This Land Press a few months ago produced this video about the Golden Saddle restaurant, which is on Tulsa’s Admiral Place alignment of Route 66.
Not only does the Golden Saddle serve such typical Oklahoma delights as steak and barbecue, but also Persian dishes. That’s because the restaurant is owned by an Iranian immigrant:
Middle Eastern cuisine isn’t that unusual in northeastern Oklahoma. A whole bunch of Lebanese-Americans arrived during the initial Land Rush in 1889, and more streamed into the Sooner State when oil was discovered during the teens and ’20s.
A good many of those Lebanese-Americans opened steakhouses in Tulsa and the surrounding region, where it’s not unusual to get kibbe, cabbage rolls, and tabbouleh as appetizers. In fact, the Lebanese influence is so pervasive, it’s common to see tabbouleh at small-town Okie groceries and potlucks.
Incidentally, Tally’s Good Food Cafe, on the more-prominent Route 66 alignment of 11th Street in Tulsa, is owned by a Lebanese immigrant.