What’s it all mean? You’ve had moments like that, right? You’re pondering something—say an idea, a career, your place in the universe, or a new restaurant from a well-known, likable chef—and you think to yourself, “What possible difference can this make to the health of the planet and the salvation of the human race?”
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It means, for now, that if you show up at 9:15 AM on a weekday, you might have the place to yourself to spread out in a booth with laptop or whittling log and sip away on black gold La Colombe coffee while you contemplate the existential meaning of the restaurant’s turkey-cheddar-broccoli crepe. It’s a gooey, amorphous, crispy-edged pancake enveloping julienned apples, crunchy red onions, melted cheese, and thin-sliced, deli-style breast meat, supporting a bird’s nest of watercress, potato chips, green goddess dressing, and a fried egg. It won’t stop a mass extinction event but it might improve your mood.
Dinnertime is different. While regarding a menu featuring personal and shareable appetizers, salads, and entrees, skip watery, unbalanced, and sloppily poured cocktails in favor of the largely midwestern beer offerings. The menu is easier to decode than Sprout’s, but at Frog N Snail it’s expected that you want something you know, rather than something that’s going to spin your head around on its spine.
On the other hand, that could be balanced by selecting a dessert that swings the other way: a dull wedge of curry-flavored Breton cake with a side of sweetened carrot slices. This and two other desserts sum up the range of consistency of the dinner experience at Frog N Snail: a chocolate cake and mousse, spackled with potato chips, pretzels, and peanuts, looks like someone dropped a handful of snack mix as they passed the pastry station, but it’s hard to find fault in a simple seasonal bowl of strawberries and cream. Some bad decisions have been made in the creation of this menu—but there were some clever ones too, and the sourcing of ingredients would please the most dogmatic locavore.
3124 N. Broadway
773-661-9166
frognsnail.com
