Monday, March 12, 2007

Rib Crib, or The Worst BBQ We've Ever Eaten

When we're on the road, Lauren and I have usually made good choices about roadfood (either that, or else we're very lucky in that regard). I think yesterday our luck on that ran out (or at least, ran away from us).

On the way home from her friend Jenny's open house, we had hoped to stop off at Swagat, the Indian restaurant at the Zona Rosa mall complex on Barry Road. We both love that restaurant. Unfortunately, they were closed Sunday, as they were between their lunch buffet and dinner hours.

After grabbing a map of the mall to discover what restaurant choices we had available, we settled on a local Rib Crib, which appears to be an Oklahoma-based chain which is expanding in the Midwest. They had a special for all you can eat Burnt Ends, which we love but we're rarely able to get locally at Bubba's, so we ordered, expecting succulent, slightly crispy, BBQ.

What we got, we were a little embarassed by what we were served. After we walked out the door, I coined the phrase: "Dinty Moore beef BBQ", because that's what we had gotten: it looked like they had used the pre-cut, perfectly square roast beef chunks you normally see on salad bars, barely burned them, and then served them liberally doused with leftover BBQ sauce. The sides were good, especially the coleslaw. But we couldn't finish the meal, because the BBQ itself was the worst we had ever eaten.

We understand that they've won a lot of awards for BBQ in Oklahoma, so we'll reserve judgement on the whole chain, but last night's meal left us very glad that we have our local Bubba's.

Wedding Parking

Hi all,

In a previous post, I mentioned that the church we are having the wedding at does not have very much parking. Since then, we've talked to the manager of the Dollar General store next to the church, and she will let us use the row of parking spots next to the street. This is only 12 more spaces, but it's a little bit more parking. She cautions us to not use the spaces close to the store or close to the rail tressle between the parking lot and the church parking lot, because there will be some truck traffic (trash truck and a shipment truck) loading and unloading that day.

There is also a park nearby that you may be able to park next to; the north side of the park is open to parking; however, parking is prohibited on the remaining 3 sides.

Otherwise, we would suggest trying to car pool from the hotel as much as possible or parking at the campus near the student union and car pooling to the church from there.