NVM Review

By Warren Rojas

Cynics claim you don’t buy beer, you rent it. Monday nights (5-7 p.m.) at Rocklands you get a much more tangible—and quite tasty—return on your investment: free barbecue. Every beer purchased—prices range from $2.50 per Miller Lite draft to $6 for a tallboy of Strongbow cider—scores a gratis, pulled pork sandwich (hickory-smoked and vinegar-laced bliss).

By Warren Rojas

Rocklands founder John Snedden is so fond of the nostalgia-inducing scent of barbecued meats impregnated over hours with the essence of spent wood, that he requires every entree at his homegrown restaurants to be thoroughly smoked AND flash grilled before being served to expectant customers.

Their signature pit is a seven-foot tall, vertically-oriented chamber boasting four main cooking areas—pork ribs sizzle at the lowest level, chicken and pork butts bronze in the middle region, beef brisket comes into its moist, delicious own up top—interspersed with grease traps, oxygen-filled chambers and twin fires (fed a roughly 80/20 percent mix of red oak and hickory, respectively).

“We like the flavor profiles that both produce,” Snedden says of the preferred heat sources.

Cooking times vary, with chickens typically getting plucked from the smoker first (after about three hours) while brisket whiles away the longest (up to half a day).

As per Snedden’s specifications, everything gets finished atop their special, wood-stoked Aztec Grill (a convection heat-maximizing appliance)—a flash searing designed to wrap all main dishes in a charred and caramelized crust.

Each featured protein—catch of the day (salmon, tilapia), spare ribs, beef ribs, chicken, brisket, pulled pork—receives individual attention come rub time (salt, pepper and cumin for birds, all three plus garlic for the brisket, etc.), a mission critical move that helps draw out the distinctive personality of the many splendored meats.

Snedden readily admits to developing an affinity for beef ribs while researching ‘cue down in the Lone Star State. And while his supply lines remain in flux—Snedden has to fight to track down the oversized four-bone racks he favors—demand continues to steadily rise.

“It’s a building clientele,” he says of the education-intensive grilled fare.

Listen up, bovine-bone newbies.

The smoky-sweet beef ribs are phenomenal, revealing juice-laden slabs of well-marbled meat that’s unyieldingly tender and intoxicatingly perfumed. A bone or two is ample for a single person—though it is hard to switch off the primordial lust activated by repeatedly hoisting the weighty rib to your lips and decisively ripping each shred of mouthwatering ‘cue from the bone’s reluctant grasp.

Brisket delivers serious juice and tang, each chewy, black pepper-crusted strip damn near dissolving on the tongue—but not before unleashing its salty-smoky payload.

Barbecued chicken sports a tar black skin shielding moist, hickory-infused meat below (their bird absorbs the wood best). Pair it with some Texas corn pudding, a sunrise yellow-mash of sweet corn bits and cornmeal for the perfect savory-sweet duo.