Multi-course meal

I was deliriously sick the day my family and I went to David’s Grill and Sports Bar at The Resort at Red Hawk. Red Hawk is a golfing resort out in the farthest reaches of yuppie suburbia, that is to say, northeast Sparks. A scary, scary place. I’m sure there are nice folks who live there, I just can’t stand the suburbs. And I hate golf. “A good walk spoiled,” as our man Mr. Twain once had it. I’m too much a desert rat to abide the kind of water expenditure needed to maintain a green golf course, and I always think about what a pain in the ass the things must be to mow.

Anyway, I was miserably sick and had biases against the place. And I was sad because our meal was to be a farewell dinner for my sister, Brenna, off to the greener courses of graduate school. It seemed like a meal impossible to end well—but it did. I was completely won over. Sitting outside at the end of the meal, I even enjoyed the way the sunset illuminated the golf course.

I started out with a wild berry smoothie ($3.95), which was sweet, fresh and rejuvenating, though not exactly smooth. It wasn’t thoroughly blended, so it was more like berry juice over big ol’ blocks of ice.

I had the special: prime rib with halibut in a red pepper coulis ($22). The order prompted my mother’s concern.

“Should you really eat that much?” she asked. “Do you have that big of an appetite?”

This led us to the time-honored debate: Is it feed a cold, starve a fever or vice versa? The longer we talked about it, the less clear it became. To complicate matters, I wasn’t sure which I had, a cold or a fever. Finally, my mom laid down the final word: “It’s feed a cold, starve a fever.”

“OK, then I have a cold,” I said. “Whichever one means I get to eat more.”

The prime rib was a nice, juicy cut of meat, but I was especially impressed with the halibut. The coulis lit up the halibut like fire on wood, a campfire in your mouth. It’s one of those beguiling flavors that one fondly recollects with desirous stomach pangs for days afterward.

My mom, in an uncharacteristic display of mateyness, had the fish and chips ($10.95), a dish I didn’t order because the menu boasted that the batter was made with Fat Tire, a beer I loathe. But again, my expectations were turned around—the fish was surprisingly good.

Brenna had the Caesar salad with grilled shrimp ($14.95), which made her happy. My brother, Cameron, had the barbecue ribs and chicken combo ($12.95), such good, messy fun that it comes complete with washcloth. I talked him into giving me a rib “for professional purposes” and was glad I did.

Despite the fact that dinner was so invigorating—my mom characterized my demeanor after the meal as a “miraculous recovery"—it was tinged with sadness because of my sister’s impending departure. But the best things in life are bittersweet, which is why we ended with the two-tone mud pie ($6.95). My sister and I are both hardcore chocoholics, like our mama raised us, and we won’t feel satisfied with a meal that doesn’t conclude with chocolatey goodness. It was Brenna’s last meal in Reno until she comes back next year, so I’m glad the mud pie was more than par for the course.