Foodies Gone Wild - Oklahoma & Kansas edition

SET final words

2009-09-07T10:27:00.002-05:00

Without a doubt I definitely enjoyed this vacation.

Let's get this straight, great high calorie food, my own schedule, my cell phone off, my love and best friend at my side What's not to like about that?

Even without all the great food and interesting locations I would have enjoyed this time just eating a twig and sleeping under a plastic tarp because I enjoy any time that I get to spend with EAT.

I personally think that the term "Soul Mate" is somewhat trite and a very overused term because people will say "He is my soul mate" one month and then say "we have grown apart" the next. If you have really found your soul mate it is a final a permanent pairing (like mashed potatoes to gravy, pancakes to syrup, Zinfandel to cheddar, gravy to Chicken Fry, OK I'll stop now) that always works and will carry you into the next life. If you find your true soul mate(like I have) everything, the good times and bad times, seems to make sense and is comfortable in this life but is targeted at eternity rather than just at the selfish pursuits of today that by nature we tend to want to chase. Both EAT and I share a firm commitment to the FACT that Jesus Christ had paid the price for all our sins and because of that we are accepted into the kingdom of heaven.We are justified and have the freedom to experience things such as our vacation without guilt.

Because of our mutual commitment to the reality that we are forgiven through Christ EAT and I are forever and joyfully bound to enjoy this life together with the direction of continually striving towards achieving sanctification through serving Christ our lord.

How is touring the DDD serving Christ you ask? Well any work we do with the intent of serving God is a work unto the lord. That is a basic tenet of the reformation and it remains true today. You don't have to be a priest to serve God. Whatever your daily work, it is a service unto the Lord. God is sovereign in all things and I can tell you that most of the places that we visited are clearly works of devotion whether they admit it or not. When approached with the proper purpose of serving God, devotion to one's work is service to God. Being a fast order cook is not a particularly glamorous job and I'll bet very few of these people actually aspired to be a cook they probably just ended up in the job. But I learned something about being content in whatever you do by watching these cooks spending their days realizing the same menu day after day but with care and excellence. And with that basic pursuit of excellence in their work achieving a level of fame and notoriety. Watching these people at work during our DDD tour made me realize that we all should, and can, be content with just going about the perhaps simple work that we have before us with the solid intent of serving God with our work and doing the best that we can. With that action we will be serving the Lord day by day. Your daily work is a work unto the Lord as much carrying the banners down the isle during Easter service. And with that thought and we can achieve some contentment in life just by doing our job well.

And perhaps eating some fried food here and there.

Would I do a DDD tour again? ABSOLUTELY! What would I change? Like EAT I would Limit our DDD exposure to one or at the max two restaurants a day. Just to be kind to our gastrointestinal tracts.

But for now I think our next adventure will possibly be "FoodiesGoFasting". Purely out of a need to repair the damage done to our bodies over the past week.

EAT tells me that our scale shows that she only gained one pound over the course of this trip... I have got to replace the batteries in that scale!

SET

2009-09-06T16:12:00.003-05:00

Upon arriving home, a sign that hung on the front door read "Welcome Home Foodies"... thank you Art. And it was good to be home!. Elwood came running across the street to greet us, and Jake kept my spot on the bed warm till I got back;. To summarize the road trip and all the food experiences, let me list all the fried foods I have eaten.

French fries
Fried onion rings,
Fried okra
Fried pork patties
Fried spattzle
Home fries
Hash browns
Fried eggs and bacon
Fried potato salad
Fried chicken
Fried chicken wings and waffles.
Chicken fried steak
Fried cinnamon roll
Fried lamb fries
Fried calf fries.

I must say that I enjoyed it all! About 15 years ago I got to spend 18 days in the Boston area with Set, and by the time we got back home I had eaten all the lobster I could eat and since then I've haven't wanted to eat lobster much. So I am hoping that I won't want to eat any fried foods for at least for a long while! I love all the time that Set and I spent together traveling about and doing one of the things we enjoy most...eating good food .Will I do another "foodies gone wild" road trip. Yes, in a heartbeat, but with some small changes. First plan a longer trip that take us further. Secondly, plan only one "Diner, Drive-ins, and Dives" a day. Hitting three places in one day is little hard on the digestive track. Set thanks for being my dining companion, my traveling buddy, and my true love.

EAT

Clantons

2009-09-05T20:55:00.002-05:00

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

2009-09-05T19:05:00.001-05:00

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

2009-09-05T09:14:00.001-05:00

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.

Mama's KC-MO

2009-09-04T11:12:00.002-05:00

I find it a bit crazy that there are two sides to Kansas City, the Kansas side and the Missouri side. There is no difference your talking one side of the river as opposed to the other. We were watching TV this morning and there is a huge crises that the KCK government is running out of money. I know, why don't you shut down one of the government arms merge and save all that money. Then you wouldn't be in as much trouble would you? But Noooo the politicians would never allow that. That would put their jobs in jeopardy.
Mama's is in Kansas City MO...

Absolutely the largest breakfast menu we have ever seen:

That grey square down in the lower left is the number of omelet combinations. No limit of "Cheese, Denver, or Mix" here you had 66 choices for your omelet. And they had several other "World Famous" menu items which made choosing hard.
Well sort of.
Mama's was noted by Guy as making their own corned beef hash from fresh corned beef. You have no idea what this means to me. I am a corned beef fiend and a proper corned beef hash is probably the perfect breakfast in my humble opinion. I have sought out every type of canned corned beef hash that I can and have ate and compared them. I have sought out every restaurant that I can through several states that serves corned beef hash and have made my way to them in order to check out their offering. I have made my own corned beef hash with different recipes (except for Fanny Farmers "Flannel" hash. It has beets in it and that's gross. Does anyone really like beets? I thought the only real purpose for beets was to be canned and sliced and put on the side of your thanksgiving plate for color only).
Obviously I am a corned beef hash hound and aficionado so imagine my excitement when EAT told me that this joint was actually noted by Guy on the Food Network as preparing their hash from scratch and even corning their own beef in a multi-day process. I was pumped!
We specifically over-ordered with the intention of leaving most of the food behind, except for the hash of course. We got:

Kitchen Sink Scrambler

Corned Beef Hash... Duh!

Belgium waffle

Deep Fried Cinnamon Roll

Biscuits and Gravy (1/2 order to show SOME restraint)

We avoided going for what was the largest layer cake I have ever seen in person. The six layer banana split cake:

We enjoyed just about everything. The egg scramble looked dry but it was not. The tomatoes were canned which was a bit surprising but it worked out quite well. The deep fried cinnamon roll was one of those love it or hate it things and I was quite interested because I like both cinnamon rolls and just about anything deep fried. But sadly the glazing that the waiter poured over on top had some ingredient that did not agree with us so that ended up being a one bite experience for us. The waffle was light and well executed this was a good dish in EAT's opinion and she is the Belgium waffle expert.

