Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [185]
Cole Drug
136 McLeod St.
406–932–5316
Big Timber, MT
Cruising through the lovely little town of Big Timber, we could not resist stopping at the good old lunch counter in Cole Drug store. The menu remains the same as it was ten years ago when we first faced the challenge of a Big Timber sundae (nine scoops of ice cream and all the toppings in the house). This time we ate more modestly and enjoyed a perfectly made black-and-white soda and a huckleberry sundae. Huckleberries are big in the Plains states, and their bright, sweet, fruity flavor makes for an ideal ice cream topping. We were also impressed with the good crunch of the nuts on top.
It was a quiet, soul-satisfying pleasure to sit at the boomerang-pattern Formica counter and chat with the soda-fountain mixologists and a few other customers who walked in for sodas and sundaes. This is a nice place in a nice town in a very nice part of the world.
Eddie’s Supper Club
3725 2nd Ave. N
406–453–1616
Great Falls, MT
LD | $$
Eddie’s is supper-club heaven, loved by generations of Montanans and visitors (it opened in 1944) as a comfortable place to go for cocktails and campfire steaks. There are two halves to it: a coffee shop, which is lighter-feeling, more casual, and with a varied menu that includes sandwiches, and the more serious restaurant, which is atmospheric and has a big-deal menu of beef and seafood.
We like sitting in the supper club if only for its décor: large, handsome pictures of horses, all kinds of them: trotters in action, a bucking horse tossing a cowboy, western horses at work tending cattle. The picture at the back of the room, which has a horse’s head in the foreground and a herd of cows in back, is especially beguiling. “We call him Mr. Ed,” our waitress said. “His eyes follow you all around the room.”
Booths are supremely comfortable, lights are low, and the staff are able pros. Steaks are grand. “Tastes just like that old Marlboro Cowboy cooked it over the campfire,” advises the menu. Our waitress told us that the secret of the steaks is not the fire over which they are cooked, but the house’s special wine marinade. This seeps into the meat and gives it a special tang, also coating the surface so the exterior of the steak develops a crunchy caramelized crust as it cooks. The T-bone we ate was spectacularly good. And an off-the-menu hamburger, which has the marinade folded into the meat, was wildly flavorful.
The Granary
1500 Poly Dr.
406–259–3488
Billings, MT
LD | $$$
The Granary is a beautiful old building that was part of Billings Polytechnic Institute before World War II, but lay empty from the mid-1940s into the 1970s. It was then made into a fancy restaurant, and again in 2004 it was bought, remodeled, and reconceived to be what it is today: the finest place in Billings to dine. Suave service, comfortable accommodations, a serious wine list, and a contemporary menu are its hallmarks.
The interior décor is chic log-cabin West and meals are urbane and sophisticated but with a western twist. That twist is primarily in the variety and quality of beef on the menu. It is Misty Isle Farms aged Northwest Black Angus, cooked at 1,700 degrees in the broiler. We had a sirloin, which was one of the best in a land of really good steaks. You can also get a rib eye, tenderloin, prime rib, or Kobe New York strip (for $49). Non-beef entrees include the likes of Thai orange salmon, maple leaf duck breast, and a pineapple green chili bone-in pork chop. We started our meal with an excellent Caesar salad.
The dessert menu is strange for its dearth of chocolate, but fancy-pants sweet tooths will have no problem choosing from among such luxuries as a caramelized blueberry napoleon, a banana tower on a mousse-filled caramel crisp,