Ludivine

Because I have such a terrible short-term memory, I have to insist to myself to write about restaurants as soon as possible afterwards (oftentimes within 36 hours). Otherwise, what I write is a goopy, unsophisticated, unfunny mess. However, rarely do I dine with my parents and even less frequently do I dine at restaurants I promised my dad afterwards were "blog worthy." Further, Halley's-comet-rare is it that my (nonetheless bold) mom digs into crazy things like bone marrow with zeal. Like mother like daughter like mother.

My parents' love for me is profound, judging solely by the fact they found, inquired about, and reserved via the OpenTable iPhone app (!) a table over July 4th weekend at Ludivine, a restaurant in downtown Oklahoma City. Ludivine is situated in a formerly industrial brick building and has sparse but intimate seating at small dining room tables, an intriguing open kitchen, and waiters who look like Jesus (if He came back as tight-jeaned, overly emotive, hipster).

Downtown OKC

The problem with Oklahoma is that it has (universally) really good food for cheap. Barbecue, for example, is masterfully done and although brown-sugar infused organic tomato reductions (BBQ sauce) are served in squeeze bottles, they're complex and reasonably priced.


So, hooray for a fancy but still pretentious restaurant like this in Oklahoma that boasts its sourcing integrity. But, I can just as easily get locally-sourced food from Bubba in overalls selling his watermelons on the corner and get a discount if I compliment his truck. It ain't hard.

I started with a cocktail, which was delicious, and they get props for serving pastis in a mixed drink. My Pastis Sour had Ricard, orange liqueur, lemon simple syrup, and egg white.


As an aside, I can't help but be biased toward a restaurant who knows about the glories of Ricard (French anisette) when one, two, three places on the top 100 in DC gave me puzzled looks when I asked for it (in English, but of course).

Richard:

Ricard:

We started with four appetizers (there were three of us) because that's how an amateur food critic and her food-writing-supporting parents roll. Dad got the celery soup with crème fraîche and herbs (you spend three months in Paris and you gotta use the accents) and I got the greens and heirloom tomato salad with bison blue cheese squash blossom (essentially, a squash blossom stuffed with cheese and bison meat and lightly battered and fried), confit beets, horseradish yogurt, blueberries, and duck fat dressing. When I think about the salad, the catty comment about sourcing a few paragraphs up was probably mean.



















Because my dad loves me, supports my dreams, and is as fearless as my mom, we got the pan roasted sweetbreads with sauerkraut and an egg yolk emulsion. The Annointed One told us how amaaaaaaazing the sauerkraut was. He didn't really go into excruciating detail because there was very little that was factual about his description of the amaaaaaaazingness of the sauerkraut but he did emotively describe his own personal affection for the awesomeness of the flavor profile.


It was kind of boring and we ended up preferring the fried lamb testicles at Cattleman's we ate a few days later (three bucks cheaper and more of them).


This is when things got weird (well, when our waiter was starting to make us feel stoned too). Business associates of my dad didn't like their bone marrow (crybabies) so sent the whole plate over to us. My parents used to be cops so this plate had no chance. We ignored the tackiness of their sending a picked-at plate our way (but they were so weak we could hardly tell they ate anything) and my mom dug straight in. A little gelatinous, we all agreed, but the bread and pickled onions were good.



















Then things took another turn for the oversold: my mom doesn't like shellfish, the waiter insisted she keep them in her pork shoulder dish "to conserve the delicious flavor," and she realized that without the mussels, she just had a dab of meet and a bunch of steamed vegetable orbs. Not very impressive.


My dad got a bison ribeye with smoked elephant garlic, creamed greens, and carrot top chimichurri. He liked it just fine but didn't display his normal good-steakhouse enthusiasm.


I got the Massachusetts Day Boat Scallops with lobster sweet corn puree, beer battered shiitake mushrooms and basil honey syrup. For $32, or the equivalent of three pounds of ribs at our favorite Oklahoma barbecue restaurant. Plus, in the 15 foot transit from kitchen to table, scallops and corn puree were thrown askew on my plate, debilitating the silent perfectionist/food photographer in me (I rearranged).


We were all hungry after our seven plates of food (see: portions) and each got dessert. I had the lemon and white chocolate pot au crème (you bet I said it the French way) with pistachio, honey, and black salt. All four bites were exquisite.


My parents got the homemade peach ice cream with fresh peaches, blueberries, rum cream, and strawberry coulis. Certainly, they said between the two of them, one can't mess up peach ice cream, a ubiquitous summer treat in Oklahoma. The ice cream (the long block) came out still frozen and was difficult to cut without silverware clinking.


It wasn't quite as refreshing as the $1.25 piece of lemonade pie we had at Hideaway pizza the day before (ok, that's my refreshing beer but the lemonade advertisement is above).


For locally sourced, though, there's no place like home.