For Laravel 5.0+ change localhost to 127.0.0.1 in your .env file as well before you go playing around with Unix Sockets etc - this worked for me.
Noobs beware: For anyone using Laravel 5 and using older learning material be aware that there was quite a marked shift in folder structure from previous versions though this seems to be for the better- check out this article https://mattstauffer.co/blog/laravel-5.0-directory-structure-and-namespace
