Ted’s Montana Grill – Coconut Point Mall – Read for details on $50 Gift Card Giveaway!

Win a $50 Gift Card to Ted’s! Rules down below!

I was getting new glasses at the Franz Eye Care Center down on Alico Road, so I thought as long as we’re this far south, let’s check out Ted’s Montana Grill in Coconut Point Mall and I’m glad we did. I’ve seen the commercials on TV about this place. It all looked good and it was! It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside was fantastic! It thought I was back in Chicago at one of our favorite dinner places called Park Avenue Spats.

We sat in one of the booths. It was nice and cozy. If you want to see more of the action, I suggest you sit at one of the many tables in the middle of the restaurant. The middle row of tables kept getting rearranged for bigger parties as they came in. By the time we left the place was more than half full. We got there around 4:15pm on a Monday. I would imagine on the weekends that the place would be packed, but I don’t know for sure. Its a good idea to make a reservation.

We could tell our waiter was not only new to this place, but also new to being a waiter. We asked him who Ted was and he said “some rich guy”. Its actually Ted Turner, media mogul, Jane Fonda’s ex-husband, owner of the Atlanta Braves, philanthropist, land owner and bison rancher. They sell a lot of bison at Ted’s Montana Grill. Burgers, steaks and more. I’ll talk about the food later, so let’s start out with the appetizer and drinks.

I’ve ordered fresh made potato chips in restaurants before and this is one of the best batches I’ve ever had. All perfectly done. No burnt ones, no under done ones! And the ranch dip was delicious. The drinks were fantastic! I ordered their signature Manhattan and my wife ordered the Paloma. Very nice!

My wife and I always used to order a small dinner salad to have before our entrees, but most salads nowadays are in the $20 range. Ted’s has an $8 dinner salad and we were ready to order one, but forgot! We ordered our entrees and as the waiter walked away we remembered, but we were getting filled up on the potato chips, so we nixed that idea. I forgot to mention earlier, but they give you a complimentary dish of pickle slices. I ate a few, My wife ate one. I could see munching on them if you ordered one of their burgers.

My wife did order a beef burger, not bison, while I ordered the Bison Short Ribs. I have pics of the menu down below, so you can see there’s quite a selection between beef, bison and chicken. I asked about the Cedar Plank Salmon, but it is farm raised and I don’t eat farm raised salmon. So, there’s a nice selection of entrees and appetizers and salads.

The short ribs came with gravy on top and a side of gravy. It was a standard gravy. If I were doing it, I’d have had some red wine in there to give it an added dimension. But no big deal. I did get a bread roll on my plate and I have to have butter on my bread, so I asked the waiter for some butter. No problem! It took so long to get the ice cold butter that it wouldn’t melt on the mashed potatoes or the bread! I did use some of the gravy on the mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes are the lumpy kind, so if you like super duper creamy mashed potatoes, you are out of luck. The fries were good! My wife asked for ketchup and that also took a long time to get. We should have asked the food runner for all that when he delivered the food, but again, we forgot. Its tough getting old!

So the food was excellent! We didn’t eat everything and got to go containers, so we had room (kind of) for dessert. We ordered cheesecake with wild berry sauce. And boy, did that take a long time to get! When it was delivered, we asked for our check to save time on that process. Like I said earlier, the waiter was new, but we liked him. We asked a lot of questions and what he didn’t know, he went and got the answer to. Plus, we had drinks, so we were in a good mood! All in all, a great night out. Driving back on I75 was like a racetrack! Holy cow! All three lanes did come to a dead stop between Daniels and Colonial with no apparent reason. And then it was off to the races again. Crazy! Maybe next time I’ll go for lunch?!

As you can see in the above pic, we started eating before we took the picture. Sorry about that!

Announcing a $50 Gift Card Giveaway for Ted’s

In the spirit of the holidays and as a thank you to all our readers we want to give one lucky person a $50 gift card to Ted’s! All you have to do is find the picture of the gift card in one of my previous posts! it says “Distinctly Ted’s” on the top of the card. Here’s the rules: You have to have subscribed to the website and be the first one to find it. So if you’re not a subscriber, subscribe now! And then start looking. When you find it, fill out a Contact form with your info and tell me where you found it. Maybe paste the url in the text of the contact form or tell me the title of the post. The first contact form in my email queue with the right answer gets the card. I will deliver the card to the address you put in the contact form. So you must live in Hampton Lakes! If nobody finds it by Christmas Eve, its mine!

Good luck and talk to you the next time! Also, check out the fun stuff tab on the main menu bar. I’ve added a sudoku, a picture puzzle and a community quiz for some fun. There’s also a weather tab for Alva weather! Bye!