Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a reservation?
Short answer: Yes
It helps us make your party comfortable upon arriving.
Plus, out here in Fishtail where ppl often drive an hour or more to visit,
a reservation helps make sure you can walk in and be sat right away.
Even if I'm a local?
Yes. Of Course. WE'RE ALL LOCAL here.
We don't import Burmese customers. There are no Anatolian walk-ins.
This isn't the Great Replacement.
The Johnsons dryland homesteaded over 100 years ago
& you better believe if one of our relatives shows up, they're waiting too.
Why'd you change the name?
1) In the 126 year history of this bar / restaurant, it has had many names.
For a while, it was The Little Yellow House. You'd come to Absarokee with the family, they'd stay at the Big Yellow,
and you'd ride up to the Little Yellow in Fishtail. It was two stories; you'd stay upstairs with the Working Ladies,
gamble downstairs, then rejoin the family in Absarokee.
It was Newell's for a while; most families who buy this place run it for a couple decades, and most of them have changed the name, as did the Newell family. It was Fishtail Steak House, then briefly Fishtail Steak House at the Aspen Grove.
We have yet to see it confirmed in writing, but old locals with long memories swear that way back in the day it was
The Sheperds' or some version of that, back when Fishtail was a sheep industry hub.
2) The Cowboy Bar and Supper Club was a bad name for the 2020's and beyond.
Sorry (don't shoot the messenger). We did a lot of market research, and the name kept coming up.
For tourists: the Supper Club part was problematic; is this like Utah where I have to be a member to drink?
For locals, some people reported less than ideal experiences at The Cowboy and weren't coming back because of that.
3) We're not Cowboys, and small family restaurants succeed when they are authentic and meaningful to the family.
We are Half Montana (Chef Lee) and Half Malaysia (Yokie aka Smokey). That's what MontAsia is. We still have Cowboy-approved food: amazing steaks, burgers, local beef & yak. We have the world's best American style spaghetti.
But we also have Malaysian surprises and delights, such as rojak, potstickers, you tiao, chili crisp and soy sauce on every table, Asian cocktails and desserts, and even homemade noodles.
4) The history of this establishment is super important to us, and we honor it in several ways.
All the old signage has been saved and moved inside. The door mural took Chef dozens of hours to lovingly restore by erasing some insanely vulgar graffiti (and that's Chef saying that) from the Cowboy's closing party. It's in the Men's Room now.
We have a special outdoor tribute coming soon to honor the past of this building. We're really excited about it.
And we think Al Walker would definitely approve of the deferred maintenance we're doing, from the 120 cubic yards of trash we removed from the property's E and NE corners, to the entirely new HVAC, electrical, plumbing, drywall, and more.
What happened to the Dining room?
It's being reborn.
This place needed a lot of work, and the dining room was the most in need. We had to go down past the studs, which had to be replaced on the N and E walls. We used it as a flex / waiting room from '22 to '25 as we dealt with more pressing issues.
That was perfect though, because it gave us a few years to observe what the community needs most from that space.
We're really, really, really excited about how we're going to use that room. Chef's like a maniac when he talks about it.
He calls it Project Rockwell. We expect it to debut in by summer 2027. It'll be worth the wait. Stay tuned!
Do you do online ordering?
Heck Yeah! Click here.
What is the meaning of Life?
An awesome bowl of noodles.
and 42
Why don't you answer the phone?
That's harsh, we usually do. However, If you call from 5:30 to 7:30, we ain't hating; we're busy!!!!
We are hiring, and a few more hires would free us all up to answer those mid-rush calls more often. Come apply!
I hate my friend's new boyfriend, but I LOVE his dog. How can I thread this needle?
Hate's a strong word, but we'll take your view as canon in this situation and advise you to proceed as such:
we really trust you, and if you hate him, we both know his dog does too. You've got to fix this.
