Denny's Oklahoma Hamburger Company

Restaurant: Denny's Oklahoma Hamburger Co.

Location: 393 E. Main St, Jenks, OK

Number and Size of Rings: a big pile of strings enough for 3 people, or one person who hasn't eaten in a month.
Cost: $2.99
These are my favorite type of onion rings- thin, crunchy, with a buttermilk batter. They are so gourmet. Impressive. These guys mean business with their O- Rings!! Denny's Oklahoma Hamburger Company has newly opened in downtown Jenks (or re-opened as a totally remodeled place, however you want to look at it). If you like the typical Oklahoma Burger Restaurant, this super friendly little shop epitomizes everything you would love. I am generally not a big beef eater (strange, I know considering the types of places I find my onion rings), but my husband had to fight me off his hickory burger. My grilled chicken sandwich with tons of lettuce, ripe tomato, and purple onions really hit the spot because it tasted so dang fresh without all those yucky chemicals the other places put in their food. It makes me wonder why the clueless people who go to the national chain fast food places down on the corner don't get a brain cell and go hang out at Denny's instead. They even have soft serve ice cream (which kept my three year old soooo happy), and a special kid's menu.

Alexia Onion Strips Snacks

Alexia Crunchy Snacks- Onion Strips, Savory Seasoned

Location: Tulsa, OK

Number and Size of Rings:
Cost: $2.00 (at Super Walmart in Glenpool)
I am in love. These are kind of like raiding the canned onion ring topping (the type you put on top of the green bean casserole at Thanksgiving), but so much better. These are large chunks of perfectly crispy onion rings. I can't believe how awesome these are. I ate them over the course of three days, shared them with my husband and one friend, and was thoroughly satisfied by their awesome peppery taste. I need more. It totally cracks me up that Alexia, who sells a lot of semi-health conscious organic stuff would actually trick us into thinking a fat fest like this might be remotely healthy. Oh, my, but they are yummy. I think I'll buy more before Walmart smartens up and raises the price on them. I should have guessed they would be awesome because their Alexia oven onion rings that I tried earlier on this blog rock, too.

The Onion Ring Diet

In case you are wondering about my health. . . well, I often do, too. I don't actually just sit around eating onion rings all day. I try to keep my onion ring consumption to under one plate of onion rings a week. Usually I eat entirely organic, and very well balanced. However, I did have to have my gall bladder removed in January, not long after I started this blog. Hmmm...

The good news is, my doctor said that my cholesterol levels are so good he would have thought that I was a person on some kind of cholesterol lowering drug. Yay for lipids.

Cheeburger, Cheeburger (Tucson, AZ Airport)

Restaurant: Cheeburger, Cheeburger

Location: Tucson International Airport, AZ

Number and Size of Rings: large handful of slender rings
Cost: $4.89
Announcing a new award winner for the world's GREASIEST onion rings. These were so oily I was AFRAID of them. They were unlike any other onion rings I've had, probably partially because of the greasiness. I think they might have cooked them wrong and not had their oil up to the right temperature. They smelled just like onion rings you would get at the fair, which is a lovely smell, not unlike Sonic's onion rings smell, but the batter was super saturated with oil. They use peanut oil, too, so that was pretty much the entire flavor of the onion rings. It was pretty cool that one of the onion rings was literally almost the size of my three year-old's head, though!

Hank's Hamburgers

Restaurant: Hank's Hamburgers

Location: Tulsa, OK

Number and Size of Rings: 7
Cost: $2.39
Hanks is a really old little traditional Oklahoma burger joint. It is a pleasure to eat at Hank's because the people who work there are so wonderfully friendly. They are polite, attentive, and very sweet (they make you feel LOVED!) The onion rings are just the average same old beer batter styled ones that you can get at most places, so they are average. They do cook them perfectly crispy, though, so they go just fine with those nice big burgers. I really like the chicken sandwiches there. The burgers are fine. . . they are actually a lot like the way I cook burgers at home. I was really amused by their fire alarm, though.

It's Greek To Me

Restaurant: It's Greek To Me

Location: At Spirit Bank Center, Tulsa, OK

Number and Size of Rings: 15 medium to large
Cost: $2.69
These onion rings were nice and crispy, served with tzatziki sauce of all things. Not fresh made- I saw them pull out a bag from the freezer and fry these from frozen. Then, they were overcooked. They tasted floury. . . but they seemed like the standard restaurant-supply-store beer batter ones. Except I think that if they are, overcooking them like this may be the key to getting rid of a beer-batter taste. I wish I could have gotten rid of the taste of the criminally horrible moussaka. The gyros aren't too bad, but the moussaka barely resembled what it's supposed to look and taste like. Please, will someone in Tulsa get some real Greek food? I am still looking, and alas, the Tulsa Greek festival is only once a year and even they don't serve moussaka. Well, they don't serve onion rings either, so I'm not sure where that leaves us.

KariOkie Cafe and Bakery (Bixby, OK)

Restaurant: KariOkie

Location: Bixby, OK

Number and Size of Rings: Huger than huge plate of thin rings, served with ranch

Cost: $3.99 for a solo, $5.99 for a duet (what we got)
Congratulations to KariOkie, because their Onion Strings are probably the best onion rings I have ever had in Oklahoma. The onions are sweet, the rings are cut thin and crispy, and they are full of perfect seasonings. They are totally addictive. They are thicker then the thin strings I've seen other places. . . in my book, they are just the right size cut to balance coating and onion. No matter how big of a plate they put in front of me, I probably could have eaten ALL of them if I sat there long enough. But, I ordered some other food and ate that, too. But nothing was as good as the onion rings. On the menu, it states that the rings are "reminiscent of the 'Restless Ribbon'," which is an old restaurant that I don't know about because I just moved here from Arizona, but any hand-me-down recipe is a good recipe.
I didn't know that KariOkie wasn't a bar. I honestly didn't. But, they don't even serve alcohol. They are a diner in the traditional American sense, with a karioke machine, and lots and lots of cakes and pies.
And please don't tell my 4th of July dinner guests that the peach pie I am serving them isn't homemade. . . it's from KariOkie.