thelocaldiner.com

Some friends and former colleagues came out from New York last week. I have tried to continue in my role as Montana evangelist for them when they visit, imploring them to give up yet another weekend at the office to stay here an extra day or two and visit Glacier, Chico, or at least give up the Holiday Inn’s broadband internet access long enough to stay at the Sanders or the Barrister. So I was eager to introduce them to the Tap Room; though its 7pm closing hour may be impractical for the business traveller, the beer and the crowd more than compensates. They loved it, and after last call we headed to the parking lot to plan our next move.

Earlier, I had introduced them to growlers, though when we brought our two growlers in for a refill they only had one lighter beer (not “light beer”, just something other than a stout, porter, or scottish ale), a bitter. By the time we left they had run out of that beer, and could only offer us the dark stuff for our growlers–we took a jug of scottish ale, but passed on the rest and left with an empty jug. But as we stood there in the parking lot with the forlorn empty growler, Sarah from the Tap Room ran out to catch me, apologized for running out of the bitter, and offered me another growler filled earlier with a pale ale–perfect! She had a deal. The thing was, she wouldn’t let me pay for it.

That’s right, someone from a bar chased after me to offer us a jug of free beer.

The New Yorkers stood speechless for one rare moment, wondering again why they work eighty-hour weeks to live in apartments smaller than our kitchen.

The growler isn’t really a drink, it’s a vessel for a drink, and that drink is freshly brewed beer. Growlers have been around for more than a century, when they were tin cans or pitchers. Though it is unclear where the word originated, I like this explanation:

[A]n early reference, in the Trenton Times for 20 June 1883 said “It is called the growler because it provokes so much trouble in the scramble after beer”.

At the turn of the last century, the growler was associated in tenements of New York with the unsavory practice of sending boys to fetch beer for men who were either too industrious, lazy, or mindful of their reputations to enter a bar themselves. Jacob Riis described the practice in his How the Other Half Lives:

I doubt if one child in a thousand, who brings his growler to be filled at the average New York bar, is sent away empty-handed, if able to pay for what he wants. I once followed a little boy, who shivered in bare feet on a cold November night so that he seemed in danger of smashing his pitcher on the icy pavement, into a Mulberry Street saloon where just such a sign hung on the wall, and forbade the barkeeper to serve the boy. The man was as astonished at my interference as if I had told him to shut up his shop and go home, which in fact I might have done with as good a right, for it was after 1 A.M., the legal closing hour. He was mighty indignant too, and told me roughly to go away and mind my business, while he filled the pitcher. The law prohibiting the selling of beer to minors is about as much respected in the tenement-house districts as the ordinance against swearing.

We’ve been to a few Mulberry Street saloons (you occasionally see our favorite, which sat around the corner from Autumn’s apartment, on the Sopranos), but growlers are harder to find there. While there is one small brewery in New York that brews beer worth taking home with you–today, most of New York’s breweries are chain restaurant tourist gimmicks–that brewery lies in the far reaches of Brooklyn, so I never had the opportunity to fill a growler with Brooklyn Lager.

Growlers more common in Montana’s local breweries. They are now glass jugs, not tin cans, and they can keep beer drinkable for up to two weeks–though I’ve never owned a half gallon of beer that long, and once you open a growler you’ve got only a day or two to get to the bottom of it. Take home a growler of Montana beer and a friend or two, and that won’t be a problem.

47 East Broadway
Butte, Montana

There’s a website called Chowhound that inspired me to write about good local food on the internet. The Uptown Cafe in Butte is the most famous restaurant in Montana, Chowhound-wise. Autumn and I came through Butte the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day, and hoped to find some pre-parade revelry. But Butte was quiet that night, so we passed the bars and dropped into the Uptown.

The Uptown cooks creative, upscale take on traditional Montana supper club cuisine. (While I have heard that they pride themselves on seasonal entrees, the special was the same (delicious) maple and whiskey pork loin I enjoyed in the fall a couple of years ago.) You can start with a cocktail, wine from a short list of standards, or local or domestic beers, and they are all about as inexpensive as you’ll find in a restaurant this good. While the interior is simple and neutral, the walls displayed several large-formate black and white WPA-ere photographs of Butte, on loan from the Montana Historical Society.

The menu offers several lavish steak and seafood options, and we dove right in with Beef Wellington and Coquilles St. Jacques (scallops backed in a gruyere white sauce). But remember the supper club theme: first you have a bowl of cheddar soup or a salad, then cheese-breaded “clams maison” on the half-shell, then a side of undistinguished linguine, and then your main course. Had we been hauling ore all day, we might have still been hungry after these opening courses (and we didn’t even have appetizers), but by the time the entrees came, we felt defeated. All of the entrees should be big enough to stand on their own without the supper club-style excess. Still we plowed through, and the Beef Wellington managed to contain a tender filet inside the flaky pastry, although the brown gravy was more of a reduction that I could have used more of. Autumn’s scallops were small, and baked in a savory but not smooth gruyere sauce; between the two of us we could only finish half the dish, but it would have made a tasty appetizer as a smaller portion.

Dessert was out of the question, though their cheesecake varieties sounded just as over-the-top as the rest of the meal. We’d hate to miss out on one of the other rich entrees, so next time, we’ll just waive the first three courses in hopes of making it to the cheesecake.

