(All photos by Jon Paul Douglass)

Oktoberfest In OKC

(Oklahoma City)

After the fateful travels from Raleigh to Hamburg to London to Kansas City to OKC - we found ourselves having another day off before the USA release-date show of In Waves. It was Little Nicky’s birthday and I felt like it was high time to celebrate. After a little researching online, I found a German place in Oklahoma City that sounded really promising - I tried to round up who I could (only could wrangle JP and Nick and myself) and we headed to Ingrid’s Kitchen at dinner-time.

Although not German, but at least in a German glass, I ordered everyone a round of 1L Hoegaardens. There really is something special about a beer glass the size of a newborn. Nick by this point had been in Trivium for around a year and a half - and I imagine being in a band that has been around for 10 plus years before becoming a member is odd… maybe a little difficult when you’re in a band with someone as regimented, borderline-OCD, timely, and hungry as myself - so I do try to ease ol’ Nicky-poo into the band. Sometimes I may be a little hard to deal with having only known me for a few years… but I do mean well - so I figured a shit-ton of beer would be another one of those nice bonding moments. 

(all photos again, thankfully, by Jon Paul Douglass)

In our group dinners, our business dinners, date-nights, and anything involving food - I handle the ordering. I feel I have a good sense on what people will like, how much of it we will need, and how to host and do all that fun stuff. I also am the resident food-uber-fanatic, so it’s only natural that I take the duties of table-hosting. 

We started with the Blood and tongue served open face on a brotchen (hand-crusted French roll), dry with tomato slices. I knew this would get some faces - but I selfishly needed some of the “good stuff.” It was more like a lunch meat than anything, prepared similar to a head cheese - it was sliced from a giant lump of the offal-mixture. The mustard and the intense salami-tasting meat went great - I found myself eating more of it than my cohorts.

Our mains included: Jagerschnitzel, Weiner Schnitzel (pork loin cutlet, hand breaded and grilled with sauerkraut, red cabbage, German potato salad and bread), The Grobe bratwurst (coarsely ground pork and veal), The Knackwurst (lightly smoked fine pork and veal), Smoked bratwurst (lightly smoked pork and beef). 

All the mains were delicious. Having just been in Germany and having just eaten so much pork-product incased-into-tube-form, going off memory - Ingrid’s is a real solid representation of German food. I certainly would describe the food as German-American though - but hey, that’s what it is - that’s where we are. So yeah - really German-American in the sense that Italian food in the USA isn’t really like the Italian food in Italy - but more so certainly Italian, but Italian-American - if you get what I’m saying.

There’s no better way to hang with your male buddies than mowing down on sausage and beer and meat - it was the best birthday I could have put together for Nick in that short time. 

The birthday cake came in the form of a house-made Napoleon - a concentrated hunk of cake so sweet, so injected with super-charged-sugar-goodness that I think I had a mild diabetic coma afterwards. Amazing, but holy-sweetness…. just a few bites for me.

Good times with meat and beer.