You need to find little moments with the pup, from walks to micro moments when he's in the bathroom- maximize that time. Forge that bond. Make that connection. Train the dog on a few commands only you know.
Once that foundation is laid, be situationally aware; there will come a time when he's distracted / occupied and you can "make your move". Abscond with the dog. Go on vacation. A backpacking trip is best. Deepen that bond. Make the dog yours.
You will probably have to move. You can't be in the same city as him, not for now. Get a seasonal job. Somewhere rural. Somewhere isolated. A place with low broadband and cell coverage. Maybe a safe place to work in that town.
In time, he'll move on, and you'll have the dog.
For that magic place to hide, might we suggest MontAsia in Fishtail?
WE'RE HIRING!
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We heard. . . . . . . . . . . is that true?!?!?!
In 2022 we heard a lot of:
she's from China and he's from California.
Truth Rating: Pants on Fire
Origin: Who knows on this one? Old-school anti-Asian racism paired with small town gossip?
Reality Check: Chef and Yokie from Cooke City before this. Yokie's an American citizen. We're both proud MSU grads.
As for our staff: our Head Waitress has been in Columbus for about 20 years. Both cooks live on the Stillwater River. Bartender is from Columbus. Hostess has houses in Nye and in Columbus.
. . .you're closing the bar / don't like people drinking.
Truth Rating: Pants on Fire
Origin: One bartender we didn't hire was really bitter about it and worked hard to spread this rumor.
Reality Check: Our first big investment was an entirely new beer cooler, all new beer lines, and a new underbar setup.
Chef's a lifelong bar aficionado, having grown up in restaurants and bars in Steamboat CO. He LOVES beer. He loves the craft of designing cocktails and working behind a bar. We love bars! We love the craft of bartending and pub keeping. This is a dream of ours to run a bar. When Chef answers the question "What do you do?" it's always "We own a bar", not a restaurant.
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. . .you're closing / selling
Truth Rating: False
Origin: Small town rumors / brutal industry has resulted in widespread closures / seasonal closure
Reality Check: This one just gets false, because of the seasonal closure. We do "close" from Dec 8th - early Feb.
It gives us some family and rest time. It gives us a chance to work on the business instead of in the business. Chef and Yokie are here, all day, every day, but they're busy the whole time. In Dec and Jan they can catch up on building maintenance, admin, training, soy sauce, recipes, all that good stuff behind the scenes.
We're simply not selling. This is Yokie's dream, and we're in it for the long haul.
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In 2023 we heard a lot of:
you hate locals
Truth Rating: Pants on Fire
Origin: Happens a lot when new owners purchase old businesses.
Reality Check: WE'RE ALL LOCAL!!!
The Johnsons have lived in Absarokee since 2007. Yokie was at the mine for 17 years before her cancer came back. Rose grew up here; she's basically lived here her whole life.
If we know you, we're going to use your name. Yokie and the wait staff are incredible with names. If we don't necessarily recognize you, how would we know you're "local" or not? And what is local? Are Billings folk local? Red Lodge? We'd say yes. Billings folk rock. Red Lodge is home to some of our best friends and some of the coolest mofos in Montana. We have incredibly loyal customers who drive in from Bozeman, Big Timber, and even Helena just to eat here!!!! We think they're all local.
We treat everyone like royalty here. We pride ourselves on our amazing customer service.
In 2024 we heard a lot of:
. . .you're closing the bar / turning it seasonal
Truth Rating: False
Origin: Rumor mill + Seasonal Closure Confusion
Reality Check: We're still not closing, and not going anywhere!
This rumor surfaced again this year because we expanded our seasonal closure. We used to Close Dec 8th through mid-January. Starting in 2024 we closed all the way through the first week of February. Yokie's cancer's getting worse, and we want to cherish every moment together. Life is short, and family time is precious!
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Chef won an award?
Truth Rating: True
Origin: James Beard Foundation
Reality Check: Chef was nominated in 2024 for Best Chef Rocky Mountain Region by the James Beard Foundation.
