Monday, November 24, 2008
Restaurants Ted's Montana Grill: Rhapsody in Bison
Posted by Carrington Fox on Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 5:05 AM
I attended a dinner party this weekend at which all the men
waxed rhapsodic about their love for the bison offerings at Ted's Montana Grill. It was the
first time I had heard such enthusiasm for the Atlanta-based chain, which stampeded into Nashville
in 2003, but if the proliferation of 24-hour news shows us anything about the eponymous Ted
Turner's ability to change Americans' most basic habits, I figure there's a
good chance that soon enough we'll all be eating tatanka while we watch Headline News.
With that in mind, I led the Fox herd to Ted's to see if we could suss out the difference between beef and bison. (Founder Ted Turner
admitted in the Nov. 24 Time magazine that he can't distinguish the flavor of good beef from bison.) This was not our first
trip to Ted's, but since we usually stick with the plank-grilled salmon or the fish sandwich, this time we focused on bison burgers.
Overall, our meal at the eco-friendly restaurant was delicious, from the fountain cokes with soft ice pellets (and biodegradable paper straws) to the homemade pickles that came to the table when we sat down. We agreed the bison indeed had a distinct flavor, with a faint tinge of iron, almost reminiscent of liver--but in a good way. The most amazing thing about the thick burgers, which were cooked perfectly to medium-rare, was that they were extremely moist and juicy without being greasy in the slightest.
While Ted's menu of bison burgers is priced slightly above its beef burgers (most hover around $12), we found a surprising deal on the kids' menu, with three bison sliders on soft yeast rolls, fries and a drink for $6.50. Next time, we'll probably opt for the appetizer of four sliders for $8, which will be an ample adult meal.
If you want to test out your own taste buds--and you're sick of turkey--you can take the bison plunge on Thanksgiving. Ted's will be open for business, serving its full menu in addition to turkey and dressing.
Located at 2817 West End Ave. (phone: 329-3415), Ted's serves lunch and dinner daily.
Comments (5)
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I've noticed that bison is slightly more dry than beef, although I really like the burgers at Ted's.
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That's why I was so surprised. Our burgers were so moist and tender. Even the sliders, which are cooked all the way through to a dull gray, were plenty juicy. It was a pleasant surprise.
Five or so years ago when I reviwed Ted's, I took 6 manly members of the Nashville Fire Department. Talk about your dream date! Six of 6 firemen loved Ted's Montana Grill. They also loved that their chief won a one-armed push up contest with the GM---the prize being a $100 bottle of Opal One. By that point in the night of a thousand beers, it could have been Koolaid for all they cared. But they were very discerning when it came to beef versus bison. The bison made up in meatiness what it lacked in moisture.
My complaint about Ted's - aside from the fact they like to brag they're the first to serve bison in Nashville and they're just flat wrong and 8 years late - is that they actually change the bison via seasoning so it will taste more like beef, which completely negates the whole point of paying more for bison, in my little pea brain way of viewing things, anyway. I don't eat ground beef any more unless I grind it myself, and have been eating buffalo since I was 12 working on a ranch and actually knew the buffalo I ate. (I know, it sounds weird, it's just how my turn in this barrel called life has played out so far.) And the reason I prefer it is because it tastes like what beef should have been all along. So seasoning it to come 'down' to beef just made me mad - if I wanted beef that's what I would have ordered.
As for their bison burger juiciness, they get that from cheating as well - they essentially baste the burgers by cooking them with their own little wok-like covers over them (baste like an egg, not like a turkey) on a flattop grill. Because a buffalo physiologically is more muscular than typical beef-cattle, they lack the fat that gives a typical 80/20 burger its juiciness, so you usually wind up actually adding fat to the cooking process to avoid a dry burger or worse, a stuck one. And that's ok! Unless you're at Ted's, apparently, where they think steaming is the same as grilling, which it's not unless you're at White Kastle, which you're certainly not.
All that to say, eating a bison burger at Ted's is a waste of considerable money if you like the taste and texture of bison and a grilled, not steamed burger of any kind. In my humble opinion. That's why I prefer either my own or the less hullaballooed bison burger option at Blackstone for almost half the money, and all the flavor.