529 South Higgins
Missoula, MT

The University of Montana’s steady influx of visitors favors Missoula restaurants, and makes the city a home of eclectic, quality cuisine. For our first trip to Missoula, we asked our Grizzly graduate friends for places where we could treat ourselves before my legal ethics exam. Scotty’s, settled among several other popular restaurants in a row of turn-of-the-century storefronts, made everyone’s list.

A dramatic glass-walled entrance greeted us, but the architecture soon gave way to a cozy bar and a room next door with stylish, comfortable banquettes. Our servers were as helpful as we have had anywhere, prompt with an explanation of the specials, and knowledgable about ingredients and the wines. The maitre d’ even offered us a halibut special he had tried, even though the kitchen was saving it for a later seating. The menu was impressive for a small bistro, with a mix of standard steak and fish dishes, along with the kind of fusion and vegetarian dishes you expect to find in a college town. Every item emphasized fresh, often organic, ingredients, and the wine list focused on smaller American wineries.

We ordered a representative meal, me with coq au vin, and Autumn with a mediterranean chicken dish. First we shared a slice of coarse country pate, seasoned enough so we didn’t miss the mustard. The coq au vin was a comforting classic: thick, smoky mushroom gravy on top, and pleasantly lumpy garlic mashed potatoes. My only complaint was the rooster (chicken?) itself: more skin and bones than meat. Maybe I got the leftovers when they prepared Autumn’s boneless grilled chicken breast with an herb rub. We didn’t get a chance to share much after filling up on our own dishes, but Autumn had no complaints.

I had to get a little more ethics cramming in, and we were too full for dessert, so we had to pass up the cheesecake. But we hope to get back to Missoula enough to work our way through more of the menu.

602 Main Street
Miles City, Montana

This is a classic Montana supper club, in the dusty river town that was the end of the line for the great cattle drives that inspired Lonesome Dove. Main Street Miles City, lit by old neon bar signs, was where we would dine on our first night in Montana.

The Hole in the Wall is anything but. After the darkened entrance, a long, high, mahogany bar looms to the left. This is the kind of massive woodworked bar that would be a treasure in a big city tavern, and you’ll find them up and down Main Street in an old cowtown like Miles City. The dining room is an afterthought, tucked in the back under ornate tin ceilings and cavernous brick walls covered with cowboy murals and taxidermied animals surrounding a central fireplace. It was filled with families, known by name to the staff.

A newcomer to Montana might wonder why we had to get up and go to the bar to place our drink order, and why the food came from the lunchcounter kitchen at the 600 Cafe next door. Montana is tight with its liquor licenses–long story–so bars and restaurants often team up to provide a complete food and drink experience, with separate bills for each. I’m not quite sure how I financed it, but they made a tasty Pauline.

Let’s cut to the food. The distinguishing feature of a Montana supper club is steak bookended by endless accompaniments. For Autumn that meant, well, endless accompaniments: a salad bar where everything but the lettuce had dressing preapplied. Good chicken soup though, but that might be a reflection of eating road food for five days on the way from New York.

But you don’t see value like this in New York. Lobster tail (which made Autumn suspicious) for twenty bucks with everything. I had a decent 12 oz. T-Bone (one of the smaller cuts), with saucy salad bar, mashed potatoes topped with perfect brown gravy thick with mushrooms and bacon, fettucine al fredo (are you kidding?), all for $12. That would have cost at least $60 at Peter Luger, and–a sad Montana irony–the beef would have been much better in Brooklyn.

Still, a fitting first meal in Montana.

The first drink I ordered after entering Montana was a Pauline: equal parts gin, vodka, and dry vermouth, on the rocks, with a olives. I had to spell it out for the bartender at the Hole in the Wall in Miles City, because the Pauline is a rare drink–in fact, I think I am the only one who calls it that, and one of only two people who drink it.

The Pauline takes its name from my grandmother, a tough old Scot born on the flanks of the Crazy Mountains, my mother’s mother. When I came to visit her after some time at college, at the appointed cocktail hour, as she was mixing me a Squirt and maraschino cherry juice, my mom let slip that I had started drinking harder stuff. At that, Pauline promptly walked over to the sink, poured out my pop, and topped off the pyrex measuring bowl of liquor she was mixing. That night I’d start drinking martinis.

This cocktail was no fancy gin with some postmodern whisper of vermouth, or even the cold war vodka version. This cocktail was a shot each of gin and vodka from a plastic bottle (Lewis & Clark, I recall), topped off with a generous shot of vermouth.

An ounce and a half of vermouth: You would think it was a superfund pollutant, the way otherwise sensible liquor drinkers avoided it. But vermouth dates the drink, takes it out of the age of artisan gins and quadruple-filtered vodkas, back to when bartenders struck a balance between high-proof rutgut gin and the finer, more dilute vermouth. Vermouth–not just a whisper, but enough of it to flavor the drink–makes it a cocktail and not just a shot of booze. And when some apparently tough bartender rolls his eyes at my order, like I’m one of those who wants his gin spiced with organic juniper, or his subliminal vermouth atomized, I tell him that my grandmother’s been drinking that mix for twice as long as either of us has been alive.

Someday I’ll train a bartender to make a Pauline by name, but until then I’ll suffer the sideways glances, take my gin and vodka and vermouth and ice and olives, and toast my dear old grandmother.