Last week was in Tulsa for appointments. Since I had nobody scheduled for lunch, I reached out to Bryan, one of our suiteholders. He shares my love of food and wine, has never steered me wrong with food, and provides me with some great wines. About a month ago he sent me a list of restaurant recommendations, and I've already started making my way through the list. I have a few favorite suiteholders, and he is very near the top of that list. He recommended Celebrity Restaurant for this trip.
This is one of those restaurants that you can and will drive right past if you don't know where you're going. Oklahoma is still catching up with the rest of the country in terms of liquor laws. Sometimes I wonder if they think prohibition is still in effect. And that was the case when this place opened in the 60's, so it began as a private club...a way to get around some of the liquor laws. It's also the same owner 50 years later, which almost never happens anymore. Bryan said his kids run the restaurant now, but he still makes appearances often. The inside is a rich dark red all the way through. The building isn't huge, and the inside kind of reminds me of a 1940's bordello. Not that I've ever been in one of those in person...just in the movies.
We sat a small 2-top table in the bar area, and Bryan was already there when I arrived, snacking on bread.
I've never seen toasted bread served as the first course. It was a tad oily from the garlic and seasonings, but still really good. It was also room temperature. I think it would have been better served warm. I was running a little late, so when I arrived it was already at the table; so I can't fairly judge it without tasting it 100% fresh. That's my fault for being late. But not to worry, I didn't let that stop me from having a couple of pieces.
Caesar salad is one of their specialties. At dinner they will make it tableside, but we were there for lunch so ours came to the table prepared
This was delicious. The lettuce was fresh and cold, you can taste that the dressing is homemade, and the parmesan was excellent. I really enjoyed it.
As I mentioned before, Bryan has never steered me wrong with food. We have very similar tastes, though his are a lot more expensive than mine. He can afford it...I can't. So when he recommended the ribeye sandwich, I was quickly sold. Ribeye is by far my favorite cut of meat. He said it was plenty enough to share, so we did that. He likes his steak rare, but no chance I can do that. I normally do medium, so we compromised with medium rare. Bryan said the cottage fries were excellent, and one of his favorite things at the restaurant. A man after my own heart! I'm never going to turn down fries.
Wow, this was excellent. I was very surprised that I kind of liked the medium rare. Now, don't get me wrong--I don't plan to make that a habit at all. But this one was awesome and very well seasoned. Bryan was right, the cottage fries were fantastic. Crisp outside and fluffy inside. I can't even figure out how they can do that, because they were sliced pretty thinly. I didn't worry about that. I just couldn't stop eating them. Splitting the meal was definitely a good idea since we got the salad. But I probably could have powered through a whole sandwich, and savored every single bite.
Will I go back? No question. I'd really like to see the tableside Caesar salad in action, and Bryan said the lobster is amazing.
