The name Guyutes is lifted from a wholly unlistenable song by an unlikable band, Phish. That aside, it’s also the name of Guyutes, a hippie-fied restaurant at 730 NW 23rd. Having never been there before, I opted for a restaurant along Uptown 23rd as, in a couple of hours, I’d be at the Tower to see one of my favorite bands, the Mavericks, perform.
Arriving sometime around six, we went up to the roof and found plenty of tables for the taking as a beautiful low-rise skyscape of Oklahoma City was laid out before us. With a waitstaff in mostly comfortable wear, we ordered our drinks and, after much irritancy, our food off of one of those scannable codes that seems mostly de rigueur.
The tables started to fill up around us, mostly with a mixture of wanton hippies in their early twenties and wanton yuppies in the early fifties, both attempting to hold onto a lifestyle choice and make sure everyone knew about it, no matter how many Grateful Dead stickers that are put on their Cadillacs or, more accurately, Subarus.
Before I could delve even deeper into this, the “Soundcheck”—their hip rewording of appetizers—arrived at the table; it was the Pig Lips ($11.00), which, sadly, contained no porcine kissers, but, instead, consisted of bacon-wrapped cherry tomatoes, balsamic teriyaki, and topped with an avocado puree, as you do.
With these numbered five to a plate, the small fellas were quickly gone, our mouths sucking them down like a patchouli-scented vacuum cleaner. And while they were, of course, mildly tasty, they were so small it was only a mere taste of pork-wrapped fruits, which I generously split with my friend. Thankfully, my main meal would have my favorite of all porcine products: pork belly.
Pushing aside jam-band favorites like the Disco Biscuit and Franklin’s Tower, for my own dinner I had the self-monikered Guyute ($16.00), a wonderful sounding selection of braised pork belly, topped with a chipotle honey glaze and “finished” with garlic basil whipped cream on a fried wonton, served with sauteed spinach and mashed potatoes on the bottom.
So much work was seemingly put into this, and, to be fair, the pork belly was, as it always is, absolutely transcendent. Everything else, however, seemed to come from a “kitchen sink” approach to experimental cooking that sounds like it should be truly remarkable but, as it quickly began to sog down, instead, was merely alright, delivering a minuscule meal that feels like it could have been better than it was.
While my friend had the Peace in the Middle East ($11.00) vegan wrap, I only took a small bite of it, completely unimpressed as the innards fell out and onto the table.
Usually, I would be beating myself up over something like that, but, tonight, I didn’t really care. We stuck around for a few more minutes, paid the check and left, on to bigger and better things.
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