Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [218]
Of course there are omelets galore and eggs of every kind, including shirred on a bed of chicken livers, as the crown of corned beef hash, and “rancheros” style—fried on a corn tortilla smothered in red or green chile and topped (at your request) with cheese. One non-traditional meal we hold dear at Tecolote is a gallimaufry called Sheepherder’s Breakfast—new potatoes boiled with jalapeño peppers and onion, cooked on a grill until crusty brown, then topped with two kinds of chile and melted cheddar cheese.
Tecolote, by the way, is an Aztec word that means “owl,” chosen by the Jennisons because Bill had been fascinated by a nearly deserted village of that name in northern New Mexico. “We like to think of him as our ‘wise friend,’” says the Tecolote menu, “and hope that you will think of those of us at Tecolote Café that way.”
Oklahoma
Cancun
705 S. Lewis Ave.
918–583–8089
Tulsa, OK
LD (closed Weds) | $$
Cancun is a neighborhood Mexican restaurant where English is a second language. It is a welcoming place with a handful of tables, those along the front window offering a view of the parking lot. We plowed into a super burrito stuffed with carnitas (shredded pork), rice, and beans, smothered with shredded cheese and warm salsa, and decorated with dabs of sour cream and guacamole. It’s a grand meal, the savory roast pork packing heaps of flavor. On the side you can have horchata, the cool sweet rice beverage that is so refreshing with spicy food, Jarritos-brand mandarin orange soda or, of course, beer.
The menu is frustratingly tempting for those of us just passing through town with time for a single meal. Beyond the big burrito, choices include tacos filled with a wide range of ingredients from spicy pork to tongue, cheek meat, tripe, fish, chicken, and goat. Other temptations: enchiladas, chile verde and chili Colorado, fajitas, and chimichangas. Seafood specialties include camarones al Tequila (shrimp with green salsa and tequila) and pescado frito (whole fried fish).
Cattlemen’s Café
1309 S. Agnew Ave.
405–236–0416
Oklahoma City, OK
BLD | $$
A sign outside says “Cattlemen’s Cafe,” and yes, indeed, this is the café to which people who work in and around the Oklahoma stockyards come for breakfast, lunch, and supper. And yet, it is also a top-end steak house, serving some of the best cuts of beef you will find anywhere in the West.
Top-of-the-line on Cattlemen’s menu is a sirloin steak as luxurious as anything served on the white-clothed tables of New York’s steak row or in the premier beef houses of Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City. It is a boneless crescent of meat that comes from the kitchen alone on a white crockery plate, surrounded only by a puddle of its translucent pan juice. It is charred on the outside, but not drastically so, and you can see by its glistening, pillowy form—higher in the center than around the rim—that this hefty slab has been seared over a hot flame. Cattlemen’s provides each customer a wood-handled knife with a serrated blade. The blade eases through the meat’s crust and down into its warm red center—medium-rare, exactly as requested. You don’t really need the sharp edge—a butter knife would do the job—but it sure is mouthwatering to feel the keen steel glide through beef that, although tender, has real substance.
Two other specials worth knowing about are steak soup, which is fork-thick, crowded with vegetables and beef, and lamb fries. The latter are testicles that are sliced, breaded, and deep-fried. Gonads are a highly regarded delicacy in much of the West; when young livestock is castrated on the range, it is traditional for cowboys to fry their harvest as