Looking for delicious sushi in Tulsa OK? Look no further than Yokozuna. At the original location in downtown, or the new spot in South Tulsa, you won’t be disappointed.
I’ve been very lucky while working at OSU that I’ve never had a home football game on my birthday, or even during my birthday week. We’re either playing on the road, or have a bye week. Even with all that, I’ve never taken my actual birthday off when it’s during the week. I honestly never thought about doing it, because it falls right in the middle of the season. Last year my mom and a family friend came to visit and it coincided with my birthday, so I took the day. So from now on, as long as I don’t have a work requirement, I’m off work.
Last week, since my birthday fell on Tuesday, I took off Monday as well. No point showing up to work for one day, right?! I made plans to meet Shawn for lunch in Tulsa. Our original plan was to try Cafe Seville, since neither of us had ever been there. I arrived early, and saw their new hours…closed Mondays. While I waited for Shawn I stopped in a very cute shop next door called Canterbury Lane.\The owner recommended we try The Ridge. Drove over there, and it’s only open for dinner. So after a little more back and forth, we settled on Yokozuna. We had both been there before, and it was one of my very early blog posts. But since my pictures weren’t that great, it was a perfect excuse to go back and try again.
There are 2 Yokozuna locations in Tulsa. One downtown, where I ate the first 2 times. This trip we ate at the Yokozuna in South Tulsa. Each location has a very unique look. The Downtown Yokozuna is in an old brick building on the corner in the heart of downtown. The South Tulsa location is in a relatively new strip mall, and the restaurant has a much more modern look with very clean lines. Huge windows take up 2 sides of the restaurant. There’s a bar to the right as soon as you walk in, and a combination of tables and booths in the main dining area. They created a small second floor with a few tables by putting an overhead over the booths along the back wall. Very creative use of space.
Shawn had been feeling a little under the weather, so he got miso soup to start.
I’m not normally a fan of miso soup, but it looked really good so I tried it. This soup was wonderful. It wasn’t very hot so that was disappointing, but the soup had tremendous flavor. At most places the miso soup is mainly chunks of tofu and a few pieces of veggies This was exactly the opposite, and looked more like a mushroom soup.
We also started with roasted pork crispy spring rolls
Another hit. The roll was absolutely stuffed with pork and vegetables. The pork was extremely tender, and all of the flavors worked really well together.
Shawn suggested that we get 4 rolls and split it. Clearly my eyes were bigger than my stomach because I agreed. For some reason we were on a spice kick, as all 4 of the rolls had spice. We momentarily contemplated the scallop roll, assuming there’s no way it would be raw. We were wrong, so it quickly got crossed off the list.
Shawn asked for “a lot” of ginger. Our server must have thought I wanted it too, because we each got this
They do not play around when you ask for “a lot”. In the grand scheme of things that’s a good thing, and we agreed that in the future to just say “extra”.
The very first time I ever tried sushi was in Maui in 2007. I figured Hawaii was as good a place as any to get my first taste. Unfortunately that first taste was raw eel. After that, I refused to touch sushi for a year. I eventually tried it again–cooked this time–and have been hooked ever since.
Roll & Gift
This roll was fantastic. Blackened eel lends such a subtle, savory flavor. And then you get the contrast of the sweet eel sauce, which coincidentally has no eel in it at all. There’s a lot going on in the roll, and you would think that the jalapeno and chipotle would make it overly spicy, but it really isn’t. There is of course some spice, but it’s not overpowering.
Hot Mess
I had this roll on my last trip with Bob, and I ordered it again because I remembered it being awesome. And it still was. I love the wonton chips on top. It adds such a nice crunch and different texture. The only down side is that the chips are a little big for the roll, so unless you can unhinge your jaw it’s almost impossible to eat the chip and the roll at the same time. But rather than complain, I just eat the chip separately or break it into pieces first.
Nutty Thai Professor
When the server first recommended this roll, we both thought it was very odd. I mean peanut butter, cream cheese and mango all together? That makes no sense at all. But it works…really well. No one flavor overpowered another. Instead it was just creamy deliciousness, and we were very pleasantly surprised.
Last was Geisha’s Demise
I made the fatal mistake of dipping one side of a piece into the sweet evil sauce. My mouth was ON FIRE. They weren’t kidding with the evil part, and there is absolutely nothing “sweet” about the sauce. After that, I dipped just a tiny corner of the roll in, and then dipped the roll into my soy sauce. Even that was almost too much. They could give you 1/4 the amount of sauce and it would be plenty, because unless you have a death wish that is way too much sauce for 8 pieces.
We tried, but we couldn’t finish all the food. After all the food came to the table we agreed that we had gone way overboard, but it did give us the chance to try several things. Had it just been the sushi, we would have dominated it.
Then the fortune cookies arrived, and this was mine
Clearly the Yokozuna Gods knew it was almost my birthday. I don’t usually do sake, but in the spirit of birthdays I did one. Still not that much of a fan.
I will of course continue to eat at Yokozuna. The service is prompt and efficient, everything I’ve tried has been really good, and I enjoy the atmosphere. Building one in Stillwater would be outstanding.