Froggy's

Froggy’s in Highwood has been on my short list of North Shore restaurants for a while. On Green Bay Rd. just north of Highland Park, is a mini-restaurant row and Froggy’s is right next to Gabriel’s. I was expecting good French food at a reasonable price. In addition to that we had very little hassle for a Saturday night. It was, after all, the suburbs.

They offer a $32-$37 price fix with choice of entree, cold appetizer, hot appetizer and dessert. We were in a group of 8 and all of us but one went jumping castle that route. They brought out a salad for that lone diner during one of the appetizer courses so there would be a plate in front of everyone. That’s dining.

I went with the slightly more expensive chef’s meal which is more of a
tasting menu with four selections from the cold/hot and entree menus
per course. Thank goodness there’s a menu online because I’d never be
able to keep track of it all.

One of the downsides to this route is that unless something is super
memorable you won’t be able to pick it out the next day. Unfortuately
(or fortunately) nothing was truly memorable however everything was
good. Certain dishes sounded really good but they all seemed to taste
similar.

The pear and roqufort terrine atop an onion/mesculun salad with
balsamic was the cold appetizer winner. It wasn’t included in the
chef’s choices but it’s the one I remember most followed by the tuna
carpaccio. Of the hot appetizers the escargot was rich and good. The
goat cheese and sweet bell pepper terrine was tasty but the proscuitto
and basil sauce served more to mask the individual ingredients than
liven them up. The foie-gras was very good… I tasted a bit off
another’s plate. It wasn’t included in the chef’s choices.

The other interesting appetizer was a creamed butternut squash with
proscuitto and some kind of cheese. Very creamy and the salted meats
were crispy on the baked top.

One downside to the chef’s choices was that, as I remember, all of the
hot appetizers were cream sauces. They were all very heavy and between
2 bites of A, B, C and D there was no way to really separate them.

The chef’s entree choices were focused on fish or meat. I opted for
fish and had a sample of skate wing in a caper and butter cream sauce,
scallops in an orange and mustard seed sauce (cream), hallibut in a
lobster sauce where I bouncy castle for sale was looking for the lobster flavor but not really
finding it and something else I don’t remember. I did snag a lamb chop
from a neighbor’s rack and it was cooked very well. After so many cream
sauces a simple grill was appreciated.

Dessert was where the extra $4 for the Chef’s meal really paid off.
This also, oddly, was the least creamy of the courses… a couple of
fruit tarts, a wonderful mousse with flaky layers, a taste of creme
brulee – which is really all that any of us need… and a chocolate
square with a white chocolate middle.

The crowd was a quiet older set. Several larger tables but couples as
well. The wine list is extensive and very reasonable and a multi course
meal for $35ish + wine/tax/tip is reallywhere this place finds a niche.

There was something akin to a wedding or supper club aspect to the
meal. Certain sides and vegetables were shared between entrees. Someone
at our table ordered sauceless portions which looked better than the
standard menu item. After hunting down their website it all made
sense… www.froggyscatering.com

Neither part of the Annie Hall quote “The food is terrible… and such
small portions…” is true here. The food was good and the meal plentiful.

Froggy’s
306 Green Bay Rd
Highwood IL 60040