#48 - Yokozuna - Tulsa, OK

One of the best parts of my job is developing relationships with wonderful people.  The variety of my job duties has afforded me the opportunity to meet so many donors, and two of my favorites are Jo & Diamond, a couple of suiteholders who live in Tulsa.  I swear they've been married for 70 years, and are a definite testament of true love.  You never saw one without the other, and even though Diamond suffered through several illnesses the past few years and had become very frail, Jo still brought him to football games, and every time we scored he would stand up and cheer with the rest of the stadium.  2011 was the last year he was able to come to games, and he certainly got to experience an amazing season. 

Usually for the spring game, suiteholders have to print out their tickets from home, but we always mail them to Jo.  This year, I decided to deliver them myself and spend the afternoon with her.  They live at Montreau, an absolutely fantastic retirement community in Tulsa.  They've got every amenity you could possibly want, and if it's not on site, they've got drivers to take you where you need to go.  I've already told Jo I want to rent out their guest bedroom!  Jo and I talked, drank wine, and had an wonderful time.  Unfortunately, Diamond passed away about a week ago, and I was amazed at the strength that Jo showed when she called to tell me.  She was in amazing spirits, and we even shared a couple of laughs during our talk. 

Rather than go straight back home, I decided to meet Bob for dinner.  We both love sushi, and originally planned to meet him at Sushi House, but it's closed on Mondays.  So instead we went to Yokozuna.  It's right in the heart of downtown Tulsa, and I just saw that they'll be opening another location soon.  It's in a very trendy building, right on the corner, with high ceilings and huge windows looking out onto the street. 

We got there pretty early for dinner, so it wasn't very crowded at all.  Bob and I always like to try lots of different dishes when we get together, and kind of order as we go based on how hungry we still are, and today was no different.  We started with the seaweed salad and the Hot Mess.

I'm honestly not a huge fan of seaweed salad, but it's good for you so I dug in.  It was very fresh, and the lemon helped the flavor.  The Hot Mess definitely lived up to its name!  It was so yummy.  I love that they put a wonton chip on top, and the crunch was the perfect additional texture for this roll.

Next we moved on to the Flaming Volcano roll

Imitation crab, chipotle cream cheese and jalapeño, tempura fried then topped with

langostinos cooked in our creamy volcano sauce. Served with eel sauce and scallions

Oh my, this was amazing!!  Yes, you are seeing an actual flame under the black bowl there, and so the sauce was bubbling.  After a couple minutes I blew out the flame, if only to prevent us from burning ourselves by accident.  I don't really know what a langostinos is, but the whole roll was phenomenal.  I'm sure this was clogging our arteries, and I wouldn't eat this kind of sushi on any type of regular basis, but that night it was worth it.

Next, we moved to the Route 66 roll

Imitation crab, ebi shrimp, avocado, with spicy sauce, rolled in sesame seeds

This was good, but after our very adventurous previous rolls it was just kind of plain.  As if all those rolls weren't enough, we just had to do some dessert...

I don't remember exactly what it was called, and I couldn't find it listed on the menu.  But it was kind of like a bananas foster, and was absolutely delicious.  The ice cream was so refreshing after all that sushi, the bananas were caramelized, and the chocolate syrup topped it off perfectly.

Will I go back?  We already have, after Bedlam baseball!  And I'll definitely be going back again.