Clantons

The last day, back in Oklahoma, our last resturant. Clanton's is truly a dive:

Just Kidding!  Clanton's is not a dive here is the REAL Clanton's I have no idea what that other building is on the back lot. Clanton's is  a Diner and a fine example of one (ignore all the road work going on);

You have to love the EAT sign. What better hallmark of a road diner could there possably be. So we had to get EAT under the EAT sign.Clanton's special dishes are their Calf Fries, Chicken and Stuffing, and Chicken Fried Steak (if you don't now what a Chicken Fry is then go read some other blog you are clueless!). On the menu they list the chicken and stuffing as the favorite of Ronnie Dunn of the country group Brooks and Dunn. They brag that their Chicken Fry is the best in the world but have you ever heard of someone saying that their Chicken Fry (or anything) was the second best? Saying you have the best Chicken Fry in Oklahoma territory is a brave thing. We know our Chicken Fry, We love our Chicken Fry. We eat Chicken Fry on a regular basis. We actually recognize catagories of Chicken Fry. We take our Chicken Fry serious. Don't say you have the best unless you can back it up.
And Calf frys. This is a special appitizer at Clanton's and they have served it for years. I don't think anyone actually likes the taste of calf fries enough to develop a craving for them. In fact when we asked the waitress how they were she immediately said "They don't really have a taste. All you taste is breading". Even the owner later echoed the same comment. So why does one eat calf fries? I really don't know. I think it is all wrapped up in some sort of macho redneck tradition. "Bet you won't eat those cow testicals! Oh yeah? Dare me! I dare you! Watch this!". Haven't we grown past all this doing stuff on a dare stuff?  Apparently not!
We ordered all of the special dishes and braced ourselves for the calf fries. Soon they delivered a standard diner salad replete with the requiste dressing in the 2 oz solo cup nothing special but fresh and a good size, not too small, not too big, and quite welcome.

Then our main course arrived:

 

But no calf fries, we complained. EAT got a squash dish for her side and actually requested some gravy on the side. Can you ever really have too much gravy? "Please give me gravy on top, gravy on the side, an extra cup of gravy, and gravy on the rocks". Her real intent was to give me a chance to taste the gravy but she needn't have worried there was already plenty. As my side I had green beans which are one of my favorite vegetables and of course the standard mashed potatoes. The green beans were obviously made from fresh and very well executed. The rolls were light and fluffy and good. The Chicken and Stuffing lived up to it's fame of being the best. I got a brown gravy on top of the chicken and they had de-boned the chicken without totally shredding it so there were still some large pieces in there. 

EAT's Chicken Fry was the pan fried variety as opposed to the battered deep fried type which is more popular in your chain restaurants. EAT's grandmother would make her own chicken fry and she used this technique and she was defiantly comparing it to that. It lived up to all the hype, this chicken fry is truly a fine example of what chicken fry should be.

But at last the calf fries arrived:

There were two sauces the standard cocktail sauce and a new horseradish based sauce that the owner told us was created by Guy and given to them. He actually had a big story about Guy and his time at the resturant but I'll just sum it up with the statement that I heard over and over "He is what he is on TV".

Oh, and I guess EAT earns the macho award for the trip because she downed both lamb fries AND calf fries.

 

I did too but being the macho studmuffin that I am it was expected of me!

Would we go back to Clanton's? In a heartbeat!

Cafe on the Route

This one was a little different because it is located Baxter Springs Kansas. Not that there is anything wrong with that but there is hardly a hotel around Baxter Springs unless you want to stay at the Casino. We are not Casino people. In fact one time when we were in one of those Colorado gambling towns (if you go up in the mountain areas you will run across towns who's only purpose it seems is to support the local gambling establishments) and we located a nice place for lunch but when EAT found out that she would have to cross the gambling floor to get to it, well that was a no-go! We had to find someplace else to eat even if it was burritos at the Quick Trip (hopefully with those nice little potato hotzi's). Needless to say staying at the Casino hotel just wasn't going to work out for us. But that put us in a dicey position because where to stay? Well it turns out that the Cafe is on the first floor of a turn-of-the-century building (the late 1800's not the late 1900's silly) and that the second floor is a Bed & Breakfast run by the same people. Score! both the Cafe and a kitschy little B&B to experience all at once. EAT found this out when she called in to create her schedule. All that planning comes through for us again.
We actually went to check in to the hotel at about 3pm and found the whole establishment to be locked up. After a moment of panic that we would not have a place to stay we started snooping around Baxter Springs and came across a museum that had two floors and memorabilia from back to the turn of the century and displays from all the wars from the civil war on. Crazy! We could have spent more time there and it was quite interesting and free, heck they even let you paw through the high school yearbook from all the past years. You should see how ugly high school seniors were back in 1935. Who knew that there would actually be things to see and do in Baxter Springs!

But then we went to the Cafe and things had opened up so we checked in. We got one of the better rooms because it had both a sitting room and a bed room with a full king size bed. There were 10 foot ceilings and satellite TV and one thing that I really did not expect, wireless internet! 1890's meets DSL. The rooms could use just a little more sprucing up compared to other B&B's that we have been at but we chalked that up to perhaps the fact that the B&B was fairly new and they were probably trying to control costs until it became more of a money maker. In any case it was all quite comfortable and fun for us. I even ended up watching a Eureka marathon on the sci-fi channel late into the night. The only problem that we had with the rooms was that the whole hotel was wood construction and everything you did made quite a racket with creaking and squeaking and thunking and bumping. Literally rolling over in bed would elicit a squawk from the flooring underneath. Needless to say it was quite the quiet and peaceful night with us not wanting to make too many sounds for the other patrons to hear. I know what your thinking! All that meant was that that EAT and I made sure to walk very gingerly and make as few a trips around the room as possible. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

But on to the food. The Cafe by far had the most "Gourmet" offerings of any place on our trip. Stuff like Aztec Chicken, shown here, and Thai beef soup put this place above the mark. This is no diner food. They are truly trying to be a four star type restaurant here in this small town community in this diner style setting. And they pretty well pull it off! ET got the Aztec Chicken with twice baked potato and I got the Slattary Chicken with the fried potato salad. The Slattary Chicken was a chicken breast split and stuffed with a wad of corned beef (mmmmm corned beef) and some Swiss cheese all covered with a white sauce. This thing didn't know if it was a weird cordon-blu or a chipped beef on toast with chicken for the toast.

