Tulsa Food

Lately I’ve been tooting the horn for Tulsa with every review I write. It’s an exciting time. Finally we have restaurants worthy of New York or California or any place you can name. But what if you want cuisine as elegant and refined as New York but of a kind you just can’t get in New York (or anywhere else), food prepared with flawless technique yet which screams “Oklahoma”? Food that showcases the meats and produce of the wide-open land and endless prairie? A style that for want of a better term you’d just have to call “cowboy cuisine”, not because cowboys are today’s gourmet Petronius, the arbiter elegantiae, but because it’s brash, bold, as free-ranging as the open plains yet as flawless in technique as the most skilled bronco-buster? Well, you’ll just have to go West.

“This isn’t cowboy cuisine, this is haute cuisine!” That’s what I told the chef at Go West halfway through my excellent pork chop, and he agreed. Not surprising, since Doug Atkinson’s Houston area restaurants won accolades in Texas Monthly magazine. You’ll get a cowboy welcome and the waiters (and the incredibly friendly owner) wear jeans, but the decor is elegant and the food is indeed haute cuisine.

Take that pork chop ($13).

It’s simple, it’s perfectly prepared, and it showcases the meat. (You don’t want any complicated frills and fusses, that would be like putting a bird dog in a cocktail dress.) Fine grilled tender meat, with a perfect marriage of sauces: sweet homemade apple butter and a rich red wine sauce that’s everything but sweet. Alongside is a palate-popping macaroni with green chilis and cream and cheese.

That was my first meal at Go West. I longed to write a review but Whitney Shae had just published a piece that made a second review superfluous, unneeded, as unwelcome as a second guitar act after Jimi Hendrix just finished playing. But a month has passed and I just got back from a second visit and the food’s so good that I just can’t stop myself from writing.

Oh I wanted to go back sooner. I wanted to go back the next day. But that late December drive had taken almost an hour (we’d gotten lost) and my friends didn’t want to go. Last night, though, we drove it in 12 minutes from shopping at Utica Square. In terms of driving time, it’s a lot closer than Woodland Hills Mall. The building once housed the Avalon Steakhouse. You won’t recognize it today.

One side of the bright modern dining room fronts on the kitchen. We sat where I could watch the chefs at work. They’re a trained team, they’re well worth watching, sometimes the guy on the right makes a flambe and the flames leap up like Fourth of July.

And then the food came.

A triumph. This plate could be the poster boy of cowboy cuisine. Unbelievably excellent molasses glazed quail with garlic-chive grits surrounded by a ruby lake of sumptuous sauce ($17). The sweet glaze contrasted with the rich, earthy sauce (made with red wine and a touch of heat and spice) and both served to accent the meaty, tender flavor of the quail. The creamy, cheesy grits (and if you think grits are boring, try these!) and Bugs Bunny carrot rounded out the plate. I’m pretty sure the quail is from Oklahoma. Whenever possible, all meats and produce are local. Perfect cowboy cuisine.

But perhaps it’s this next plate that captures the essence of cowboy cuisine. Innovative ways of preparing iconic local food. You’ve eaten a thousand chickens in your life and you think there’s nothing new chickenwise under the sun. You’re wrong. Mr. Atkinson has invented a new way to prepare chicken. It takes him three days. The chicken is first brined, then smoked, then roasted over a wood fire. The result is this.

Wood Roasted Half Chicken with Green Chile Sauce and Mashed Potatoes ($14). When I cut it it looked raw. When I tasted it it was so good I ate it all, not caring that it was raw. Food to die for. Later I found out by talking to two of the chefs that it is indeed fully cooked but the smoking made it look raw. I had the breast. Normally chicken breast is fit only to be doused with ketchup or discarded. But this was moist, juicy, like no chicken I’d ever had before. The closest I’ve had is the Hainanese chicken served in Singapore and Malaysia. The fresh, wonderful sauce, something like a salsa verde, helped bring out the flavor. And unlike the quail, the portion was huge. They use enormous chickens.

Betty got another chicken dish.

That’s a wood-grilled chicken breast ($12) under a blanket of salad and atop a bed of black beans, and the red dots are smoked tomato-cumin relish. Unfortunately I didn’t get to try any. Not that I minded. I had already eaten two quails and a lot of that half chicken. And lots and lots of bread.

How could I forget to tell you about the bread? There are three kinds, it comes hot from the oven and it’s fabulous, especially with the smoke-infused butter that’s its sidekick. That’s my favorite kind in the photo, but there are also cornbread muffins and jalapeno biscuits. And I think I forgot something else too… something we ate on the first visit but I’m embarrassed to say it was so good we ate half before taking the photo.

Rainbow Trout ($14), thinly breaded with a pecan crust, a nice fresh fish perfectly cooked. Along with it is a cheesy red pepper risotto. Yes, a real risotto, stirred for half an hour. The chef has invented a way of cooking the risotto in big batches so you don’t have to wait a half hour for your food. That’s typical of Go West. The flamboyant food is solidly grounded on quiet skill and innovation.

We were too stuffed to consider dessert but we took a look at the very tempting dessert selection and I’ll leave you with that.

Go West Restaurant & Saloon
6205 New Sapulpa Road
918-446-7546

DRIVING DIRECTIONS — it is so easy to get lost!!

It’s under 15 minutes from midtown Tulsa. Just take I-44 to exit 221B. You are now within 100 yards of the restaurant but there are two hidden turns to find, so drive slowly after exiting. About 100 yards or so after you exit, you’ll see a car dealership on the left with a big sign “Bob Hurley”. Turn left onto the little half-hidden road going to that dealership. Just before you get to the dealership, turn left on another little half-hidden road, and the restaurant is about 50 yards away on the right.

www.gowestrestaurant.com

Brian Schwartz: Author

Born in NYC, age 0, on my birthday. College in Oxford at age 16. Law School in New Haven, Conn. 6 years travel in Africa and Asia. Haven’t done much lately. Still, I’m the only Tulsa member of the little-known Omega Society.  www.theomegasociety.com

I speak enough Chinese to order food not on any English menu. Spanish French Italian too (not fluently but food-ently) My favorite restaurant is Jean-Georges in New York. But those NYC chefs would sell their soul to get the produce available from the farms around Inola.

“A writer writes alone. His words tumble forth from a magical inner void that is mysterious even to himself, and that no one else can enter.” And yet, the most important thing to me the writer is YOU. Without you to hear them, my words are worth less than silence.