#148 - Tallgrass Prairie Table, Tulsa, OK

About a month ago we went Vegas for the weekend.  Of course, it was a fabulous time. A whirlwind 36 hours.  We got home Sunday afternoon, and instead of taking a much-needed nap I dove right into the blog to do my recap of the trip, as well as posts about 3 different restaurants we went to. I finished it Sunday night, posted it Monday morning, and went about my day. Then a couple hours later I looked at the blog and the recap post was gone. Poof. Nowhere to be found.  I have no clue what happened.  I called campus IT, tried to go back into my browser's history, and emailed Blogger help.   Nothing. I was so mad because when I do a post I put a lot of time, effort and thought into it.  Even more so when it's a recap of several days. Thankfully I found a draft of it later that day, and re-wrote the post.  I talked to one of my blogger friends, and she recommended saving everything in Google Drive.  It's kind of like the cloud, in that it saves everything remotely.  At that point I had about 275 total posts, so I was saving in spurts. 

Yesterday I was working on a post about a new restaurant, and went back for reference on a post I had done the first week of May.  Poof. Gone. Missing. I immediately went to Google Drive, hoping it was there.  Nope.  The post I needed was #148, and I had last saved #115.  And this time, there was no draft anywhere.  And I realized #149 was gone as well. SO ANNOYED. I instantly stopped working on new restaurants, and saved every post I've done so far.  I WILL NOT let this happen again.

So, time for a little step back in time to re-do these reviews. And of course save them immediately onto Google Drive.



The last week of April I had appointments with club seat holders in Tulsa, but no real plan for lunch. The week before I had gone to lunch with Bryan, one of my all-time favorite suiteholders.  He knows the Tulsa food scene inside and out, so I told him about my food blog and asked for recommendations. The next day I got a list of about 20 restaurants. Many of them are dinner only, but there are a few that are open for lunch. After some back and forth looking at the menus of a couple of options, I settled on Tallgrass Prairie Table. 

The restaurant is in downtown Tulsa, in the Blue Dome District. The district is home to shopping and restaurants, and right in the heart of the downtown business district.  I drove around for a little bit to find parking.  I did find street parking, but of course had no change.  Eventually I parked in a lot on a side street for about $5.  

Tallgrass is a farm to plate restaurant, so all of their ingredients are locally sourced. I love restaurants like that. As you enter, there's an open kitchen immediately on the left. The dining room is separated into 3 spaces.  There's a front room in the same section as the kitchen; the middle space that also includes a large bar; and a back room that can be used for either as a private room or regular dining.  What immediately struck me was the gorgeous huge wooden doors leading into the back room

Photo courtesy of Tulsa People

Such a simple thing to make such a grand statement.  I thought I saw a 4th dining space behind the bar.  Then when I got up to find the restroom, I realized what I was seeing was the reflection from the huge mirror on the wall.  Wow, kind of embarrassing.

The entire right side wall of the restaurant has large windows, providing tons of natural light. They really don't need a lot more lighting, which makes their chandeliers made from big fake crystals absolutely perfect.  The light reflects through the crystals to make it look like they're twinkling.  I'm sure its beautiful at night.

Photo courtesy of Tallgrass Prairie Table

I arrived during the lunch rush, and there was just one table left in the center dining room. The hostess offered me the option of sitting at the bar, but I always prefer to sit at a table if I can.  I feel like sometimes you get the short end of the service stick by sitting at the bar, especially if the restaurant is crowded, because the bartender is helping you as well as making drinks for the whole place.

The restaurant serves weekend brunch, lunch, and dinner.  The lunch menu is average size, consisting of soup, salad, sandwiches, and "the kitchen sink".  I decided to start with Farmer John's grilled tomato bisque.  I've never been a big fan of tomato soup, but bisque is creamier, and it comes with chorizo croutons.  I had to give it a shot. Good thing I ordered when I did, because they only had one serving left

This was excellent.  The bisque was thick and creamy, and served hot.  It had a little kick, but it was very subtle. Kind of like a afterthought heat. The croutons were awesome. And there were a bunch of them, and the texture was a great contrast to the bisque.  I'm really glad I decided to be adventurous on this one.

Since I batted 1000 on my first adventure, I figured why not keep going?!  I went with the Akaushi short brisket burger with fries. You could add bacon or a fried egg for $2 each. Doing both would be gluttonous, so I just did the egg

House grind, white cheddar & housemade everything 

I love the presentation on the wood plank.  Keeps with the restaurant's theme.  I'm a huge french fry snob, and hate getting fries that aren't super hot or are obviously from the bottom of the batch, like these were. Before I could even say anything, my server said "these fries were the last of the batch; I didn't want to hold up your meal, but they're making fresh ones now and I'll bring you some of those".  True to her word, just a few minutes later a fresh serving appeared at the table. That's what I'm talking about!  I forgot to take a picture of them, but they were definitely fresh and scorching hot.  And so delicious. 

The burger was outstanding. The meat was so tender and incredibly juicy, and cooked to a perfect medium; maybe even a little under medium. The egg added a really nice flavor. When I ordered, I asked about the housemade everything.  It's homemade mustard and ketchup. I did the mustard on top and the ketchup on the side. I really liked the mustard. The ketchup was okay, and had a very unique flavor.  I think in the future I would ask for both ketchups and mix them together.  

Will I go back? No question.  The food was excellent, it's a beautiful atmosphere, and I'm all about supporting restaurants that support local farmers and businesses.