Jen and Meg's Excellent Road Trip Recap: Oklahoma City

The second day of our road trip involved us heading from Memphis to Oklahoma city, by way of I-40 through the heart of Arkansas.  We left Memphis around 9am ish(?) and had somewhere around a 7-8 hour drive.  I remember it actually felt a lot shorter than that, thankfully!

I wasn't feeling super well from the night before, but Megan really wanted to see part of Arkansas so when we started seeing signs for "Arkansas Wine Country," we figured this was as good of a stop as any.  I personally had NO idea Arkansas had a wine country, and we were surprised to see how hilly the landscape was in Altus, Arkansas.  I refrained from doing any wine tasting, but we did check out a few cute wineries - Chateau Aux Arc, and Wiederkehr Wine Cellars.  Wiederkehr is apparently one of the oldest wineries in the United States, founded in 1880 by a Swiss immigrant named Johann Andreas Wiederkehr.  Megan picked up a few bottles of wine to take with us for the remainder of the trip, and we made ourselves a little picnic lunch on the Wiederkehr grounds.  

The "Presidential" T bone at Cattleman's Steakhouse

By the time we got settled into our hotel in OKC, it was pretty much dinner time, and it was clear that Oklahomans preferred one thing for dinner: steak.  There was no shortage of steak places in the city, but we heard one noteworthy place was Cattlemen's Steakhouse, located in a part of town known as Stockyards City.  It was a throwback to some kind of old Western town - very strange to see this so close to a big city.  Cattlemen's was a trip - the place was jam packed with just about every type of person you could imagine, including guys with big cowboy hats (score!).  We were told the wait was 45 minutes but we could head upstairs to a waiting room/lounge and grab a beverage.  The upstairs lounge felt like we were at a wedding reception, so we grabbed a beer, and when all was said and done, we couldn't have waited more than 20 minutes.  For dinner, I ordered up the "Presidential" T bone, as George H.W. Bush reportedly ordered this steak when he dined there in the past.  The steak sounded menacing at 20 oz. but I was a bit disappointed. I easily finished the steak, and felt the filet part of the steak was small.  In other words, I'm sure I didn't get the same steak the former President Bush did.



After dinner, we headed out to check out the nightlife in the Bricktown neighborhood.  This is the same area where the Chesapeake Energy basketball stadium (yeah, I had to look that up) is located - where the OKC Thunder play.  Anyways, our first stop was the appropriately named Bricktown Brewery.  We tried a sampler of their house brews, plus their summer seasonal.  The beers were average, but the venue was very cool.  It was huge - two floors, each with a dedicated bar, and the upper level seeming to be more of a pool hall.  Either way, I'm sure it was a great place to watch sports, but there wasn't much going on this particular Friday.


After Bricktown, we walked a short ways to TapWerks Ale House, which has close to 100 beers on tap, in other words...paradise!  We chose first to stick with local brews, and had a sampler of four Oklahoma beers, then Megan and I each ordered one of our favorite beers that happened to be on tap, Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge (a sour beer).  While at TapWerks, we chatted up a guy who lived in town and gave us a few places to check out on our drive to Albuquerque the next day.


To round out the night, we decided to get MORE food.  I read about a taco place in a local food blog that was recommended by Chicago's very own Rick Bayless.  So, we drove across town in search of Big Truck Tacos, and Megan and I each ordered 2 tacos.  The tacos were pricey, but very flavorful and stuffed full of goodness.  We sure didn't need to eat after mowing down steak just a few hours before, but when in Rome...

The outside of Big Truck Tacos...looks like it could have been a Sonic previously