The biscuits and gravy were superb. The underlying biscuit was appropriately light and fluffy and the gravy was peppery with a very good sausage in generous quantity. I'm sad to say that this is the best B&G of the trip. Better then Brint's even.

The corned beef hash was massive. I think it must have been at least a pound of food. It actually had chunks of real corned beef in there. But when I bit into it I found that there seemed to be a mix of both canned and fresh made. There were the telltale "diced" potatoes that are the hallmark of a factory made product. You just can't dice cooked potatoes like that by hand. There were also hash brown grated potatoes in there. And to top it all off there was the distinct flavor of a canned variety. I am convinced that they are mixing with canned because they want their patrons to have the taste of corned beef hash that they expect. I have made fresh corned beef hash and it tastes markedly different than canned. If you want to taste what fresh made corned beef hash tastes like go to "Mimi's Cafe" in Tulsa. That's the real stuff.

I could not finish the huge dish but my loyalty to the dish of corned beef kept me from leaving it. Even with with all that disappointment with their execution I took a left over box. I am not really sure what I am going to do with it. For the moment I am keeping it at my side like a puppy. I have no intention of eating it but I cannot stand the thought that I am actually going to throw away corned beef hash. Especially hash that has REAL bits of corned beef in it. I am conflicted.

Would we go back to Mama's? Of course! Their menu is WAY too big to experience in one trip or to be sullied by one dish.

In a way I am glad that Tulsa has better corned beef hash. I would hate to think that I am deprived of the best hash because I just don't get to KCM that often. There! That's my rationalization for why I don't need to move to KCM just so I can go to one restaurant on a frequent basis.

Grinders

2009-09-04T10:17:00.001-05:00

I have to get this post out quick I am waiting for EAT to get ready this morining so that we can go to Mama's. Why am I so excited about Mama's? Well! fresh made corned beef what else? But I'll tell you more about that later.

Griners was started by a couple of guys who like to drink beer together and like to make fun thinks to eat. One of the guys is an artist and likes to do those huge sculptures out of steel that you see around places:

It is located on the trashy warehouse side of Kansas City which is rapidly becoming the art district. The owner seems to have bought the whole city block and there are about 3 art galaries, a photographer, a tattoo place, and the owner's personal art studio located there. In the back is a large open air arena with a huge stage at the end and several "shack" bars surrounding the arena.

They rent the place out for festivals and concerts and it all seems quite contrived as a way to make even more money off of their gen-x new-age grunge motorcycle hip diverse alternative coffee drinking boutique beer guzzling tattoo wearing friends. Don't get me wrong we enjoyed ourselves and sat outside at one of the wooden picnic tables in the arena area.

Both the inside decor and the menu were just as eclectic.

The menu as a wide variety of things but we settled in on the "death" wings a Philly cheese steak sub and a "Bengal Tiger" pizza. Everything was great. The Philly cheese steak was well executed and the death wings were very good even though the heat didn't really kick in until the third wing or so but it did catch up with us. EAT thinks we should get a batch of these wings and sit and eat them while watching OU beat Missouri by way of our personal revenge for the spice.

The bengal tiger pizza had Indian spices, crab and other wierd things the pizza was the flat new-york style (very thin, to the point that you had to fold it over to eat it) made by hand and was well executed.

The spices made the pizza very different flavor and I don't know if it was fishyness from the crab or was it that we were getting too full but we could not finish it.

Would we go back to Grinders? Absoutly! The menu is way to diverse to catch all the gems in two or even three trips. Would we go attend a concert? I think not. This crowd is not "our people".

This ART is for you

2009-09-03T19:16:00.000-05:00

Art, you would love every inch of the Q hotel (formerly know as the Quarterage hotel). From the sheer curtains that divides the lobby form internet/business center to every piece of furniture, carpet, wall paper, and light fixtures. Plus on top of all that the hotel is committed to going "green". You and I must come here come someday soon and check out the Q and KC. A real girls get away. MOM

God Bless The Inventor Of The FIber Tablet

2009-09-03T16:43:00.002-05:00

BOBO's Drive In

2009-09-03T16:34:00.002-05:00

EAT here at Bobo's, what a name. You either have to laugh or roll your eyes when you say it. But this was the first true drive in on our trip and we finally found it.

This was the place that I was looking forward to the most and it was almost everything that I expected. Yeah, almost. Guy said they were famous for the Spanish burger and their apple pie and I would agree. Everything else was Sonic grade and not so memorable. When we first pulled in it was a bit confusing on how we were supposed to order and be served. We pulled in to a long line of cars that were covered by an awning and has striped parking slots but no speakers or anything only a giant menu board that could be seen by all cars.

We were sitting in our spot trying to figure out what to do when suddenly a car hop walked up to us and put a plastic card with a number on it under our windshield wiper. I have no idea how they keep up with who is coming or going or how long they have been there but somehow they do. She asked us for our order and we ordered the daily special of a pork sandwich fries and a coke. We also ordered the Spanish burger, onion rings a root beer float and apple pie. When they give it to you it is on a tray that his hooked to your window like they did in the old days. No paper bags here! That is unless you order take out.

While we were waiting for our food I went snooping in the enclosed seating area:

And I found proof that Guy had actually been there. Yes he signed their light shade:

The pork sandwich was fine but it is really nothing to write home about nor could you really tell it was pork. The breading was so strong and the pork was so thin that there was no greasiness at all and the pork flavor was totally overpowered. You could fake out your Kosher friends and say "here eat this it tastes just like chicken" then when the chow down tell them "AH HAHAHA It's PORK. Got you!". OK maybe that would be a great trick but not such a nice one after all.

One of the stars of the show, the Spanish burger, was a plain ole burger with a very unique tomato based sauce that really made it taste great. Not hot just good. And it was just a burger onions, pickles, and the sauce on a bun but it was great. The other star was the apple pie. Truly home made with fresh apples and served on a real plate with a real metal fork while everything else was in paper and plastic. But it deserved the special treatment it was something special itself.

Would we go to BoBo's again? Yes.

If you get the chance to touch down in Topeka get to BoBo's and have a Spanish burger and buy a whole pie and bring us a slice or two.

EAT

Brint's Diner

2009-09-03T15:48:00.000-05:00

Our first morning in Kansas (on this trip that is) we enjoyed the hotel it was one of those apartment type with a stove and fridge and all. Or at least I did. EAT was feeling all nostalgic for the shabby sheik of the Builtmore. Spend more money get a better place and she likes the decaying best of 60's construction, go figure. We made it to Brint's by 9 and it is just about what you would expect to see as the picture in the encyclopedia under “diner”.

