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4919 Fairmont Ave.
Bethesda, Md.
(301) 656-2981
Hours of Operation and Prices
Lunch: M-F 11-3; Entrees: $5-$10
Dinner: Sun-Th 3-10:30, F 3-11:30, Sat.11:30-11:30; Entrees: $6.50-$17
Brunch: Sun 11:30-3; Entrees: $6.25-$8
Other Information
• Credit Cards: All major
• Reservations: No
• Dress: Casual
• Parking: Street
• Nearest Metro: Bethesda
• Handicapped accessible
• Other Rio Grande Cafe branches: 4301 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington, Va. (703) 528-3131, and 1827 Library St., Reston, Va. (703) 904-0703
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As soon as I open the door to Rio Grande Cafe - any Rio Grande Cafe - I'm pushed and pulled. The noise pushes me to seek a quick escape, while the tortilla machine pulls me in to satisfy a craving for its unbeatable flour tortillas.
Its walls painted with fancy graffiti in hot colors and its servers unfailingly cheerful, Rio Grande Cafe is always a festival. At lunch, long tables are filled with office parties. At dinner, children and parents, singles and couples celebrate a birthday, or just the end of the workday. Big margaritas, huge baskets of chips, platters large enough to see you through two meals - everything is bigger than life.
And almost everything is good. The chips are thin and delicate, though the same could be said of the salsa, and that's not a compliment. The fajitas are a fabulous pile of crusty grilled skirt steak (or chicken for the timid) to wrap in those warm, puffy tortillas. The tamales and enchiladas have solid character, the chiles rellenos are flavorful as well as moderately fiery. And the accompanying red rice and pork-studded beans are good enough to serve proudly as a meal.
Beyond the down-to-earth Tex-Mex dishes, there are such elegances as quail, frog legs and a big, luxurious, lime-sharpened, cilantro-fragrant seviche of shellfish and orange roughy. Grilled shrimp are merely ordinary, though, and crispy tacos, especially chicken, taste like chain-restaurant cooking. Still, few are the disappointments in this gregarious trio of Tex-Mex restaurants.
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