"Live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse." This is the epitaph written for '50s film icon James Dean, killed in a fiery crash at age 26 in Central California.
Dean is immortalized in a plaque by the door of the new Hot Rod Grille, a '50s-style diner trying hard to fill an ironic niche as the only restaurant of import adjacent to the Henderson DMV.
Early reports indicate that these people aren't doing a half-bad job, either, though the service, performed by a bunch of lackadaisical kids, is about as speedy as dragster champ Shirley Muldowney in a three-legged race.
If slow service in a place called Hot Rod seems like a contradiction, hey, it's an imperfect world. Both times I've dined here, only a beleaguered bus boy who outperformed his waiter by a five-to-one margin, bothered to hustle. On each occasion, we practically had to beg for our waiter to come by and take an order, even though the dining room was virtually empty.
Hot Rod Grille was handsomely conceived, has a nice design, and decent, basic American food. From outside, it could be a '50s beach house in Southern California, but inside, the cavernous interior makes it all seem timeless: a high ceiling, car memorabilia, Formica tabletops in bold colors, and gray and red leatherette booths straight from the set of American Graffiti.
There is a separate bar where a Chevy Bel Air, circa 1957, and a yellow car with a '40s-style chassis are suspended on a platform overhead. Up a twisty staircase, there is a banquet room and portable bar.
A touch of sports bar modernism is provided by the presence of a battery of TVs, at least one of which is visible from any vantage point in the restaurant. The extensive menu has touches of retro and regional American, like Cajun and Southwestern. It really adds up to a glorified coffee shop, circa 2003.
This is a 24/7 operation, but the menu is stratified, probably because there are different chefs for different time slots. As a result, a 4:30 p.m. visit meant that a 5 p.m. dish, like baby back ribs or filet mignon, wasn't available until that precise hour, which was an inconvenience.
Breakfasts begin at 7 a.m. The skillet breakfast is my favorite: a big mess of breakfast sausage, potatoes, onions, green peppers, cheese and eggs, all scrambled together. The Hot Rod muffin is made from the same component parts as an Egg McMuffin, but somehow manages to taste radically better.
At lunch or dinner, there is a spate of all-American appetizers, including hot, homemade soup like a rich chicken and rice; a spinach and artichoke dip served in a sourdough bread bowl; greasy onion rings; and workmanlike chicken wings, which I'd classify as generic in the extreme.
Smokin' Hot Rod burgers and an extensive sandwich section are two of the menu's strong suits. Hamburgers are mammoth, made from two-thirds of a pound of Angus beef, and served with French fries or coleslaw. I took half of a patty melt home, while two friends shared a tasty blackened Cajun burger, done in an iron skillet. Neither complained about leaving hungry.
The best sandwich in my book is a gut bomb called the Hot Rod cheese steak, with thin slices of top round on a French roll smeared with melted Monterey Jack, but I'd give the tuna salad sandwich a close second, made with albacore tuna, sliced avocado and tomato, and alfalfa sprouts, all between pieces of a chewy deli rye.
Yes, there is a Cobb salad, though someone has substituted pasta for the chopped chicken, for me, a no-no. Better is the Southwest barbecue chicken salad, with mixed field greens, seasoned black beans, corn relish, tomatoes, cheese, cilantro and lots of chicken and tortilla strips. It's a real meal.
Don't bother with the gooey pizzas nor oversauced pastas, but entrées are solid, especially the baby back ribs, a trencherman-sized full slab big enough to feed an entire family, and the filet mignon, surprisingly tender for a restaurant of this genre, served with a nice Bearnaise sauce and vegetable medley.
Fish and chips are made with Atlantic cod filets, and there is orange roughy from New Zealand for those with a lighter appetite, roasted in lemon butter and doused with a superfluous white-wine sauce. I tried two Finish Line desserts, a nice bread pudding, served hot with brandied raisins, and a generic apple pie a la mode—zzzzzzz.
Since this is very much a family restaurant, there is also a kid's menu, stocked with dishes like Pasgetti, (I'll let you guess), grilled cheese and fries, and a hot dog, also served with fries, all the shining gifts that make family dining a joy.