We also both had what we thought would be a cup of the Thai beef soup with cashews but it turned out to be a huge soup bowel. It was sort of like a standard vegetable beef with cashews and Thai spices thrown in. Very tasty, very inventive, very large, very rich. The included vegetables were very well prepared and seasoned and EVERYTHING was obviously made from scratch. These guys have impressive skills in the kitchen. The fried potato salad was really chunks of potato that had been pan fried and then a fine mustard sauce ladled over the top. If they had not named it potato salad I would not have recognized the flavor of the sauce but imagine a very strong mustard based potato salad and take out the potatoes and that describes the sauce. Very inventive and very flavorful and very rich (getting a theme here?). To end it all EAT and I shared a slice of their turtle chocolate pie. It was an Ice cream pie with a ton of carmel sauce and chocolate sauce and again with the cashews and real honest to gosh fresh whipped cream in great supply.

 It was very good in fact this is the one dish that EAT and I actually finished. Which kind of lets a little cat out of the bag. This stuff was great! Gourmet food executed well. But it was soooo rich. I was stuck between eating it because of taste and making myself sick with all the heavy ingredients. EAT opted out and picked at her plates (a decision for which she was quite happy later). I gorged myself on the corned beef and ate all my vegetables like some sort of half starved junk yard dog until I almost rolled over and started whimpering from pain. I also paid for that one later because I actually had to break into the pepto to get things settled. My fault not theirs! But that sort of explains why I was up so late with the Eureka marathon now doesn't it?

The next morning we were treated to a delightful breakfast (which we specified the time for but not the content of) two pancakes a slice of ham a well cooked egg , some fruit and a huge glass of OJ. It was like being roality because we just sort of emerged from our room at the appointed hour and there was the server finishing up placing our breakfast out on the table. He asked our coffee preferences and prepared that for us and then disappered never to be seen again. If not for those other pesky patrons at the next table we would have been alone in our second story breakfast nook with a great view of a mural on the next building. Nice.
We enjoyed the Cafe a lot. It was a real treat. But it would have been better if we had starved ourselves all day and had plenty of room for all that goodness.

Would we go to the Cafe again? Most defiantly. In fact we are planning a trip up that way later this month and we will stop by to try the other side of the menu (hopefully with more self control).

The BBQ Shack

On thet way to Baxter Springs we stopped "The BBQ Shack".

 

Not much of a shack really but a testimant to the power of the Food Network. Before Guy happened along The BBQ Shack truly was a shack. A converted mobile home with no seating just BBQ shoved out the window (after paying of course). Now it's a nice, clean, tidy well decorated shop in a brand new strip-mall. You have got to know that that is a direct result of the influx of traffic caused by the Food Network notoriety.  That can be seen in evedince becuase both side walls have huge posters of Guy (signed of course) and in the middle of the back wall of the serving bar is a 50" flat-screen permanently tuned to the Food Channel. No pretense here they know they owe their new found success to the Food Channel.

But not really. They really owe their success to BBQ well executed.  This is the real deal, they have won  several BBQ competitions and they obviously do the same level of quality work for their patrons. An the patrons are there. We were a tad late for lunch and the place was hopping mostly with locals. I could go on and on about the "Andy Griffith, Mayberry" theme that was deeply infused all around the resturant, wihich I actually found kind of cute, but that was merely a distraction from the food. Eat ordered her all time faviorate "Burnt Ends" which are the end of the brisket meat that typically get over smoked and a bit charred. Most places throw that part away and this is only the 2nd restaurant that we have been at that actually has it as a menu item.  I got the 2 meat, pork and brisket. My two sides were a baked potato in a cup thing and their "gypsy moon beans" which were more of a spicy brown bean chowder than really anything else. EAT got one side which she chose "Pearl" potato that turned out to be small new potatoes seasoned and roasted. Eat is a long time lover of new potatoes and she instantly fell in love with this dish.At first I didn't have the heart to burst her bubble and tell here that that is commenly available in Tulsa but I got over that pretty quick and pulled out my pin and jabbed away at her bubble.

These potatoes are identical to the potato "HOTZIE" at the QT that you can get. That is not a knock in any way! I always was amazed that the QT would serve something on their "hot bar" that was actually healthy and that actually had a flavor that was not laden in fat. These Perl potatoes are actually pretty good. We also both had a single rib on the side and a thing called "Flaming Cucumbers" which were basically spicy hot pickle spears. And yes they were flaming. I can take some heat and after two of those I had to recover a bit before the burning got to a tolerable level.  That also speaks to their sauce. They have 3 kinds "whimpy", "hot", and "sweet hot" both of the hots had the same level of heat as the pickles, beware. The pork was a pulled port variation and was quite good, not tough or dry. The brisket had a pronounced smoke ring and the ribs were well executed. And to top it off everything was served properly by way of which I mean dry. Those people who slather sauce on thier BBQ before serving, or worse yet during the cooking process, should be taken out and shot.

All in all we enjoyed "The BBQ Shack" and we would go again. EAT even said that if she was within a 50 mile radius she would make a detour. That's saying something. I'm thinking only a 10 mile detour myself.

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