After reading a review of Packard’s New American Kitchen in Slice Magazine, I put it on our list of places to try.  Since we had to pick up my car from the shop down south in OKC after work on Wednesday, we decided to turn the evening into date night, and Packard’s was on our radar.

Walking in, we immediately like the atmosphere.  The bar area looked cool and even though it was early, the restaurant was beginning to fill up. We were able to grab one of the last tables by the window where it was nice and bright with a good view.

Our waitresses (one in training) cracked me up with their retro looks, but they were very professional and knowledgeable.  I decided on an appetizer, the campechana, and the mixed greens salad.  Both were fantastic and more than enough food.  Jon had the filet with asparagus and cipollinis.

What I enjoyed the most was how fresh everything was as well as the variety of flavors. The shrimp and crab in my campechana were wonderful and came with some amazing homemade tortilla chips.

We ended up with the blackstrap apple pie with vanilla bean semifreddo.  It was way, way beyond your average apple pie a la mode.  We loved it so much that we decided to try a second dessert – the cracked caramel sundae.  Sadly, they were out of the cracked caramel shell, but we went ahead with the sundae over a brownie.  The brownie wasn’t that great, kinda dry, but we finished it off anyway.

At one point we talked with the manager, but we found it difficult to connect with her. She didn’t even tell us her name.  She seemed more intent on managing her staff than on building relationships with customers.  She said she’d moved over from an Interurban to manage Packard’s.  I imagine she’ll learn that although they’re owned by the same group, Packard’s demands a different experience than Interurban.

Regardless of the newbie manager, overall we had a great experience and definitely want to go back.

Coolness Factor:     Jon – 4.5   Kristin – 4.5

Coolness Factor is a 1 to 5 rating with 1 being “this restaurant needs help!” and 5 being “this restaurant rocks!” – factoring in food, atmosphere, staff and more.