Nothing unique on the menu so I went for the #4 which was 2 eggs poached, corned beef, hash browns, toast, and OJ. EAT got 1 egg over easy, bacon, hash browns, and dry whole wheat toast (her favorite, I think it reminds her of her infancy chewing Melba toast. Now THAT's comfort food), coffee and diet coke caffeine junkie that she is. We also ordered a ½ order of their biscuits and gravy just to try as that is their signature dish.

This place had on the front of their menu a description of when Guy visited them. They are actually in his book and were filmed before the DDD show actually started airing. That means they were one of the first. And for good reason. This was a great diner. All the decor was there down to the regulars and the characters.

The standout work done by the Chef were the eggs. The over-easy were perfectly done with a gentle hand and not over cooked in any way. The poached were also exactly right deep water poached (no circle egg gizmos here) to exactly the right done-ness. Poached eggs are normally served in a separate cup and one of my pet peeves is sometimes the cook will slop water into the cup and the eggs end up sitting in a little puddle. This cook did a great job of draining the eggs as there was no water in the cup. Bravo.

The biscuits were light and the gravy was great with the appropriate amount of sausage bits in it. I am afraid to say that they beat out “The Diner” on this one. But they lose out on the hash browns. Brint's hash browns had a mushy greasy consistency and while they had brown bits on the outside they appeared to be actually undercooked a tiny little bit. The bacon was good and crispy but the corned beef hash was canned.

But we enjoyed everything and in fact when we were winding down in a valiant act of kindness I pulled the remaining hash browns out of EAT's range saying “you have to save room we have a long day”. She agreed with me but kept stabbing her fork at this and that and taking little nibbles. It's going to be a long day.

Would we go back? Yes. For either more biscuits and gravy or to check out their lunch.

Savute's Italian Ristorante

2009-09-03T15:34:00.003-05:00

So we begin the Kansas edition by visiting Savute's.

This restaurant was not on Guy's list. Perhaps he just has not got around to it yet because it certainly qualifies. It is billed as Wichita's oldest Italian restaurant it was opened in 1944 by Rose and Tom Simone and was bought by Rosie's brother and wife John and Mary Savute in 1950. Defiantly a family business. The family is still involved in fact I believe we had daughter Mattie Savute in the dining room on our trip.

Savute's has retained much of the 1940's charm with cheesy big band music in the background (don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of big band and actually play in one but I have heard Dino sing “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie. one too many times) and a most pronounced World War 2 south pacific decor ever. The original guy must have been a pilot because there is an airplane theme all over. In fact the menu's back page is devoted to airplane trivia and a reproduction of the “Instrument of Surrender” signed of behalf emperor of Japan and the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers General Douglas Mac Arthur. That is on every menu, every day, for 60 years, these people are seriously stuck in the '40's!

The menu has all the usual suspects that you expect at an Italian restaurant, spaghetti with all the trimmings, ravioli, lasagne, but they also have a few surprises like a dish of anchovies for an appetizer, and beef scallopini, A La Provolone. EAT and I decided that given the events of the day before discretion is the better part of valor so we decided to basically split a single full course meal.

We got a combo platter of lasagne, spaghetti and meat ball, and beef scallopini for our main dish, a plate of anchovies and a standard garden salad for our salad, and an antipasto plate as the appetizer., then we finished it off with a tiramisu.

The salad had a home made Italian dressing on it that actually was a little sweet and good not to vinegary and not too oily. The antipasto plate was a good attempt given that these people have to shop in Wichita and I doubt they have much access to authentic cheeses and sausages. It seemed they just threw a bunch of stuff that they thought was exotic on the plate and put a few toothpicks with paper Italian flag in it. But what the heck it worked out well to pair with the anchovies. They probably know that people in Wichita won't eat Gorgonzola.
I did find that the menu had been corrupted with some local food like Kansas Rib-Eye steak and believe it or not fried chicken. But I cut them some slack because after 60 years they have to play to the local palate a little bit.
The tiramisu was not exciting, not the worst but not the best. It was a little strange that they managed to cut it in a wedge like a cake.

But I found the combo platter to the be the better features. Their sauce was a little bit sweet not like most modern restaurant sauces you get these days where they try to drive you out of our seat with the spices. It gave me a hint of “Chef Boyardee” canned sauce but is was obviously freshly made from an old recipe. I am thinking that this is just about what the Italian-American palate wanted in a spaghetti sauce in the 1940's. I think it us modern people who have changed our opinion of what a spaghetti sauce should be. So I give their sauce a thumbs up. And the meat ball was superb! Great seasoning and very finely ground. My only complaint there was that there was only one and I had to split it with EAT who wouldn't give up even a little sliver of her half!
The lasagne was good with the same sauce and a very good helping of good quality ricotta cheese. No complaints there. But the surprise was the beef scallopini. It is some low grade cuts of meat beaten into submission to about 3/16 of an inch thick and fast grilled on a flat top with again the sauce and vegetables and a glob of mozzarella. When I first bit into it I came across a flavor that took me quite a while to recognize, it was celery! The beef is truly something special.
Would we go back to Savute's? I would. I would like to try a full plate of spaghetti with extra meat balls. EAT on the other hand would not. She thought that for the money spent there was little delight. For the flavors she got she could do better all by herself at home. A split vote.

The things I see in the waiting room

2009-09-03T15:20:00.004-05:00

EAT here. Here are some pictures of things that caught my eye during the car ride. SET has told you that I'm left brain and in a waiting room I would notice the colors and shapes and design, here are things that I made Set pull over for. A windmill on a Oklahoma farm, flowers along the roadside in Kansas. I especially like the bees on the purple thistles, the yellow sunflowers against a mid afternoon sky in August. Vote for your favorite.

And I didn't flip the truck over after all.

Mama E's afterthought

2009-09-03T08:45:00.000-05:00

Ok we were not being totally upfront about our breakfast yesterday. We actually took leftovers from Mama E's because we felt compelled to "clean our plate" as to not make them feel bad. With everything else we got desserts with our meals. I got a slice of lemon pound cake and EAT got a slice of sweet potato pie. Let me tell you these guys know their sugar. The cake and pie were sweet, sweet, sweet! There was so much sugar that ambulances should carry a slice as a treatment for insulin shock:
"This patitent is in insulin shock, administer a half a slice of the sweet potato pie--- STAT"
Later after transporting to the hospital.
"But doctor we tried to keep the pie away from him but he gobbled the whole piece when we looked away.". Doctor, "That's alright don't worry we will just put him in intensive care and monitor his blood sugar levels until he stabilizes. But please watch that pie around the patients it's powerful stuff!".

