pack too big a wallop, and chose the Ambrosia Punch ($9), made with El Dorado rum, pineapple, lime, allspice dram (a liqueur flavored with allspice berries) and vanilla. Though it sounds fruity, it isn't particularly sweet, and while you can certainly taste (and, if you're sensitive to alcohol, feel) the rum, it's not overwhelming.

We were too full on both visits for one of the enticing-looking house-made desserts by pastry chef Sara Horton, but we did munch down on the allspice-dusted pineapple-slice garnish on our drink.

Our efficient and pleasant first-visit server had a trainee trailing her, so we got service not quite twice as good as we might otherwise have encountered. Our second-visit server was genial, knowledgeable and very helpful.

Cypress Social

  • Address: 7103 Cock of the Walk Lane, North Little Rock
  • Hours: 4-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 4-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday
  • Cuisine: Upscale Southern/American
  • Credit cards: V, MC, AE, D
  • Takeout: Yes
  • Alcoholic beverages: Full bar, cocktail program
  • Reservations: Encouraged, not necessary, but you'll likely get a better table if you make one
  • Wheelchair access: Yes
  • (501) 916-2670 | cypresssocial.com

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