Oklahoma City Restaurants

It’s always a big deal when a new restaurant opens in Bethany. Big! Rice and Noodle is an interesting Thai place that adds a whole new dimension to the Bethany restaurant landscape. The food is fresh, unique and definitely worth a visit, but in our opinions, it could be made better with bolder flavors.

Buddha Tao does a lot of things very well, but prices itself at the level where they really need to do everything extremely well. So, while it brings a unique and quality offering to the Oklahoma City restaurant landscape, we’re a little unsure on whether that offering is worth the price tag.

PLEASE NOTE: Elephant Cafe has closed. Elephant Cafe, formerly Big! Rice and Noodle, has been taken over by a new owner offering many Thai, Japanese and other Asian choices. This downtown Bethany restaurant is a great spot for a quiet, relaxing meal.

Every time I go, the place is practically deserted, and it just makes no sense. While many Chinese restaurants are all about the buffet, Fortune prepares dishes just for me. They are hot. They are fresh. They are a good value. And, best of all, they are tasty.

In the search for the best Chinese food in town, I think I’ve narrowed my choice down to three restaurants, and Fung’s is one of them. Just be sure to go with a big group and try lots of things family style, or enjoy their dim sum offering on the weekends.

The ultimate stars of this restaurant are the spicy potato stew ($6.95) and Chef’s Specialty ($10.95) — aka “goat” stew. One would be hard-pressed to find tastier potato or goat stews even among the larger Korean communities in LA or New York.

PLEASE NOTE: This restaurant is now closed. The moment I noticed Gaijin Sushi’s bright awnings going up on a storefront downtown, I was intrigued. But being a sushi novice, I invited Andrew and Greg to try it with me and to provide their more experienced sushi insights for this review. Together, we discovered that Gaijin provides a creative and non-traditional sushi experience in an urban atmosphere.

The teppanyaki table is a favorite for almost anybody, but I liken it to seeing a great movie. It’s great the first time, kind of fun the second time, but if you don’t give it a rest for a while — maybe a year or so — the show gets boring. That said, if you’re looking for dinner and a show, this is my recommendation.

Kang’s has such a broad reach — from Thai to Chinese to Japanese to American foods — that it can be a little schizophrenic. Yet the unique qualities of the atmosphere and the excellent flavors of some dishes make it worth a try.

There’s only four items on the 164-item menu that are categorized as “French,” but that’s not the biggest issue I have with Lido. The main problem is that, while Lido is ok, there are so many other places that do a better job with Vietnamese/Chinese cooking in my opinion. What do you think?

I’m surprised, taken aback, shocked … you see, I had several people tell me how good Lotsa Noodles is and I was really looking forward to trying it. The sweet-looking decor and high-end marketing impressed me, but then my food came out and, man oh man, I was disappointed.

Ok Ko Mart’s main business is their fairly small market. From the signage outside, you would never expect to find a restaurant inside, but it’s there, toward the back of the store, serving up some very tasty Korean specialties.

Pink Swirls is a strong fro-yo contender, with eight organic, nonfat, live culture fro-yo flavors, a huge selection of toppings, and a self-serve set up where you create your own cup and simply pay by the ounce. And if that’s not enough, they have a sushi bar too. That’s right … sushi and yogurt. You know you’ve got to try it.

Pho Cuong offers standard Pho that rivals the best of Oklahoma City along with some tasty alternative dishes to widen one’s Pho House experience.

Oklahoma City is blessed to have a thriving Vietnamese population and a concentration of Pho restaurants in our Asian district. If you’ve never tried Pho, it’s time to get acquainted with this inexpensive, healthy, hearty, tasty and unique meal. Pho Hoa is a great place to begin.

Trendy atmospheres and pun-filled names seem to set suburban Pho places apart from their Asian district counterparts. Pho-Bulous won’t replace Pho Hoa as my favorite Pho joint, but I still found their unique broth and other offerings intriguing enough to warrant your attention.

I have eaten at most sushi restaurants in the Oklahoma City area and have yet to really be impressed so I packed up the entire family, toddlers and all, and prepared for perhaps an above average tuna roll and some fried rice for the kids. What I found when we walked through the door was a trendy, hip, sophisticated place with a dynamic menu and upscale atmosphere.

The food at Sala Thai is solid, though perhaps not exceptional. Still, the thing that keeps me going back is the great value of their lunch special which lets you sample a vareity of interesting dishes for a great price.

While it’s literally just steps away from the Ok Ko Mart, Seoul Garden’s unique offerings and great value make it worth your attention. Those looking to get the full OKC Korean food experience must definitely give Seoul Garden a try.

Sushi is one of my favorite types of food. I have eaten at most places in town, probably more than once, but there is one place I always seem to back to — Shiki. Sure, there are fancier sushi bars. There are more unique sushi bars. There are more eclectic, chic, nuevo, hip, and gourmet sushi spots in town. Shiki, however, is consistent, affordable, and convenient.

By the end of the night, the job was done. The two of us easily consumed $100 worth of sushi for $40. Sumo’s all-you-can-eat sushi special and the quality of their offerings make them an amazing value for those with insatiable appetites for fish.

I know that Sushi Neko is one of those locations that you either love or hate. Many people talk about the quality of service, the pricing and other things that keep them away from this place. Personally, I am one who is quite fond of Sushi Neko, but I will remain as fair and balanced as I can possibly be.

If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? For me, it’s Pad Thai. Of all the Asian food varieties, Thai is my favorite, so you can understand why I have spent a good amount of time trying many of Oklahoma City’s Thai restaurants. So far, Thai Kitchen is winning.

It doesn’t look like much from the outside – just another strip mall restaurant with its name spelled out in boring, green block-letters. But if you can put up with the idiosyncrasies of this one man show, you will be rewarded. There’s just no place in Oklahoma City that compares to Thai Palace.

Taking over the location previously occupied by the very popular Elephant Cafe, this new Thai eatery in Bethany offers a lot to the community as well. The food is good and the value for the price is excellent.

The Grand House is a large, well established restaurant in the Asian district of Oklahoma City, and it provides just about the “nicest” Asian dining experience I’ve found in the city. I highly recommend it any time, but in this post, I want to focus on their most unique niche offering, dim sum.

It’s not as fancy as nearby Sushi Neko, but Tokyo Japanese Restaurant offers all the flavor and a bigger selection in a more relaxed and much more affordable package.

On first glance, Snow Pea appears pretty sub-standard. Even in the realm of cheap, fast Chinese restaurants in OKC, Snow Pea comes off a little less interesting than most. Yet, I still recommend that you try Snow Pea for two very good reasons.