Casa Tamales, Bartlesville, Okla.

Oh, I got to stop by Casa Tamales in Bartlesville for the first time in a couple of years. This is one of those tiny, family owned and operated, hole in the wall kind of places with amazingly good food. They make the most wonderful, real, Mexican tamales there! It's got to be the best in Oklahoma for tamales: big, long things with flavorful pork in the hand-formed masa, rolled up in corn husks, tied, and steamed. Yum! I picked up half a dozen Friday and took them home to the family for lunch. They have other things there, too, but it's the tamales I always go for. They also make their own salsas, a mild tomato with bright flavors, a hot tomato with more complexity to it, and a very hot green tomatillo sauce with a unique but exquisite flavor.

Good food from Oklahoma

Foot long coney and tater tots from Sonic Drive-In
headquartered in Oklahoma City

Outlaws Chophouse, Bartlesville, Okla.

Tonight we celebrated my father's 80th birthday. He adamantly did not want a party, just a small family gathering. So, I took my parents out to dinner, and gave my dad his choice of restaurants. I suggested places like The Inn at Jarrett Farms, Copper at the Price Tower (the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building), Sterling's Grille, plus several nice places in Tulsa, but he picked Outlaws' Chophouse. This is the new place I visited on my last trip to Oklahoma over Labor Day weekend. Apparently, my parents have a circle of friends who know some of the owners of the place, and they all go there all too frequently. So, off we went to Outlaws.

Outlaw's is a fine every-day sort of place, but it continues to be in my view merely serviceable food and is totally not a "destination" restaurant (some diners in Oklahoma are). It's very casual and has Oklahoma style diner food, though just a tiny bit more upscale. Country-Western music (tonight it was Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, and Clint Black) plays in the background. The wait staff is casually attired in white t-shirts and blue jeans, and they are all very chatty with their tables.

My dad ordered the chicken-fried steak with French fries and gravy.


The nightly special was prime rib. My mother got that, with a baked sweet potato. I asked the waitress to pick between a ribeye and a K.C. strip steak for me (they were of equal price), but she chose to bring me the prime rib, which, being the special, was actually cheaper than the steaks. Eh. I got with it a tasty potato that had been baked in rock salt. While my mother loved her prime rib, I was less than impressed; it seemed to me to taste of meat tenderizing enzyme, had little beef flavor not in the marinade, and the bowl of au jus had a weird, almost seaweed taste. I asked for horseradish sauce and got a little cup of grated horseradish; that was fine, since it was strong enough to overpower the flavors of the meat. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much about the food—the bill for the three of us was about the same as it costs to feed one in D.C.


As is typical in Oklahoma, my dad got a free dessert for his birthday. The multi-layer brownie dessert they usually offer was unavailable, so they brought him an apple dumpling with vanilla ice cream.


I ordered their white-trashy but definitely tasty "Outlaw Pie," a layered thing with a sugar cookie crust, chocolate pudding, whipped cream, pecans, and more chocolate (I think the recipe originated with Jello Pudding and Cool Whip).


They seemed to have a good time at dinner, as did our waitress, a pretty high school girl who was telling us about playing basketball and showing us the brace she has to wear on her ankle.



And, as one might expect with long, octogenarian dinner parties, we were home by 6:30 p.m.! LOL

Thai Place, Washington, D.C.

After Mass Sunday, Laurent and I walked down Pennsylvania to Thai Place for a quick lunch. Laurent had the coconut chicken soup to start; I got a shredded papaya salad.




For main courses, Laurent got the beef pad thai. I got a dish called rama longsong, which is a yellow curry with chicken and peanut sauce served atop steamed spinach.

Café la Ruche, Georgetown, D.C.

Our friend Jon joined us for the symphony Friday night over at the Kennedy Center. After the performance, we walked along the river and made our way through the surprisingly-deserted Washington Harbor, then up the hills of Georgetown over to Café la Ruche for an aprés-concert supper.

Both of the boys ended up ordering croque monsieur sandwiches, fancy-sounding things that are really nothing more than the French version of a ham and cheese sandwich made with French toast and then the cheese on top instead of inside. They came with a large serving of mixed greens dressed with a hand-whipped mayonnaise-based French dressing.



I didn't order any food, deciding to save myself for the dessert course. The desserts at La Ruche are decadent and renowned, and they do the most evil thing and display them in this big refrigerated glass case in the back of the restaurant. When the appropriate time arrived, I selected a napoleon topped with fresh strawberries and blueberries and garnished with stiff crème chantilly.



Ryan got the mousse au chocolat, a beautiful presentation looking almost like a dark chocolate bombe arranged with strawberry quarters and lots of whipped cream. Jon sampled a little of both.