I'm blogging from the car somewhere between Oklahoma City and Amarillo right now while it's the bf's turn to drive. Modern technology is amazing!
 |
| (Image Source) |
Even though I'm trying to stay healthy by prepping nutritious snacks and fitting in workouts when I can, I'm still eating a lot of awesome road trip food. I mean come on, when else will I have the chance to eat my way through almost 2,000 miles of awesome local cuisine? So in the spirit of keeping it real, here's some of the delicious and decidedly unhealthy food I've eaten on the road from Arlington, VA to Oklahoma City, Ok for this week's What I Ate Wednesday.
We got a late start on Monday and almost didn't make it to Athens Family Restaurant. Luckily, we forgot about the 1 hour time difference between Arlington and Nashville and just made it 30 minutes before closing at 10 pm.
Featured on Diner's, Drive-Ins and Dives, the Greek restaurant was everything I expect from a DDD selection: awesome food and generous portions but easy on the wallet. We got the lamb shank special and that day's combo platter with suzukakia, mousaka and dolmades.
The lamb shank was tender amazingly melty, though and the dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) were the best I've ever had. Surprisingly, the suzukakia, a giant Greek style baked meatball with tomato sauce featured on the show, was our least favorite item.
With 10 hours of driving on Tuesday, I was planning to just grab a salad to eat on the road for lunch. But when the bf saw we were passing through Memphis he insisted on stopping for barbecue and I'm glad he won that argument (for once). Family owned and operated since 1977, Cozy Corner is well known as THE place to go in a city famous for its barbecue joints and has been featured on DDDs, Bon Appetit and 1000 Places to See Before You Die.
We got the barbecued WHOLE Cornish hen (!) and two bone in ribs. Crispy skinned on the outside, super moist on the inside and smothered in delicious tangy sauce, the Cornish hen was the best barbecued chicken I've ever had, The ribs were also tasty, flavorful and tender but not mushy. The only disappointment was that they were out of the barbecue spaghetti, pasta smothered in barbecue sauce. Probably a good thing with the amount of food we had.
With our 10 hour drive and lunch stop, we got to OKC after 9 pm and searched Yelp for good late night dinner options. A chain restaurant located alongside a shopping complex a little outside downtown, I didn't have super high expectations for Whiskey Cake. But it did have four stars on Yelp and specialized in farm-to-table food so we gave it a shot. Boy were we pleasantly surprised!
We shared the fried green tomatoes and signature whiskey cake. For entrees, I had the kale and pomegranate salad and the bf had a crazy big burger which I didn't get a picture of. Everything featured super fresh and high quality ingredients.
The fried green tomatoes were great, not too greasy or breaded but perfectly crisp. My salad was giant and featured a crispy fried poached egg, which I've never seen before but was incredible. The whiskey cake was warm and rich but not too sweet, kind of like home made pecan pie in dense cake form. And it came with delicious homemade whipped cream which I kept eating by the spoonful, and I don't even like whipped cream