Yes they were sweet but the sweet potato actually tastes like potato. Normally sweet potato tastes like pumpkin pie to me. And the lemon pound had little flakes of lemon in it to make it taste bright and lively in all the sweetness.

So would we go back to Mama E's? Yes, to get a pie.

Eischen's

2009-09-02T18:24:00.002-05:00

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.

Mama E's

2009-09-01T21:46:00.000-05:00

We arose from our slumber and focused ourselves on the task at hand. It was time to get back on task and pick the mantle of responsibility back up. We must go therefore and EAT!

So we got on the road to Mama E's, a soul food resturant.

Mamma E's is located in not the best section of town and their building architecture is early 90's home depot. Not that there is anything wrong with that doesn't the definition of DDD include Dives? What is "soul food" anyway? In our most common definition it means comfort food of black heritage. I don't actually think it can be properly prepared or served by any hodie-todie 4 star restaurant. It has to be experienced in a back water out of the way place where people only care about the food. This place definatly fits that description but never the less I was excited. I am actually a big fan of "soul food" and was pretty pumped to be getting the real stuff.

So we went in with high hopes. They are the only restaurant so far who actually acknowledged the DDD show and that they had been featured on it:

Notice Guy's stencil on the wall?. When they introduced their available dishes they actually named their famous "Waffles and Wings" as being featured on Food Network.

EAT went for the "Waffels and Wings" special which comes with sweetpotatoe pie and over sweetened KoolAid. She also selected what would turn out to be the best dish of them all, a side of their black-eyed peas. When we say "Waffles and Wings" it is just that. A fresh made Belgium waffle and chicken fried wings and powered sugar. Then they supplied us with a big bottle of syrup that is intended to be put over the whole thing. Strange. But the waffle was actually very good. Eating the wings proved to be challenging because they were fresh from the oil and were about 5000 degrees hot. We had to wait quite a while before we could even handle them. But the peas were great perfectly seasoned and probally worth the trip just to taste them. I got things off of their pre-prepaired service line. I got the "Smothered Ribs", "Chicken and stuffing", "Mashed potatoes and gravy", and "Collard Greens".

I enjoyed the potatoes and the chicken and stuffing were great. The chicken seemed to be roasted but were pretty much buired in stuffing, no problem there! The ribs were simmered in brown gravy and onions and I was quite excited about that until I actually bit into it and found it to be very tough. Not good. Tough ribs are a primary fo-pa in rib land. Ok but on to the collard greens. They did a pretty good job with them and they were obviously made fresh but I was underwhelmed. Don't ask me why they just didn't trip my trigger. Then EAT tells me that the wings were just ho-hum and the waffle had absorbed so much syrup that it was just a glob of sweet (that between us we managed to wolf down by the way). It was all starting to unravel. My expected experience of un known soul food tastes was fading fast. I didn't know what to do so we started talking about how full we were and the wait staff brought us a bag to take things to go. I picked up my teeth-chatteringly sweet KoolAid and we slided out the door heading for the truck. Only to be met at the door by the owner and cook:

He was reasonably asking us what we thought of the food so I came up with the quickest complementary statement that I could that wasn't a lie. "It was better than the Cattleman's restaurant". He replied that his wife had been trying to get him to go there but he couldn't see spending the money. I told him not to bother that he had them beat.

Would I recommend Mama E's? Yes, simply experiencing the delightful friendly and cheerful wait staff, the location, and the unusual menu is something that everyone should enjoy at least once. Will I be going back alone? In other words will I be going back without having someone else along for the purpose of giving them this experience for the first time? Probably not. I really hate saying that because I WANT the resturant to be great. It turns out that the owner is the pastor of a local Church and all the profits go into the Church. The restaurant is an income source for the mission of that Church.... I left a big tip.

When the wait staff found out that we traveled down just to eat at their place (along with other places) they brought us a magic marker and asked us to sign their wall (the walls are covered with messages from patrons. So if you ever go there look in the corner for "Amazing Grace Amazing Food SET and EAT broken arrow OK 9-02-09" that's us.

Nap revisitied

2009-09-01T16:12:00.000-05:00

Eat. Just finished the Cattleman's Steakhouse blog. Our hotel has a courtyard and our room opens up to it. A lovely breeze is drifting in the room, the air smells clean and fresh, i stretched out across the bed with two soft cushy pillows under my head, I think...I...will....take...a...napZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz........

Nick's Grill

2009-09-01T15:59:00.002-05:00

Full to overfull, about to go into some sort of coma state, it is only about 10am so what do we decide to do? Let's go to Nick's early to miss the crowd!

Nick's is an extremely small place with about 8 bar stools and three two person small tables. We got there at 10:45 and there were 4 bar stools left. Most of the patrons were still eating breakfast.

There is nothing wrong with eating breakfast at 10 or so but we were there for lunch, we had just had our breakfast. Just about an hour ago. A full breakfast that neither of us could actually finish. And here we are looking for lunch. WHAT WERE WE THINKING!

Nick's has a rather small menu there are really only about 5 lunch items but each of them are killer. He is famous for his burgers. In fact if you go read some of the other blogs some people think that eating a Nick's hamburger has changed their lives. Well I won't go that far but it is a mighty fine burger! EAT and I just ordered standard cheese burgers and watched Nick and his assistant squeeze past each other trying to do work in a space that only an anorexic supermodel could actually turn around in (I know, I know, anorexic supermodel is an oxymoron). But they got it happening! The assistant asked us for our drinks and what we wanted we grunted back "Coke! Diet! Cheeseburger" trying our best not to let the food already in our stomachs spew forth because we slightly constricted our diaphragms to speak louder. Did I mention that we were already full?

In some feat of telepathy the assistant communicated the order to Nick because we never saw anything written down nor did we see them actually talk about our order. Nick slapped down 2 balls of hamburger meat and things began to cook.

The picture is blurred by the steam but what you are seeing is buns, burgers, and a MESS of onions on the flattop grill. Nick is a master he put the meat down and never touched it again until he turned it once. The next time he touched them was to scoop some onions on them and put cheese to melt on them. And thick! His burgers are as thick if not thicker than you would make for your own back yard grill. No mashed flat white castle burgers here!

The net effect is that almost all the juice from both the burgers and the onions went straight into the bun. Nick finished them off with shredded lettuce, tomato, and your choice of dressings. We had mustard. I don't really remember ordering fries but we both had a serving. There is actually a sign on the menu that split orders and sharing are not allowed so we HAD to order our own burgers. Really, they forced us. Nick triple fried the absolutely fresh curly fries and everything was done right in front of us. We could have touched the fryer if we leaned over the counter and the grill was just a couple feet to the right of that.

