Grille tasty, homey, but a little pricey

1740 Scottsville Road

Thursday, March 10, 2005

There used to be a saying, Too cute to live, and I think that applies to any place that spells shop as shoppe, or adds a gratuitous e to the end of grill.

With that in mind I feared for my wallet as I approached the Montana Grille. To my way of thinking, when you put that spelling with a building that looks like it was cut out of a ski-lodge brochure, Im expecting overpriced food with more focus on atmosphere than quality.

Sneaking in at lunch rather than dinner was my penny-pinching plan. With burgers going for between $5 and $7, Im not completely sure that worked.

Since the dinner menu includes a porterhouse at market price, and $16 for a half-rack of ribs and two pieces of chicken, I suppose I was getting off light. Sticker shock is something Im only starting to get used to when it comes to dinner out.

The place looks great, though. It was clean and the food got to the table rather quickly.

I got the BBQ Bacon-Cheese Billy Burger, and yes, the burger is as big as its name.

After being forced to say that name and pay the price, I was thinking it better be one heck of a burger. It was.

It would actually qualify as one of my top 10 restaurant burgers. It was well cooked with enough cheese to hold the two patties together well, even with all the bacon and barbecue sauce added on.

The bun was good and survived the very juicy burger well enough for me to eat the whole thing.

A companion at the table picked out the Buffalo Burger. He said it was OK, not great, but worth the money. Thankfully it came open faced so he could remove half of the pound of sauce that had been plopped on the bun.

I managed to snag a bit of the barbecue off another tablemates lunch and it was acceptable. The person who had the rights to that sandwich, though, said it got better as she ate.

The smoky taste of the meat came through the taste of the sauce as the eating progressed, she said.

The cabal-of-the-hungry at our table included one salad eater. This person was decidedly unimpressed Personally, Im wondering why, of the other odd spellings in the place, the salad is named Southern.

Maybe that is their term for dry and lacking flavor. Thats how the person who ate it described that breast of chicken on the salad.

Now I have it on good authority that Montana Grille is a good place to eat dinner, and I liked what I got for lunch.

Will I try it for dinner? Possibly.

Id be more likely to go if the side dishes were more appealing. Honestly, a restaurant too good to serve me fries is a little questionable. The slaw I got with my burger was stridently average.

They threw in a medicine-cup full of strawberry ice cream with lunch and it was good both bites.

The atmosphere was all that it appeared to be. It looked like a lodge had been lifted from Aspen or one of the western national parks and dropped in Bowling Green.

But, stack that lunch up against some of the better chain restaurant burgers around, and for the price Id have to say go to the chain.

It really hurts to write that. But as much as I hate eating in the plastic and ceramic tile-lined burger chains, they are a lot better deal.

Im taking heat in the office for knocking Montana Grille since several of my co-workers love it for dinner, so I could be wrong. There is a first-time for everything, OK, well maybe not the first time. All I can tell you about is what I saw and ate.

Our anonymous food reviewer has it in for the entire state of Montana. New restaurants will be given at least eight weeks before being reviewed. Send comments to Managing Editor Mike Alexieff at 783-3235.  Daily News ·813 College St. ·PO Box 90012 ·Bowling Green, KY ·42102 ·270-781-1700