Oh man, what a delight! I was driving up Garnett from 21st headed to 31st and came across El Rey. It’s on the west side of Garnett between 21st and 31st where Shlotzsky’s used to be.
The owners greeted me warmly and made some great suggestions from their vast menu.
El Rey has everything from Enchiladas to T-bone steaks and even more in between. What I found rather odd is El Rey is also a bakery - but not the Mexican bakery you’d expect… The owner makes the largest, fresh Cheesecakes I have seen in a long time. In fact, the Cheesecakes are Chicago style, with enough choices to satisfy any craving. Tuesday, I picked up a few slices of Banana Cream Pie, a California Cheesecake loaded with Kiwi and cream and a Chocolate variety that was almost 5 inches tall, drizzled over with chocolate and strawberries.
As for my meal? I had one of the best and largest Poblano chilis I have seen in Tulsa, prepared from scratch, not from frozen ingredients the way some Mexican restaurants serve it. On the menu it’s listed as a Chile Relleno, filled with cheese and topped with an authentic Mexican red sauce. My guest had Enchiladas De Molle Con Pollo - Shredded chicken in a spicy, sweet red sauce. Flavors were very original and the service was top notch. You can expect prices from 5.99 to 12.99 depending on whether you order from the daily specials board or from the vast and unique menu choices.
El Rey is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner… They serve alcohol and also have a small sit down bar towards the front of the restaurant. The menu is both in English and Spanish and all of the servers and staff speak English fluently.
Oh I almost forgot, there is an appetizer that you must try at least once… Cocktail De Ceviche - Salmon and Whitefish cooked in lime and orange juice, mixed with onions, tomatoes, cilantro, olive oil and avocado served with crackers! Great stuff!
El Rey is located at 2146 S Garnett in Tulsa of course. 918-794-3780.
If you do visit El Rey, tell them you heard about them at Tulsa Tonight!
We really would like to thank you for your site! We tried El Rey’s and we were truely pleased. We have visited a lot of Mexican Restaurants in Tulsa claiming to be authentic but this not allof them are. My wife being from South Texas knows true authentic and for a long time we have searched for real authentic food here in tulsa. Looking though you site we thought we would try and we sure found a winner here. My wife had Tilapia with nepoles which is cactus and rice. She could not have been more pleased. I had combination shrimp which is butter fly breaded shrimp, garlic shrimp, and diabla shrimp with white rice… It was simply to die for!
After dinner we had to try some of that bakery… it just looked to good to pass up! My wife had tres leches cake which she informed me was three milks with peach filling. I had the best cheese cake I have ever tasted. It is called carmel nut. We both took half our meal home and half of our dessert home. I took mine to work the next day for lunch and one of my co-workers looked over at me and said “I see you found El Rey’s”… I asked why he had never mentioned the place if he had already tried it and obviously liked it and he laughed and said I thought every one knew it was finally opened. He says he has to go at least once a week to get cake for his wife. I believe I will be there at least once a week if not more as well. My wife said she thinks she has found her home!
Jeff,
I am glad you and Stefanie found El Rey here at TulsaTonight.com.
I will be reviewing more great Mom and Pop owned places very soon so keep coming back and tell your friends about us!
Vinnie
We ate at El Rey’s for breakfast and were blown away by the flavors! We liked it so much we got salsa and a cake to go! Great place!
THANK YOU VIINIE
We ate at El Rey’s on Saturday! We had braised lamb that was just perfect and my friend could not say enough about the flavors. We noticed a women picking up a cake and we asked to see it. It looked great! I asked the waitress about a sheet cake and she told us the owner would need 24 hours to prepare it The waiterss suggested Tres Leches with cherry filling. I picked up the cake on monday and it had to have weighed almost 40 pounds and it was beautiful! The cake was for a co-workers birthday. I have to go back to El Rey’s and thank them that because the cake was such a hit. Our dieters even had some - and it was gone in no time!
I will get many cakes from El Rey’s and thats just a great excuse to try more of there dishes too!
Lisa, Glen and Kathy… Glad you had positive experiences at El Rey. I passed by there on my way to another review just the other day, and was sad to see only a few cars there… so be sure to tell everyone you know about them and mention this site too so more people can find out about some of our hidden treasures!
Vinnie
We came to tulsa for the weekend I found your site and thought we would try your suggestion I’m so glad we did we entered El Rey and I saw cheesecake key lime is my down fall.The server suggested fish tacos to my delight they were perfect and the sauce was something you just have to have it’s just the blend of flavors that bring it altogether the cheesecake was calling me and was oh so good my mouth and tummy thank you for your suggestion we will visit El Rey again and check out more of your suggestions