Wild Potato Buffet, Cherokee Casino, Catoosa, OK

We're just in from the Cherokee Casino-Catoosa. Tony and I zipped out there after Will and Grace for the dinner buffet at the Wild Potato Buffet and a little gambling. This is the first time I've done their dinner buffet—usually we do the post-midnight breakfast buffet (it's a steal at $2.95 per person!)—since I had a buy-one-get-one-free coupon. It was an okay buffet, but I don't know that I'd want to do it often at $10.95 per person (includes drinks and tax). I think it's about $2 over priced for the variety, quality, and types of food. Anyway, they had a very tasty German potato salad on the salad buffet and I was rather intrigued with their version of the buffet standard shredded carrot and raisin salad.....they added small pineapple chunks, sunflower seeds, and the mixture was curried! The soups were *both* minestrone. I didn't eat it, but Tony said it tasted like it came from a can. LOL Lots of fried foods and meats tonight, plus they had lots of pasta--stuffed shells, tortellini, and some kind of chicken fettucine casserole. I did enjoy a lot of their vegetables, though. We were too late to have the roast beef from the carving station or the barbecued ribs the remnants of which I saw laying around here and there. Dessert was fun. They have a chocolate fountain. You can skewer your own fruits and marshmallows, dip them in the fountain, then garnish them with all kinds of nuts and sprinkles.

Costa Azul, Tulsa, OK

I went with a friend to a little Mexican restaurant called Costa Azul, over on the ethnic side of town. It was our first visit, and was surprisingly good. I was also pleased to notice that they seem to stay open quite late. There weren't any hours posted, but it was nearly 11 when we left, and we saw new people coming into the restaurant then. Most places in Tulsa close at 9! It was a little bit of an adventure, since our waitress had limited English, and she seemed equally unable to understand my Spanish. Nevertheless, we had a huge basket of hot, fresh tortilla chips on our table as soon as we were seated, accompanying by little bowls of tasty salsa. The salsa was pleasant....I tasted both tomato and tomatillo, with some cilantro and onion, just a touch of heat, and I particularly liked it cause it wasn't sweet. While we were making up our minds, we ordered a bowl of chili con queso, and the waitress brought us a **huge** bowl of queso blanco with herbs and spices, and we enjoyed it quite a lot. We finally decided upon our entrees. My friend ordered an enchilada sampler, which he reported to be tasty and which I noted was enough food for two or three people! I had an El Salvadorean dish called puppitas, which were sort of like little thin corn meal pancakes around a layer of pork and cheese, kind of like a quesadilla, with a pickled cabbage slaw and an orangey pepper sauce. I didn't much like the cabbage or sauce, but I thought the puppitas were very good. We both followed dinner with flans. Their version was very dense, almost chocolatey in taste. All in all, it was a nice meal, and only cost about $25 for the two of us. We plan to go back.