The burgers were pretty much the best I have had in a long while, probably ever. And that's saying something I have had some pretty good burgers! The way the meat and onions and bread melded together made every bite absolutely a burst of flavor and goodness. I really don't want to gush on and on like everybody else does when writing about Nick's but you know what? It is deserved! This is the best burger!

And the joint is SO SMALL. People were standing behind me like Ethiopian refugees waiting for food. But I really didn't care because I had the burger and that's all that mattered. I even heard another patron down the way say to someone "you can sit here I don't care what you do as long as I get a burger!". I was thinking "I'm with you buddy!"

And after we ate the strangest thing happened. I wasn't over stuffed. Neither was EAT! How could that be? We had stuffed and stuffed all morning and all of the sudden our bodies just found some place to put it all and let us be comfortable! Was this some sort of culinary magic? Are Nick's burgers magic? I don't know. I can't think anymore I need a nap.

The Diner in Norman

2009-09-01T15:11:00.002-05:00

So I wake up at 5am for no good reason. The Elwood effect in action. I lie there in the dark and just think about things until EAT wakes up. Our plan is to get to Norman before 8 so that we can shoehorn in to the diner before the crowd hits. We needn't have worried, it is a college town, NOBODY was awake before 9:30!

EAT hit the shower and started yelping for some strange reason. Not to long afterwords she came out and declared that the shower was ice cold and that she rushed through giving out a scream every time the cold water hit a new part of her body. Great! I thought the Builtmore was letting us down in yet a new way. But when I went into the ice cave of doom my shower was nice and warm. I figure that EAT ran the water long enough for the hot water to reach us from the boiler that must be a quarter mile away in this airport size motel. But I did think it was nice of her to draw a nice warm bath for me this morning.

Somehow I think that I will be taking the first shower tomorrow.

Going to Norman was a mostly uneventful trip except for a little arguing with the garmin and a dose of OKC rush hour.

"The Diner" Breakfast done right. Not fancy, not big but man let me tell you! This has got to be the best omelet I have ever eaten. Really!

They only do breakfast and lunch and the menu has nothing special except that it does seem to have a few more Mexican breakfast dishes than you would think (but then again it is OKC).

The big special item was the "Chef's choice combination Omelet" so ignoring the lesson of ordering different things that we learned yesterday we both ordered the chef's choice. I did go for the biscuits and gravy and EAT went for dry toast so we switched it up a little bit.

We were not disappointed the eggs were cooked perfectly and where actually fluffy. It had mushrooms in it which most of the time when people put mushrooms in an omelet they end up being raw. These mushrooms were obviously fresh but had actually been cooked. In fact all of the ingredients were cooked and cooked just right. The big surprise was the inclusion of a nicely spiced summer sausage that they had obviously peeled the casing off of (nice touch). I got hash-browns (which I WAY recommend over the french fry option) and they were also cooked perfectly. Not greasy like you get from the deep fried kind but obviously cooked on the flat top to crispy perfection. I didn't even use any ketchup! It was all great and I couldn't stop eating. I knew I had to slow down and save room but I just couldn't. Finally EAT's more cooler head prevailed and she said "Stop Eating!". Only then did I put my fork down and take time to sample the biscuits. The biscuits were light and fluffy and again not greasy.

The gravy was a standard white sauce that in any other restaurant would be the star of the show but on this table was the last runner up. It was sort of like watching the Miss America pageant. I mean all the girls are beautiful and talented and even the last place contestant is a knock out but when in a room together the stars obviously outshine the others.

The Omelet was the star the hash-browns were the first runner up. EAT and I are unanimous in this!

I would not make a trip back to the Cattleman's on purpose but I am really thinking about how we can find a way to swing back to Norman and go to the "The Diner".

Stroud as Napa

2009-09-01T13:36:00.001-05:00

There are actually many vineyards around Oklahoma I knew about the "Sparks" winery that is in Stroud and was mildly interested in finding it. But when we got into town I saw a sign saying it was about 12 miles away. We really didn't feel like going that far out of our way so, oh well.

On our way back from the booming metroplois of Kendrick I saw a small building and sign for a different wineary named Stableridge. So after the "Rock Cafe" we decided to stop by and check that one out.

It turns out that it was a family owned and run winery and vineyard that has been in operation for about 6 years. The land that it sits on was next door to the land of the current owners and when the 1999 tornado came through it wiped out the previous owners who put the land up for a steal. The current owner bought the land just to clean it up and preserve his property but on a lark he started with messing with growing grapes. Starting with 10 vines and getting up to about 1000. At that point he figured he may as well start making some wine with them.
They have been pretty busy building their business and have won over 40 international wine medals for their wine. In fact one of the wines we tasted had just come from a contest the previous week where it won four awards by itself. What an unexpected treat. Here we are in bo-diddley Italy Oklahoma and we come across a small multi-award winning winery!

We met with the owner and he took us all around the vines and the winery and explained their journey from not even being wine drinkers 6 years ago to being award winning vintners now.

And had the most fun showing us the outdoor pizza oven he had just built and describing the dinners he likes to put on using the oven. We have got to figure out a way to get invited to one of those!

And to top it all off their shop and office was a prestate-hood catholic church that just happened to be on the property and just happened to survive the tornado note the arched windows.

Lots of atmosphere, great wine, direct conversations with the owner, private tour, what a gem of a find! and to think we almost just drove by.

SET

The Cattleman's Steakhouse

2009-09-01T13:28:00.000-05:00

Hey it's Eat, After my heavenly nap we made contact with the Sapplings. I finally got to see their new apt, it is in Brick Town area, very DINK interurban chic.

Saw just a streak of CAT but that was it. LSappling says that it take only 10 minutes on her bike to get to the medical college all very convenient. The Sapplings look content, cozy, and happy. Soon we were off to the Cattleman's Steakhouse. Even before Diners, Drive-in's, and Dives I was aware of the reputation of the Cattleman's Steakhouse.

As we got closer to the stockyards (yes it is right at the entrance gate to the stockyards, can't get fresher than that) it was cowboy world. Western wear, cowboy boots and hat stores galore. The interesting thing I'm really enjoying so far are the signs outside the restaurants, original 40, 50 and 60's design, no retro junk here, just classic tacky, I just love it. Upon entering the tacky continues but it is in a good way, you feel that you are back in the 60's and LBJ is president, you gotta know that he carried Oklahoma in the 64 elections. We were seated in a curved corner vinyl bench and table. Drawing of famous country and western singers who have graced the establishment are on the walls, I didn't have a clue who most of them were.

