Eischen's

After Tuesdays food binge we skipped breakfast, even thought it would have been at Nick's (the magic place). I would like to claim that this decision was because of a superior sense of responsibility for our health but the truth is that our coma's didn't break until about 8am. After the mandatory 2 hour daily ablution period we were pretty much getting into Nick's lunch crowd. So we decided to head off for the lunch stop Eischen's.

 

Eischen's Bar has been in Oklahoma for around 103 years. This bar is family owned and run from the beginning. The grandfather started it and his sons re-opened it after prohibition and now his great-granddaughter is the bartender as well as owner. During prohibition it shifted to a grocery store (which later became an IGA) but as soon as prohibition stopped it went right back to being a bar. They claim to be the oldest in Oklahoma and with an over 100 year history they most certainly are. The grocery store is long shut down but they actually keep a small "museum" which is really a glass case with memorabilia from the grocery store days (see the produce scale to the right?). This speaks to the long history of this bar. How many other bars do you know that have a museum inside?

The bar originally had a huge hand carved wooden bar imported from Spain that they bought and installed in the 1950 in an attempt to bring some more character to the bar. But the building burned down in 1993 and that old bar mostly burned with it. The rebuilt the same year and now the decorations include souvenirs from the fire including a piece of the wooden bar.

Now the down sides of Eischen's are three things; 

1. It is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Really! All around is nothing but farms and oil wells. It is about an hour outside of OKC and all the other businesses are just supporting roles to the farms and oil business. On our way out there I saw the largest pump jack that I have ever seen, it was easily as tall as the full grown silver leaf maples around it. This is Oklahoma oil country.

2. It is a bar. Not a fancy martini piano bar. It is a beer bar in red neck country replete with a group of young men sitting at a table and glaring at you when you walk in. The lighting was very dark, like it always is in such bars. The floor was covered with dancing "dust" which are little wax grains they spread out to that help you slide on the linoleum while dancing. There were arcade games all over like the "claw", pinball, an arm wrestling machine, and a fortune teller. I half expected to see cattle prods hanging behind the bar for the bar tenders to use when the patrons got out of hand (believe me EAT and I have actually been a bar where that WAS the case).

3. The menu is very limited. In fact here is the whole thing it was pasted on the side of one of the arcade machines:

You can hardly read it but at the bottom it says "We serve Beer, Pop & Wine Coolers. No Tea or Coffee".

Saying they serve beer is a stretch. They proudly offer all of the Budweiser beer products and most of the Coors beer products and that's really it. Now call me cynical but I REALLY don't think that a German man fresh over here in the late 1800's would call anything Budweiser makes beer! He would probably refer to the 3.2 ultra light pilsener that graces the grocery stores shelves (and this bar) around here as some sort of water that comes out of an animal (this last statement edited to keep it clean). But we are in rural Oklahoma and I am pretty sure a micro-brewery would die on the vine out here so they are pretty much playing to the crowd with their bar list.

The up side to Eischen's is the food. Their signature dish is their fried chicken and EAT and I both agree that it is the best fried chicken in Oklahoma and probably the best anywhere. You can't order a 2 piece or a 3 piece meal like at that place named with initials. Look at the menu the only size available is a whole chicken. Fried okra is the only side dish and there are no deserts. I don't know about the other dishes, I am sure they are great, but when in Eichen's there really is nothing else that you should eat but the fried chicken.

When our waiter (who was also the bartender and owner and great-granddaughter and perhaps mayor and judge ah-la "Green Acres" I'm thinking) said that most people get the whole fried chicken and split it EAT rolled her eyes and said "right" under her breath. We went ahead and ordered the famous chicken and the only side and they promptly brought out a bunch of white paper to serve as plates and a tray of sweet and dill pickles, sliced onions, and bread. Weird we thought but we began nibbling at the pickles and onions a bit like they were chips and salsa or something and we started to warm up to the idea of condiments as appetizers.
This is not a super fast place, they obviously actually cook everything right when it is ordered so we had to wait for about 20 min. They brought out the fried okra in a boat sized tray, it looked like about a full pound of okra, along with some packets of ranch dressing which we could not even imagine putting on the okra. As we began to eat that it became obvious that they really know what they are doing back there. The breading was good and flavorful and perfectly brown. The okra had no hint of sliminess and that is quite a mean feat! We got the chicken, all 8 pieces, a bit later after EAT had eaten about one third of the okra and we started in after a slight cooling off period, it was fresh from the fryer remember. The chicken is obviously marinaed or brined or something because every piece was jucy and tender. It did not appear to be "dipped" in a batter because the coating was too thin. It appeared to be hand washed and dredged like fried chicken ought to be. The coating was great a very good mix of spices but not the least bit overbearing.
At the end of it all somehow EAT and I managed to actually eat the whole thing.

 

 Would we go back to Eischen's? Absoutly! Would we go out of our way to do it? Absoutly! But not on a weekend night I hear they get "off the hook" busy and you have to stand in line. We can't be having any of that standing in line stuff!.

The best part is we heard that they would be on DDD from Guy's website and the episode that they will be featured in will show on the food network on Sept 7. Be sure to watch.