Sheila's Birthday 2016 - Krebs Is Off My List

We decided to drive down to Krebs for an Italian dinner to celebrate Sheila's birthday. It was also decided that I would be the designated driver and we would drive Pam and Wayne's big old Honda Pilot.  When you get to be our age, being the designated driver has a lot less to do with alcohol consumption than it does with who gets to nap during lulls in the conversation.  I have to say the Pilot looked pretty formidable sitting there at the curb and it had more controls and computer equipment than some small airplanes.  But, it was easy to drive so long as you stayed within its envelope and very comfortable.

When we got to Krebs, we stopped at Lovera's Italian Grocery first.  Lovera's is something of a legend in that part of the country.  For decades, it was a classic little old style Italian grocery sitting there in the middle of a small, sleepy Oklahoma town.  It was charming and sweet.  But, all of that has changed now.  The cheeses and sausages hanging from the ceiling are gone replaced with modern, high tech looking, floor to over your head, stainless steel shelves stocked with stuff that you can buy in any gourmet food store.  The charming old meat counter has gone vertical too so that you have to stand on tip toes to talk to the butcher.  I was sadly disappointed with the experience.  I didn't have drive to Krebs to shop in a high vertically stocked everything processed for shipment gourmet food store.  We have plenty of those in Tulsa.  As a matter of fact, I could have gotten everything we purchased in our local Reasors.

Roseanna's Italian Food in Krebs is arguably the best of its genre.  Krebs has been known for its "in an old house" Italian restaurants for over a century.  At one time, Pete's Place was the best known of them.  I gave up on Pete's after a couple of incidents of paying an outrageous check for what tasted like Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti.  And, I'm sorry to say the same thing has now happened at Roseanna's.  It began with the fact that our server was pushy and tried to hurry us through ordering.  We had to gently tell her to back off.   Pam had to tell her to bring that menu back, I was still reading it.

The salad was Iceberg lettuce straight out of the bag and doused in vegetable oil.  Mine looked like it came out of the bottom of the bag at that.

I ordered the grilled chicken with spaghetti on the side.  When it arrived, the chicken was cold and the spaghetti had that same, straight out of the can taste that made me swear off of Pete's.  Aside from being cold, the chicken had no flavor.  No herbs, no spices, it didn't even taste like the grill.  I wonder if it was microwaved and then thrown on the grill for a few seconds.  Even the bread was a loser.  It wasn't the nice, crusty, light Italian bread that you would expect. Instead, it was just a loaf of generic French bread and it wasn't good French bread at that.  It tasted like it came off the Holsum Bread truck.  No olive oil and herb dipping sauce was offered.

The other folks in our party fared far better.  The lamb fries were good, the lasagna was good, etc.  The cheese cake, which is made for the restaurant by a local woman was superb.  But, the basics of my simple meal, the meat, the pasta, the salad and the bread were all losers.  Olive Garden or even Spaghetti Warehouse will manage to serve your grilled chicken hot with a few herbs and spices on it.  The Italian bread we buy from WalMart and Reasors is far better than what Roseanna's put on the table.  And for that matter, WalMart generic chunky pasta sauce would be a major step up from what I was served.

Bottom line here, Roseanna's is off my list of "destination" restaurants.  We could have gotten a far better meal at Johnny Carino's or Carraba's and not had to drive an hour and half to get it.