Every time I eat a really good plant-based meal, I have the same thought: why isn’t there more food like this?
That happened again at Enoki Eatz, the plant-based kitchen inside The Collective Kitchens + Cocktails in Midtown Oklahoma City. I went in knowing mushrooms and vegetables were going to do a lot of the work here, but I still wasn’t quite ready for how satisfying the meal ended up being.
I eat meat. I like meat. So when a burger and a couple of tacos make me forget that part for a minute, I pay attention.
Enoki Eatz describes its food as elevated plant-based dining, and that sounds a little polished until the tray shows up. The menu leans into mushrooms, walnuts, sprouts, grilled vegetables, sauces and plant-based patties instead of acting like everything has to be a fake version of something else.
That is the part I liked most. It did not feel apologetic.
The burger was the first surprise
I ordered the Plant Back Burger, which comes on a grilled bun with a plant-based patty, cheese, onion, tomato, sprouts, cilantro, pickles and Plant Drip sauce.
The first thing I noticed was that it ate like a real burger, not like a compromise. The grilled bun helped. So did the sauce. But the bigger thing was texture. A lot of plant-based burgers either go too soft or too processed. This one had enough going on between the patty, vegetables, sprouts and pickles that I wasn’t sitting there comparing it bite-by-bite to beef.
That is usually the test for me.
If I’m thinking, “This is pretty good for vegan food,” the place has only half-succeeded. At Enoki Eatz, I was just thinking it was good food.
The menu also has a Forest Fire Burger with grilled onions, jalapeños and smoky cheese, plus a Trippy Burger that brings in fried enoki mushrooms and pineapple-mango salsa when it is available. So even in the burger section, they are not just dropping a plant patty onto bread and calling it a day.
They are building actual plates with a point of view.
Walnut tacos should not work this well
We also tried the Walnut Tacos, and those may have been the better argument for what Enoki Eatz is doing.
The tacos use seasoned walnut meat with cilantro, onion, sprouts, cheese, salsa, lime and jalapeño on grilled tortillas. Walnuts are not fooling anybody visually. Nobody is going to look down and mistake them for ground beef.
But once everything is seasoned, warmed up and tucked into a tortilla, that stops mattering.
You still get richness. You still get spice. You still get crunch and freshness from the toppings. The lime and jalapeño do their job. The grilled tortilla helps pull it all together.
That is where this kind of cooking gets interesting to me. It is not trying to hide the fact that it is plant-based. It is using ingredients like walnuts, portobello mushrooms, enoki, oyster mycelium and lion’s mane because they have their own flavor and texture.
Honestly, I think a lot of meat-heavy restaurant food could learn something from that. Plenty of burgers and tacos in this town are coasting on the fact that meat is involved. Enoki Eatz actually has to make the ingredients work.
I need to go back for the lion’s mane
The item I missed, and the reason I already know I need to go back, is the King Curry Plate.
That one is built around a grilled lion’s mane mushroom “steak” with curry fried rice, green beans and steak-style sauces. Lion’s mane is one of those mushrooms people like to compare to meat because it has a dense, fibrous texture when it is cooked right.
I’ve had enough good mushroom dishes now to know that comparison can be useful, but it can also undersell the mushroom. The best versions are not good because they impersonate meat. They are good because the mushroom itself becomes the main event.
After the burger and walnut tacos, I want to see what Enoki Eatz does when lion’s mane is the center of the plate.
The availability on that one seems to move around, so I would check the current menu before making a special trip for it. But yes, that is unfinished business.
The Collective is the right home for this
Enoki Eatz being inside The Collective makes a lot of sense.
The Collective opened in 2019 at NW 10th Street and Harvey Avenue and bills itself as Oklahoma City’s first food hall. It has multiple kitchens, a large bar, patio space and rooftop seating, which means it works well for groups who do not all want the same thing.
That matters with plant-based food.
Nobody has to talk the whole table into eating vegan just because one person wants a mushroom-forward meal. Someone else can grab something from another kitchen, you can order Enoki Eatz, and everybody still sits together.
But I would not treat Enoki Eatz as only the vegan option for the group. That sells it short.
This is the kind of place I would send meat-eaters who are curious, skeptical or just tired of the same burger routine. The Plant Back Burger worked. The Walnut Tacos worked. And now I am thinking about lion’s mane steak like it owes me a second visit.
Maybe I could go completely vegan if more restaurants cooked like this.
Maybe not.
But I could definitely eat less meat if more Oklahoma City menus made mushrooms this convincing.