We placed our drink order, believe it or not they have a wine list, we ordered a Pino Noir 2007 from Oregon, very nice. For appetizers we ordered Lamb Fries, yes lamb fries (when we got back to the hotel we checked online for Lamb fries, and Wikipedia listed Cattleman's Steakhouse as one of two resturants famous for them. And yes you knew it was coming...Lamb Fries are a unique dish to Oklahoma. At least according to Wikipedia.). Yes Lamb fries are what you think.

So the question on your blog reader mind is what do they taste like? Well if you squeeze lemon juice on them and then dip them in cocktail sauce they taste like fried something (dip it and fry it, it's the Oklahoma way) with lemon and cocktail sauce. The disturbing thing is how soft, tender, and slightly chewy they are eat, no balls of steel here!

Next our salads arrive and they were not worth describing or of recall. L & JSapplings ordered petite steaks, while I ordered a fillet Mignon and Set ordered a PRIME grade rib-eye steak (if you don't know the difference between choice and prime, look it up). All steaks were cooked as ordered and very delicious.I remembered seeing a baked potato on my plate but can not recall how it tasted. For desert the Sapplings ordered blackberry cobbler and we ordered strawberry shortcake. LSappling thought the cobbler was great and after tasting the cobbler I didn't have the heart to tell her tasted like pie filling since she tells me they are mostly living on mac and cheese. The strawberry shortcake was to mushy, too sweet, too forgettable. Would I recommend the Cattleman's Steakhouse? Yes I would especially if someone else was picking up the tab!.

EAT

The Perfect Nap

2009-08-31T22:39:00.001-05:00

Eat again. This afternoon upon arriving in OKC and checking into the hotel I experience something that I rarely get to do...nap. I laid across the king size bed and drifted gently asleep while Set was out doing something. I slept nearly hour and I woke up on my own. It was like the best birthday or Christmas gift ever. It was better than shopping (can you believe something could be better than shopping), better than that three letter word? No, wait a minute, no not that good, but I want to do it again nap that is, again and again or at least tomorrow.

The Rock Cafe

2009-08-31T22:13:00.001-05:00

The famous Rock Cafe. Certinaly the largest tourist attraction in Stroud. Featured in DDD, featured in the movie "CARS" and listed as Stroud's "Business of the year" by a large plastic banner strung up outside. I'll bet that banner stays there all the time not just this year.

Not much to look at. We can't figure out of this is classified as a diner or a dive.

The menu was simply 2 zeroxed pages stapled together and quite wrikled and "used":

The decor was mostly pine and artifacts from the time the resturant was burned down last year. They rebuilt over the past year and really have done a pretty good job of making it look new but retaining the old character.

The food really is great. Their main twist is basic diner fare but with a german twist. EAT had Jaggersnitzel and spatzel and I had the hot meat plate (which the cook calls "heartattack on a plate"). EAT's food was basically a pounded flat boneless pork chop, breaded and fried accompanied by spatzel (a german dumpling) which in addition to being boiled had been fried crispy on the flat top. That was all covered by what seemed to be a mushroom red-eye gravy. Quite tasty.

My dish basically a hamburger patty on texas toast that was covered with onions, mushrooms, and a helping of curly fries and then that whole lot was doused in brown gravy.

The funny thing is that at first I thought my meat patty was completly unseasoned. It blended quite well with the gravy but I couldn't believe that they did not even put salt in the meat. I thought EAT's dish tasted great from the start. So many flavors. I thought she had made the better choice But about half way through the dish EAT asked me to trade with her and I started to understand why. The red-eye gravy was great but very rich. After a while it got on your nerves and really reduced your enjoyment. The blandness of the meat in my dish tempered the grease of the fries and the brown gravy to the point that it finished much better leaving you with a strong desire for more.

But both dishes were great. My recommdation is to order both and share!

We finished with a bread pudding.

It is pretty unusual to see bread pudding on a diner menu and this thing looked like a cinnamon roll. The thing was that is was totally devoid of sweetness! We thought something was wrong until we realized that it was made of both white AND rye bread. Once we realized that and recognized the rye flavor it was a great dish. Bread pudding doesn't HAVE to be a sugar bomb. This was great.

So that was lunch, now on to OKC and dinner.

Oh yeah, just as we were leaving we were overrun by a corvette club from calafornia. This Rock Cafe really does have a name for itself.

Embarking on the trip - SET

2009-08-31T21:34:00.002-05:00

So it's Monday morning. EAT wakes up at 3am to let the stupid grey cat out. I get woke up at 5 am to let one of the stupid white cats out, Why is it that the cats can't all go in and out at the same time? We are very diligent to make sure the cats are out of the house at bed time but April gets in late and they rush the door when she comes in. That's all well and good for a while but then their nocturnal side kicks in and they want to go back out to hunt who knows what and leave it on my patio (it is a regular killing fields around our house, birds, mice, rabbits, bats, large insects....) and they make a pest of themselves until one of us gets up and lets them out. But they never can seem to get themselves coordinated to all go in and out at the same time so it turns into a two or three time event during the night. No wonder I never get enough sleep it seems.

We have told April time and time again to not let them in when she comes home (I think she is part vampire because she stays out so late. Could there be a vegetarian vampire?) but her latest thing is "but they are sooo cute!". Maybe, but it is getting a bit annoying.

But after our broken night's sleep we finally get up at 7am to start our trip and promptly roll over and go back to sleep. It is vacation after all! So we wake up again at about 8:15. I run around the house gathering, packing and doing some last min household business EAT does her hair and makeup. Imagine that, I am basically unprepared and trying to catch up quick and EAT is totally packed and mostly just sitting around trying to figure out what to wear.

I go outside and start loading up our "steed" the Avalanche.

And we hit the road at 10:15.... Don't ask what happened to the two hours....

We go and do one little chore and then get on down to Stroud for our first stop the "Rock Cafe". But when we first get to Stroud I just had do see what was left of the "Outlet Malls Of America" that was distroyed by the 1999 F5 tornado that just about wiped Stroud off the map. Here is the picture I got of the Mall:

This is what is left of the outlet malls. A slab of concrete. Ignore that building in the background it is not on the outlet mall property and was built after the tornado.I bring this up because I had the opportunity to go down the turnpike two days after the tornado hit and this is exactly what I saw with the exception that there was not grass in the cracks. Really, it was totally bare all of the buildings were just gone. Nothing has changed in these 10 years this is exactly how it looked on that day in 1999. Them F5's are powerfull stuff. In fact I drove around and found just about the only thing that was left standing.

