The Diner - Norman, OK

The Diner in Norman, Oklahoma is most definitely a dive in the best kind of way.  It is small with all of the stereotypical drippings of a diner such as lots of pink neon everywhere, the long counter with the round swivel stools and a row of vinyl covered booths.  There is nothing pretentious about it.

Norman is a college town.  This is the kind of place that I could imagine college students rolling into after a night out on the town in the middle of the morning for some eggs to sop up whatever adult beverage they over-enjoyed that night.

I was there for lunch.  Even I am not that much of a hero to have begun drinking early in the morning.  I ordered the Santa Fe chicken sandwich.  It came with some ruffle chips probably out of a large bag in the back.

The sandwich itself was really pretty good.  It was piping hot so, I opened it up to let the heat out.  The waitress came over concerned.  She thought that something was wrong.  She was pretty good; obviously attentive and caring.  She was fast with everything she did.  She had to be because she was a one-person wait staff.  That didn't seem to bother her.  She seemed to have it well under control.

A student photographer came into the restaurant.  She was photographing the people and the place.  She photographed a guy at the bar then asked for his information for a model release.  He obliged, no problem.

I could see becoming a regular here if I lived in Norman.  The Diner is probably a place that you wear like an old shoe.  It is just comfortable.  It is a place where real people just live unpretentiously.  It doesn't even have a real name.

I liked The Diner.  The food was pretty good but the atmosphere just seemed really homey.  I'd give it a 8.8.  Definitely try it out and stay a while.

The Diner
213 E Main St
Norman, OK 73069
(405) 329-6642 

Ingrid's Kitchen - Oklahoma City, OK

Ingrid's calls themselves Euro-American cuisine.  I would probably consider them a German bakery/deli/cafeteria with a mix of  Other-European and American thrown in.  When you first come in the door, you have to grab a menu and wait in line to order.  When you pay they give you a number on a stand so that the food runners can find you.

The menu has a lot of German dishes.  It looks like they make their own sausages (wuerst) onsite.   I had the Weiner Schnitzel sandwich with a tabouli salad.  Wein is German for Vienna which is in Austria but, you find it everywhere in Germany.  Tabouli is a Mediterranean dish which has nothing to do with Western Europe.

While you are waiting in line, you have to stand in front of the glass bakery cases.  The cakes and pastries looked really good but, I was good and stayed away.  Not good for blog reporting but good for my personal health. 

After you pay there is another set of cases with freshly baked bread and an evil guillotine looking thing presumably to slice bread or punish patrons who get out of line.

We arrived at the lunch hour, so the food took a little bit of time to arrive.  There is not much in the way of service to talk about.  One of the waitress had a thick German accent.   I'm guessing that she might have been Ingrid herself.  She was in much too much of a hurry to strike a conversation up with. So, I may never know.

The tabouli salad was very good.  The tomato that they used was especially good for this time of year in February.  It comes on a plate with a leaf of lettuce.  The Weiner Schnitzel was pretty good but, the bread that they served it on was really good.  It must have come from their own ovens in the back.

My lunch partner just got a turkey and cheese sandwich.  He was really impressed with the gouda cheese.  The sliced bread looked really good and he said that it was.

The restaurant is in a mixed residential and commercial neighborhood a little off of the beaten track in Oklahoma City.  The building is painted with the German national colors along the roof line.  German signage is everywhere inside and the men's room was wallpapered with old editions of German newspapers and magazines.

This is probably a good place for drinks after work and on the weekends.  They served lots of different kinds of German beer.  There was a room in the back that looked made for drinking.

Overall, I would give Ingrid's a 8.5 on the triple-D scale.  The food was really good but, not necessarily unique like you would expect out of a triple-D joint.  The atmosphere was good but again, not blow your socks off.  It is worth checking out and I would definitely go here again. 

Ingrid's Kitchen
3701 North Youngs
Oklahoma, OK 73112
405 946-8444
http://www.ingridskitchen.com/

Leo's BBQ - Oklahoma City, OK

I think that I have found a new favorite restaurant.  It's not often that I get to  rate a restaurant an honest 10 out of 10 on the Bill's Triple-D scale.  Leo's was without a doubt a 10.  It was everything that you expect out of a triple-D restaurant.  Let me explain.

Despite having the address of Leo's programmed correctly into our GPS, we drove right past it.  We thought that it was an old abandoned gas station.  That's because it was an old abandoned gas station.  There were pipes sticking up from the old gas pump islands, the faded signs telling motorists which credit cards they could use were still there.

We actually used our noses to find the restaurant.  Our initial thought was that maybe the place didn't exist anymore but, our noses told us otherwise.  We could smell this terrific scent of smoking meat luring us back.

I couldn't imagine how they stuffed tables and a kitchen into the tiny cement block building but, it is much larger inside than it appears from the outside.  You definitely get that Alice in Wonderland sense when you step into it.  My first impression of the outside of the building was that the only people that we might find inside might be squatting homeless folks.  Luckily that was far from the case.

As you walk in, you get even more of the BBQ smoke flavoring the air.  There is a rhythm of heavy knives chopping meat on a butcher block while 60's Mo-Town music plays in the background.  I still have "Mr. Postman" playing in my head.  The tables are covered with red and white checkered picnic table tablecloths.

I was enchanted from the very beginning.  I remember thinking to myself that this was a 9.5-9.8 restaurant before even seeing a menu or trying a bite.

I ordered Leo's Special Grad Slam which was 2 ribs and 2 links; one bologna and the other beef.  She said that they were out of the bologna so, she made up something else.  I'm not even sure what the plate was a mix of.  There were a couple of ribs, some chopped beef and a link of what I thought was bologna. So, I was a bit confused but, there was no sense in over-thinking this.  It was all served hanging over a base of potato salad and beans.  I'm not much of a bean person but, I was savoring the experience so decided to try the beans.  If I didn't like them then I could just isolate them on the plate to be ignored.

For someone who doesn't like beans, I really enjoyed these.  The beans were kind of crispy in a way.  They kind of snapped when you ate them.  The sauce was not over-salted and bitter-sweet like a lot of beans.  They were more barbecue flavored and had a smooth slightly spicy taste.

They had two types of  BBQ sauces on the table.  One was mild and the other one would hurt you, and it did.  Luckily I didn't pour out too much of the punishment sauce.  The smoked meats were great.  I slid each forkful into a bath of the BBQ sauce and enjoyed each bite until the last. 

All of the people working there were wonderfully sweet folks.  They act like they are genuinely glad to have you in their home and they really want you to be comfortable and enjoy yourself.  Our waitress even apologized for taking too long to take our order (she wasn't) and gave us some free cake to eat there then a to-go bag with a couple of more slices.  Nobody has ever given me free cake in a restaurant before. 

The whole free cake concept is really nice, even though one slice of cake actually came with one of the meals that we ordered anyway.  It was strawberry vanilla cake with fresh slices of strawberry and hot vanilla sauce all served warm. 

We had stopped to have lunch at "The Diner," another triple-D restaurant in Norman, Oklahoma a few days earlier.  A group of guys that we saw there were coincidentally here, too at the same time as us.

Leo's is a 10.  My new favorite DDD restaurant. Try it if you can find it.  You won't be disappointed.

Leo's BBQ
3631 N Kelly Ave
Oklahoma City, OK 73111
(405) 424-5367