Wilson's BBQ, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tonight Tony and I had an early dinner at Wilson's BBQ up in north Tulsa. Wilson's is an authentic old time Tulsa barbecue joint in an iffy part of town. I did notice that they had spruced up the exterior of the building and the parking lot since the last time I was there probably five years ago.

Tony got the short ribs and I had the full beef ribs. Both platters came with bread, cole slaw, and baked beans. The ribs were, as always, delicious and messy. Good thing each table is stocked with a big roll of paper towels.



For dessert, I had a sweet potato pie and Tony got the buttermilk pie. I like their sweet potato pie because it's distinctly spiced and it doesn't taste of pumpkin pie spice as so many sweet potato pies I've had have done.

Villa Ravenna, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Wednesday evening, I went to The Farm shopping center with my friend Tony, where we ate at Villa Ravenna, a northern Italian-style restaurant.

Now, Tulsa doesn't really have much of an Italian community, so there's no "Little Italy" like there is in some of the big cities like Chicago or New York. Nevertheless, Italian immigrants have come to town seeing the opportunity to bring their home town cooking to the Oklahoma prairie. The owners branched off of a family restaurant in Houston called Via Emilia, and they use the same family recipes from Ravenna, an Italian town on the north Adriatic Sea coast. Interestingly, it's in the old Casa Laredo Mexican location, a local chain that Tony's family has patronized for years. The new decor is mostly accomplished with lots of green and red Italian flag colors and bunches of plastic grapes on lattice arbors, but it looks more old-style Italian-American cafe than tacky.

We started off with glasses of chianti while we tried to read the menus in the very dark restaurant; our table was illuminated with but one lighted taper in the center. Tony ordered the avocado salad and I ordered the cream of mushroom soup. My soup arrived so hot I couldn't eat it at first. The bowl was filled with a nice, thick, flavorful soup.



For his main course, Tony got the veal parmegiana. I found their presentation and recipe interesting; there was a layer of ham between the veal and the melted mozzarella cheese. It came with a side of spaghetti.

Speaking of which, I had the spaghetti carbonara. The carbonara was good, but once again, the recipe was interesting and non-traditional. Instead of just using egg and parmesan cheese, they put a little bit of alfredo sauce on the pasta.


In lieu of dessert, we each had a little glass of limoncello.


Overall, I thought the restaurant was nice for Tulsa, but I have to admit that I'm rather spoiled by some of the wonderful Italian restaurants on the East Coast, so the Tulsa place didn't "wow" me. There were a number of interesting entrees on the menu, though, that I would love to try on a future visit, and I've since heard that the osso bucco here is fantastic, so I'll have to check it out for myself.

The Brothers Houligan, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Wednesday my friend Bill took me to lunch at one of his favorite places in Tulsa, The Brothers Houligan. I'd been to the midtown location before, but this was my first time at their newish east Tulsa location.

The daily lunch special Wednesday was fried shrimp, so that's what Bill got. They brought him half a dozen large, butterflied, battered shrimp, and he thought they were very tasty. I got a luncheon-sized chicken fried steak. It tasted good. It was a long piece of round steak with a light breading on it, then the steak was covered in white cream gravy. Bowls of green beans, mashed potatoes, and cream gravy were presented family style for us to share.

El Guapo's Cantina, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Sunday I drove to Tulsa and met my friend Tony for dinner. We went to a Mexican place downtown called El Guapo's Cantina and sat upstairs on their rooftop patio. El Guapo's specializes in Oaxacan style cuisine.

I ordered one of their house specialties, the enchiladas de molé poblano. Mole is a classic Mexican sauce made with unsweetened chocolate (remember, the Aztecs are credited with "inventing" chocolate and bringing it into our modern cuisine via the Spanish conquistadors) and roasted poblano chiles. The dish is made with smoked chicken corn tortilla enchiladas, smothered in the mole sauce, and sprinkled with Mexican cotija cheese, crema (Mexican sour cream), onions, and cilantro. It came with rice and beans. I liked it a lot, and thought the mole had good complexity and a nice mouth feel.

Tony ordered the smoked steak and cheese flautas. After a momentary problem when the kitchen sent him fish tacos instead and we had to wait for the flautas to come up (an attentive manager came over to apologize and comped the flautas for us), his food arrived and looked very artistic. They'd made long flautas, cut them on the diagonal, then arranged them over a bowl full of white cheese queso blanco dip with creamy salsa verde, crema, and pico de gallo. It doesn't look like all that much, but it's a substantial and filling dish. His rice and beans were on the side.

For dessert, Tony got the fried ice cream, which was presented on a large white plate with a lot of decorative strawberry sauce and chocolate sauce around the ice cream. I got the peaches and cream sopapilla relleno. Sopapillas are deep-fried pockets of pastry, and I'd expected to get one stuffed with peaches and cream. Their version, though, had peaches between two flattened sopapillas, with ice cream on the plate and garnishes of whipped cream and strawberry sauce.

The Coleman Room at Buffalo Run, Miami, Oklahoma

Friday we drove up to the Joplin and Miami areas to do the annual family cemetery decorating. After we got done with that, we stopped by the Wyandotte and Peoria tribal casinos. Lots of little wins, but no bigger wins, so I spent all my meagre gambling capital in quest of the big money.

While we'd brought sandwiches from home for lunch, for dinner, we went to the Coleman Room at Buffalo Run (the Peoria casino), since my mother had never eaten there. Some of you may remember my previous review of the place from November 2004, shortly after the casino opened.

They had a special limited menu put together for Memorial Day weekend. My mother had the horseradish-crusted halibut. I had the prime rib. Both entrees came with a salad, baked potato, and a melange of steamed vegetables. Portions continue to be large. Both plates were garnished with an orchid flower and a sprig of rosemary.

For dessert, we shared a carrot bundt cake with cream cheese frosting I thought was surprisingly good, especially considering it only cost $4.

Not much has changed since the first review, other than they have their liquor license now. It continues to be a nice place for the area, but they still are small town and haven't fully trained their wait staff. A typical example of their training shortfalls is the waitress having to come back and ask my mother what kind of potato she wanted with her fish, after the waitress had initially said the fish came with rice, contrary to what the menu said. Apparently the staff hadn't been briefed on the menus.