Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [225]
Just as the Rock Café’s heavy sandstone walls have endured, so has its original grill, which cook and proprietor Dawn Welsh describes as having been “seasoned for eternity.” She credits the old grill with the shattering-crisp crust that hugs her chicken-fried steak as well as with the moistness of the thick ribbon of beef inside. “The moment you put something in a deep-fryer [the typical way to make a bad chicken-fried steak], you can see the juice start coming out of it,” she says, adding that her chicken-fried steak made with beef, delicious though it may be, isn’t all that popular any more. She and her customers have found something better.
Dawn used to be married to a man from Switzerland whose mother made such good pork jagerschnitzel that when she bought the Rock Café thirteen years ago, she put it on the menu. “Locals love it,” she says. “They like it so much that a while back some of them started asking me if I would make their chicken-fried steak from the jagerschnitzel pork.” The resulting beef-free chicken-fried pork now outsells chicken-fried steak ten to one. Although it sounds similar to the tenderloins popular in the Midwest heartland, this one is thicker and spicier and fathomlessly juicy, sporting a complex bouquet of flavor from its tenure on the venerable grill.
Dawn tells us she has nightmares about losing the grill. When we stopped in for breakfast, she had just the night before dreamed that it cracked beyond repair. Running a spatula across the dark, timeworn surface to clear away crumbs, she worries aloud if a few more decades of scraping might eventually wear it out. She tells of the day a few years ago that a woman from New York came to visit and asked if she could watch Dawn make chicken-fried steaks. The woman observed, then offered to buy the grill so she could bring it back east with her. The offer was generous, big enough to buy a modern replacement, but Dawn refused what she considered a Faustian bargain. The soul of the Rock Café was not for sale.
Sid’s
300 S. Choctaw Ave.
405–262–7757
El Reno, OK
LD | $
Sid’s onion-fried burgers are mouthwatering, cooked so the onions mashed into the patty of meat are charred from their time on the grill, giving the sandwich a sweet and smoky zest. Non–burger eaters get two or three Coney Islands, which are bright red weenies topped with chili and a superfine slaw with a mustard punch. Milkshakes are so thick that they are served with a spoon as well as a straw.
Other than the exemplary burger-shop menu, Sid’s is noteworthy for its interior décor. Because he is a history buff, proprietor Marty Hall has filled the place with photographs of life in and around El Reno going back more than a century. Using eleven gallons of clear epoxy to seal some 450 pictures onto the top of the counter and the tops of tables, he arranged his visual gallery in chronological order starting at the far left of the restaurant. Here are pictures of the Oklahoma land lotteries and cowboys on horseback, as well as nostalgic ephemera from the early days of car culture, when El Reno was a major stop along Route 66. No matter where you sit at Sid’s, images of olden days in Oklahoma will surround you.
Van’s Pig Stand
717 East Highland
405–273–8704
Shawnee, OK
LD | $$
It is said that the secret of any great barbecue is time—time the meat spends on the pit—but here is a case where greatness is also owed to the long time that Van’s has had to perfect the menu, the side dishes, the whole operation. Opened in 1928 in Wewoka, Van’s now has four locations in Oklahoma, including one in Norman, one in Moore, and another in Shawnee; this particular place on East Highland has been a Pig Stand since 1935 and is the oldest family-owned barbecue in Oklahoma. We love the rustic, wood-paneled eatery with its volumes of graffiti on the wooden booth backs (and a warning to customers not to inscribe any on the tabletops!). Each table is outfitted with a roll of paper towels and plenty of toothpicks—both essential for happy barbecue eating. And of