Tulsa restaurant recs

>What are the finest breakfast, lunch, and dinner restaurants in Tulsa?

I was in Tulsa last week on business and can HIGHLY recommend the following:

Bodeans: seafood a specialty with a wine list that is extraordinary. I had lunch there as was very pleased. I believe dinner would be great as well.

Flavors: interesting diner-style interior with innovative food. Great for lunch.

Duck Club at Warren Place: The ultimate in business dinner entertaining. The only Five star restaurant in town. Very classy, upscale. In the Doubletree hotel at Warren Place. [email removed] (Terry McGinnis)

The Downtown Doubletree has a champagne brunch on weekends which I have had recommended. As for best Mexican, can you drive to Ponca City?  Enrique's Restaurant located in the airport there there is the best Mexican in the state. Just wonderful food. If you've never been to Tulsa, be warned, it's not a food haven by any standards. My recommendation for best food in town is India Palace, located at 71st & Lewis (NE corner of the intersection). Obviously Indian food (good quality), comfortable surroundings, good service. Mike

NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2000 21:46:23 EST
Organization: RoadRunner - Carolina
Xref: pale-rider.INS.CWRU.Edu rec.food.restaurants:49435

There is a great Mexican restraunt called Tacos El Rio Verde. It is not in the best neighborhood, but has great food.

Someone wrote:

>I'm going to Tulsa on Feb 17 for a week and would like recommendations
>for top Mexican restaurants in the area, and best places for brunch (no
>particular ethnic requirements here). Thanks.

From [email removed] Sun Oct 15 22:54:22 2000
To: "Friends & Family"
Subject: Trip memo - Tulsa
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Tulsa, Oklahoma, sits at the north east corner of Oklahoma, kissing the Arkansas river, turning its back on the grasslands to the west and flirting with lakes and trees of the Ozarks to the east. It is said to be at the geographical center of the country, but I don't see how. I leave it as an exercise for you, to cut out a map of the United States and see if it balances on Tulsa. I've been traveling there weekly as part of an SAIC outsourcing activity for BP.

Part of the Creek nation, and home to the resettled Cherokees, Tulsa became a boom oil town at the turn of the last century and hastened the statehood of Oklahoma in 1907 as it became the "Oil Capitol of the World". It was also a place where the local townsfolk burned down the entire black community in the '20s.

Because of the time at which it was growing, the city is rich in art deco buildings. Probably the most famous is the Boston Avenue Methodist church where the tower is a angular prickly finger pointing at the sky. The BP building at 6th and Boston, formerly the Amoco Building, has a lobby of rose marble and gold ceilings restored to the grandeur of the days when it was the Phillips Petroleum headquarters. The long hall has the original shop fronts as facades, complete with the sturdy oak doors and bronze doorknobs embossed with Waite Phillips' initials. It also has the most efficient and impatient elevators ever built. If one door closes, another opens. Unfortunately, they have a nasty habit of closing just as you reach them, and the one that opens is more than likely at the opposite end of the row,

Across the street at 5th and Boston is the Philpot Tower (yes, Phil as in Phillips), a strange red-brick  wedding cake iced with concrete gothic edges and topped by a red, green, blue and yellow roofed hat. The lobby is a cold concrete cathedral ceiling, complete with the Tudor rose, One more block down Boston, on 4th, is the Mid-Continent building. If this oil company set out to beat the Phillips building, they certainly did. This has to be the most impressive lobby I have ever seen. Solid white marble, a curved tiffany-like stained glass ceiling between the elevators, and wonderful bronze chandeliers. The outside of the building is white carved stone all the way to the top.

Along with Amoco, Tulsa is home to Oral Roberts University, Readers Digest, Sabre and Williams Communication (the ones with all that fiber optics across the US). It promotes itself as a cultural center in the wastelands of America. As such, it has a ballet company, and opera company, the Gilcrease Museum of art of the American West, and the Italian-style villa Philbrook Museum (yes, Phil as in Phillips) and 23 acre English garden. It also has a stock car racing school, and a very active police department, just to set perspectives.

Tulsa is hamburger city. If you want a hamburger, you won't have to go far to find one. Since I can't live on  cheeseburgers alone, I've been on a mission to find the good places. Although the great chefs don't beat a path to Tulsa, there are quite a few very nice restaurants scattered around the south-east corner of the city. Tucci's on Cherry Street, T2 (T Square) south of the Peoria biker bars, The French Hen hidden behind a low-rent strip mall, Jamil's for steaks where the front door faces the freeway and Finns Chop and Chowder House in the upscale Utica Square. Of course, the $9.95 all-you-can-eat ribs and catfish at Billy Rays is pretty hard to beat.

Side trips:

Lee came down to spend some time with me, and we took a day trip to Arkansas, Route 66, the great American precursor road took us to a couple of remnants of the past. We saw the Big Blue Whale; a diving platform and slide into a  defunct swimming hole for tourists, and the world's largest totem pole, a 90 foot concrete monument to one man who spent 25 years building it. Alongside the totem is an 11 sided concrete building that once housed 300 some fiddles that the artist also crafted, and a tall concrete tree stump complete with woodpeckers.

Our end point was Eureka Springs, a town nestled in the Ozarks. Built as a resort during the mineral spring health craze of the 1890's, it was abandoned in the 30's and found again in the 60's, becoming an artists colony. Now restored, the shops amble uphill and down providing crafts, art, jewelry, clothes and a mixed bag of restaurants. A nice place to spend some time, sort of a cross between Park City, Utah and Nashville, Indiana.