The order menu board from the wendys that use to be there. Again this is exactly how it looked after the tornado in 1999. It is totally weird that this sign survived but the BUILDING WAS GONE!

So off we went to Stroud trusting our faithful garmin. But you know you really have to program in the right address the first time. We put in the address 114 Main and ended up in Kendrick:

This did not look like the Rock Cafe! Amazing what a little thing like the "W" in "114 W Main" does to those silly little GPS systems. We were off course about 9 miles in the middle of nowhere and even got the pleasure of checking out some of the local roads that were a little less than paved:

And we got to see some of the wackier locals:

But it all got better when we finally found the Rock Cafe.

The Avalanche

2009-08-31T21:09:00.000-05:00

Eat speaks at last! This morning we begin the vacation' in Set's truck.
The question is does his truck qualify as a "truck". This huge thing I've named Brutes has 5 disk CD player, satellite radio, on star, and a sunroof. It also has bucket seats, a extended cab (like whatever that means). No this is no truck, its a SUV with a really long trunk. No my Dad had a truck! No power steering, no anti-locking breaks, no air condition', no seat belts or airbags, now that was a truck! A steering wheel so big you got a upper body out just turning the corner. You had to pump the breaks, or you never stop in time, you even has to crank the window to cool off and on the passenger side you had to use a pair of pliers to get the window down, just the sweet nostalgia of the shimmer and shake that truck would make when you went over 35MPH. Yes that was a "truck"1 But as we are gliding along the Turner turnpike, I am happy that we are not driving the mustang, these buckets seats sure are comfy after all.

The Itinerary

2009-08-30T16:06:00.001-05:00

Well I went on and on about EAT's creative side as opposed to my logical side. Now for a little twist. It turns out that I'm the toss it all to the wind and just go do something on the spur of the moment type and EAT is the planner. I am the one who will take a different rout to work just to experience a different route to work. It doesn't matter to me that it isn't the fastest or most direct what matters is the adventure of a new experience. We have attended the same Church for decades and we have been in the same house almost as long (yes we have attend Christ Presbyterian Church for longer than 25 years. No Church hoppers here!) so our route to Church is pretty much engraved in stone. Up 169, exit to 51, then over to I44 and off on Harvard. EAT will do that route every time multiple times a week the very same way, no deviations. That's good because if something ever happened I could retrace her path blindfolded. But it is just not me. I will go up 71st on day, 61st the next. I will go north on Harvard one week and north on Sheridan the next week. I get to see new things, I get to keep up with what's going on around town. I can't be too predictable I have got to keep the spy's who are watching on their toes guessing as to which way I might go next.

Once on our way to Church in the mini-van (you know you are in full-up dad mode when you actually think a mini-van makes sense to own) I was going up 71st street then on one of my adventures twists instead of turning north on Harvard I actually went through the intersection with the intent of going down to Lewis and circling back. What the adventure! A different way to go! What new travel experiences would we get with this? As soon as we went through the intersection my eldest daughter (who has been blessed with the organization gene) said "Daddy, you missed the turn". Without missing a beat EAT said "Don't worry honey you father knows what he is doing". Tolerance for diversity in action!

EAT has come to accept that in me she doesn't exactly like my unpredictable nature but I am what I am. EAT as you can imagine is a list maker, an organizer. You know what I mean, start the day; make the list; follow the list. To her organization is not a tool it is the proper way to live one's life. For her disorganization is evil and just plain wrong. I am not the organized type and find her list making tendencies a bit tedious but I love that in her. I can lay an idea out, provide resources and she will break it down into steps, organize it and get it done. Yet another way where we precisely compliment each other in our differences making a more complete whole together.

So when I said that I wanted to go on a road trip I really meant just that. Get in the car drive down to the main street and then flip a coin to determine whether to go east or west. Really! I was thinking about throwing sleeping bags in the car in case we got caught without access to a hotel. I wanted to just drive and see where that asphalt would end. A little unrealistic perhaps. Irresponsible? NO! That's not irresponsible that's the stuff that fun is made of.

Well I knew that wouldn't fly with EAT so I went and found the DDD list online and gave it to her and just kind of backed off. I was done at that point. I knew I would not have to do anything else because her organizational tendencies would kick in to hyper-drive and she would be driven to categorize complete and subdue. And yes, make a list or two or three.

In fact yesterday morning EAT sat down, picked the restaurants, contacted them to get their hours, assigned each restaurant to a meal (breakfast, lunch, or dinner) during our week, put them in order, plotted a route, calculated travel time between them, determined our overnight stay points, found hotels and booked reservations, typed it all up and presented it to me at 1pm.

I, in the meantime, got my hair cut.

I would say it was all a part of my master plan to get her to do all that work but I had no plan. That's just how we work together. We subconsciously know what each other will enjoy doing and accomplish well so we each just fall in our roles. And we love it.

So I present to your our Itinerary. Please look forward to watching us work our way through it.

Foodies Gone Wild-Oklahoma Kansas edition

Monday august 31 to Saturday September 5, 2009

Monday August 31

Leave Tulsa
Arrive at The Rock Café 114 Main Street Stroud, OK 918-968-3990 for lunch. Open 6am-9pm 7 days a week.
Check in to the Biltmore Hotel 401 Meridian Ave in OKC 1-405-947-7681. $126.15
Dinner at Ingrid’s Kitchen 3701 N. Youngs Bldg OKC 1-405-946-8444 open on Monday till 6:30pm or the Cattleman’s Steakhouse 1309 S Agnew Ave. 1-494-236-0415 open 6am-10:00pm.
Tuesday September 1
Breakfast at The Diner 13 E. Main. Norman OK 1-405-329-6642 Opens at 6:30am.
Lunch at Nic’s Grill 201 N. Pennsylvania Ave OKC 1-405-524-0999 Open 7am-2pm.
Dinner at Mamma’s E Wings and Waffles 3838 Springlake Drive 1-405-424-0800 Open Tuesday 11am-7pm.

Wednesday September 2

Check out of hotel.
Breakfast at Nic’s Grill. See above.
Lunch at Eischen’s Bar 109 N. Second Street in Okache, OK 1-465-263-9939.
Check into the Cresthill Suites Hotel in Wichita, KS 12111 E, Central Ave. 1-316-689-8000. $104.51.
Dinner- not on Guy’s Fieri’s list of Diner, Dives, and Drive-in’s. Savute’s Italian Ristorante 3303 N. Broadway. 1-316-838-0455.