It's one of the highest awards an American Chef can earn, and it's great to see Fishtail get a nod like this!
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In 2025 we hear a lot of:
. . .Chef was on TV!!!???
Truth Rating: True
Origin: Chopped TV Appearance
Reality Check: Yep yep!
Chef Lee is the first MT Chef to appear on Chopped. He filmed it in late 2024 and it appeared in March 2025. The episode is titled Mizuna Matata. It was really fun, and we're really proud of Chef.
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. . .you changed your menu?
Truth Rating: True
Origin: Monthly Menu Tweaks
Reality Check: Yes, we've been forced to change our menu, a lot. This year has been crazy.
Running a restaurant in 2025 is uniquely challenging, and ingredient sourcing issues have been a major factor. You can't get good coconut milk on a commercial scale, ditto for oyster sauce. Vinegars and some random base ingredients remain volatile and sometimes unavailable. Some of our suppliers, in turn, are also struggling. The bakery we used for years "went eggless" this year. That's a journey we ain't taking with them. Best of luck.
People's tastes are also changing. We removed the salad program not because we couldn't get lettuce, which has actually been reasonable this year, but because we'd sell maybe a dozen a week. We sometimes sell 40 Whiskey Beef Noodles in a day. We'll sell 20 Shrimp Stir Fry in one dinner rush, up to 100 burgers a day. We can't stock lettuce for a just one salad a day.
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. . .you got rid of the chicken curry!!!???
Truth Rating: True
Origin: It's true! Forced on us though. We ain't happy.
Reality Check: This is heartbreaking, and heartbreakingly true.
Our curry was the bedrock of the menu for 8 years. It was the only item on our menu the whole time. It was our foundation. It kills us to get rid of it. Our recipe was a celebration of coconut milk, a very coco milk forward variation. We'd use three Chaokoh 10# cans / batch of curry. We were doing a batch a day sometimes.
The price of everything rose post covid. We couldn't even get Malaysian curry leaves anymore, but we found replacements. For most of 2024 it was our loss leader as a dish, we barely broke even when we sold a bowl, but we kept it on the menu because it was important to us. Then the supply chain finally snapped; we can't get the coconut milk anymore at any price. We did a deep dive, and it turns out there are four factors:
1) Bad Weather: Harvests have been low because of unpredictable and extreme weather in Thailand for a decade or so.
2) Young Trees: These coco trees take 6-10 years of growth before the first harvest. Because of weather loss and old trees, much of the acreage is now too young for harvest. We're in a catch-up cycle.
3) Monkeys: Seriously! Monkeys! Most global coco concerns were busted a few years ago for using trained, captive monkeys to pick the coconuts. It was an ethics and agriculture scandal, and it rocked the industry, and it has yet to recover.
4) Global Shipping Paralysis: Because of a variety of diverse factors, from Covid backlog, to stricter environmental regs, to tariff uncertainty, there is a dearth of available shipping spaces. Shipping concerns are reluctant to take big shipments of coconut milk because it's considered Light Bulky by their standards, so even the milk that is available isn't available outside of Asia.
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. . .y'all ain't got any chicken on the menu anymore!!!???
Truth Rating: True
Origin: 2025 Menu Change
Reality Check: Kinda crazy, totally true.
In 2025 we set out to consolidate our evolution and our menu, and make sure every dish is insanely good. At the same time, chicken supplies and processing were still stabilizing from all sorts of disruptions 2020-2025. We just couldn't get great chicken delivered regularly at a reasonable price. We were paying over $7/lb for chicken!! We talked a lot, as a team and with other chefs and with our locals and made the jump. It's crazy to have an American restaurant without chicken. It's crazy to have a Malaysian restaurant without chicken. We get that. But you know what? Montana has amazing food. It's got amazing meat in particular. We serve some of the world's best beef. We serve MT raised yak. We love this direction! We hope you do too.