Abruzzi, Tulsa, OK

As I was pulling out of the parking lot after class this afternoon, my good friend Jake called to announce that he was in town on business and wanted to do lunch. We went to Abruzzi, a lovely, but not well known, Italian trattoria in Kingspoint Village at 61st and Yale. It's a fairly small restaurant in a narrow space with a vaulted ceiling, Venetian plastered dark burgundy walls, and dark woodwork. Since it was a late lunch and he has plans for a business dinner later tonight, we just ate lightly. We started with delicious bowls of clam chowder, with large chunks of clam and potatoes in a rich, brown cream soup that was heavily scented with black pepper and fresh basil. Our salads were big bowls of mixed greens, with lots of curly endive and raddicchio, as well as green and red leaf lettuces and romaine, scattered with tomato wedges, freshly made croutons, and a liberal grating of fresh mozzarella cheese, dressed in their house herb vinaigrette. For a pasta course, we each had two large handmade ravioli stuffed with a liberal amount of ricotta and other cheeses--the cheese filling was actually nicely flavored (often ravioli filling is bland)--topped with a hearty meat sauce featuring ground Italian sausage (the anise seed is always a tell-tale give away!) and garnished with fresh basil leaves and freshly grated parmesano reggiano. We're both watching our weight, so we passed on the Italian cream cake, and had big cups of coffee with whole cream.