Thursday September 3

Check out of hotel.
Breakfast at Brint’s Diner 4834 E. Lincoln Street 1-316-684-0290. Open 6am-2pm.
Lunch at BoBo’s Drive-in in Topeka, KS 2300 SW 10th Ave. 1-785-4511.
Check into the Q Hotel and Spa 560 W. Port Road Kansas City, Mo. 1-816-931-0001. $99.46.
Dinner at Grinders 417 E.18th Street in Kansas City MO. 1-816-472-5454 open till 11:00pm

Friday September 4

Check out of hotel
Breakfast at Momma’s 39th St. Diner 3906 Waddell Street Kansas MO. 1-816-531-6422
Lunch BBQ Shack 1613 E. Peoria Street in Paola Kansas. 1-913-294-5908. Open T-Sat 11am-9pm.
Check into The Little Brick Inn Bed and Breakfast. 1101 Military Ave, in Baxter Springs, KS. 1-620-856-5646. $85.00.
Dinner at the Café on the Route see above address.

Saturday September 5

Breakfast at the inn.
Check out of B&B.
Lunch at Clanton’s Café. 319 E. Illinois Ave in Vinita OK 1-918-256-9053.
Arrive home.

Just a little light pre-planning don't you think? And I always knew I was just dreaming about the sleeping bags in the back of the truck. EAT's version of "roughing it" is a hotel where both the shampoo and conditioner are not actual name brands. She want's me to sell my camping equipment because she has declared that we will never go camping again. She is probably right.

SET

Our Inspiration

2009-08-28T00:11:00.002-05:00

As I said this trip is most definitely inspired by Food Network's “Diners Drive-ins and Dives” program which is hosted by Guy Fieri.

Guy takes a camera crew to different places and spends about a week to get about 20 minutes worth of footage. He says that they visit a lot of places that never see the light of the television simply because each establishment must have three things; 1. Great food; 2. Kitschy atmosphere; 3. Something special.

But we don't have the time or patience to actually do what Guy does so we decided to leverage his work.

We went on the prowl to the food network web site and looked at what they had to document Guy's trips and we found out that the Food Network site was basically useless for anything but advertising the “Diners Drive-ins and Dives” television show and re-playing the most recent episodes.

But then we stumbled across http://www.flavortownusa.com/ which appears to be Guy's own site. It has full details of every place he as visited including a map,

a search engine, and the actual list of places with addresses and everything. We noticed that there was a pretty large concentration of sites right here in mid-America. We thought "We can actually do this without driving all across the nation". That's when it started feeling like this was real. It was actually going to happen. Our very own ROAD TRIP!

So EAT used that information and developed an itinerary which I will share with you next time.

Here is a tease:

set

Intro

2009-08-26T22:40:00.002-05:00

Hi;
This is set reporting for myself and eat. I will probably do most of the reporting simply because I type faster. Eat is more the artsy type. She is pretty much right brained, things like typing and spelling don't mix well with the creative centered brain. She will comment on the colors of a room and the choice of fabrics before she notices that it is a waiting room for a doctor. I am a more the left brained type I arrange all the furniture in a square against the wall because it makes logical sense to me. I would prefer all the grass blades in my lawn to be the same length and color. In fact it is not even a question or debate that a lawn must be maintained to a consistent length and appearance of flatness. I will ask how much the doctor is charging before I even notice the color of the room. But between us we make a pretty holistic entity covering both ends of the spectrum of awareness.

For your information we didn't make up these names, they are actually our initials. My name is Stephen Edward Thompson and my wife's name is Elizabeth Ann Thompson (everybody knows that a proper southern women always has two first names, Elizabeth Ann, Betty Joe, Mary Nell, Mary Jane, etc...) So from the beginning of our married relationship we were set and eat.

Our relationship is not totally centered around the refrigerator but we do both like to eat. We are not gourmet snobs but we do know the difference between a bernaise sauce and a hollandaise sauce (it's the herbs) and we know why white wine Zinfandel is actually pink. We are pretty much eclectic in our appetites in that we will eat most anything at least once. If it is actually worth eating we will try to prepare it ourselves. That's not to say that we don't appreciate the work of a good chef. A good creative chef will prepare food in amazing ways either by using ingredients that you never expected or by using techniques that you never expected to create tastes or presentations never before experienced.

With that context we were faced with a problem.

We were BOTH in desperate need of a vacation. We had done NOTHING all year outside of house chores and work, work, work. Add to that some distressing events of the previous year (that I won't go into for YOUR sanity) and we were dying to get away from our day to day lives for a bit.

We thought of past vacations that we really enjoyed as spectacular. We remembered cruises, bed and breakfasts around interesting locations, and just lying around in cabins and vegging out. So the back and forth debate started. What should we do?

Cruises are nice. Very Nice! Going to a B&B is great. Very kitschy and full of atmosphere! Cabins in the wilderness are totally adventurous and truly make you forget your day to day life. But there are problems with each of them.

Cruises. Hustle bustle, security checks, move here, embark, disembark, re-board, eat, see a show, eat, go for drinks, eat, watch a string quartet, watch the 11pm show and end it all by the battle cry “And the eating contest continues on the Lido Deck!”. Lots of stuff, lots of bustle, no rest. No go!

B&B's great for character poor on plumbing. GREAT breakfasts, great conversation, great to get to know someone real from the area. Terrible for just being isolated and not talking deeply about ourselves. Horrible for being in a room and making noise that is not heard throught the house. I'M TALKING WATCHING TV HERE PEOPLE! Also it's a B&B. That means that they expect you to be GONE from noon to evening. What if we just want to sleep all day? Lots of concentrated character, no interesting changes or events, no veg time. No go.

The cabin.

Lots of alone time. Lots and lots of alone time. Alone time galore. So much alone time. Trees, wilderness, wildlife, more trees, NO CIVILAZATION. But after three days what do you talk about? Nothing but each other, cooking for ourselves, no maid service. Wait! no maid service? Well! Not for this vacation! Maid service defiantly required. And self cooking! No go.

So what to do?

Then I came up with the idea. We both watch the TV show “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” on the food network all the time (as well as most everything else on the food network and HGTV for that matter). We really enjoy watching Guy Fieri doing his magic, ferreting out those places that actually have good, unique food and celebrating it. We thought why don't we throw it all to the wind and just do a ROAD TRIP. Random but planned. Totally free but organized. Free from our day to day lives in TOTAL! Just free. And with lots of good tasty food that we did not have to prepare ourselves! And not the least of requirements... maid service.

So we begun the process of doing a road trip touring north east Oklahoma and southern Kansas visiting establishment that Guy Fieri had already approved and giving our review of them.

That's what this blog is all about. We intend to update this every day of our trip (and perhaps beyond) to give you a virtual “taste” of what we have experienced.

set

New Blog!

2009-08-25T18:30:00.002-05:00

Foodies Gone Wild! Thank you April for setting up this blog for me. On with the trip!