Redrock Canyon Grill, Silver Spring, Md.

Robert and I lunched yesterday at Redrock Canyon Grill in Silver Spring, braving the freezing rain and gusty winds.

Redrock Canyon Grill is part of a small, mid-Atlantic chain of restaurants with a large bar and typical mid-range franchise food, all with a "Texas" theme to the upscale menu. Aside from a welcoming, blazing fireplace by the entrance, the dining room was open and spacious, done in dark woods and with a big window wall, but had no Texas or southwestern kitsch laying around. The staff wore blue jeans and white Western shirts, and all were overly friendly and solicitous. I'm surprised they didn't have them in bandanas and cowboy hats, too.

Robert selected the pulled pork sandwich with French fries for his main course. It all looked very standard.


I had one of the daily specials, a Texas chopped salad. It was delicious. The meat was barbecued chicken, and in addition to the usual things, it contained little cubes of jicama and half a sliced avocado. The entire large salad was decorated with a few artistic squirts of barbecue sauce. I also got a wedge of their Texas skillet cornbread that included creamed corn and bits of jalapeño peppers.


For dessert, while I just drank some hot coffee with cream, Robert had the apple blossom pastry. Now, I wasn't really sure was an apple blossom pastry was, envisioning tiny, delicate flowers in apricot glaze on a small square of puff pastry and realizing that not only were apple blossoms not in season (yet), but they were not generally considered edible, so I asked the waitress to explain it to me. After she gave her corporate-established spiel, I said, "Ohhhh, it's an apple dumpling." You would have thought that I had stabbed her in the heart. While she confessed that it was "like" an apple dumpling, it wasn't one, because it's "different." Alas, the demands they place on the poor wait staff.

Once it arrived, there appeared to be two different sauces, one more transparent and honey-colored over the apple and a dark, caramel-looking sauce over the ice cream. I inspected it and it looked like a standard apple dumpling, though I must confess that when I make apple dumplings, I set the apple up on a square of pastry and fold the pastry up to join together on the top of the apple, while at Redrock, their apple is laid on its side and the pastry seam is underneath. So, it's "different."

Redrock Canyon Grill is a pleasant place with decent food and ample service. Next time you're in the downtown Silver Spring shopping district, give it a try.