Frog Hollow Tavern is an upscale farm to table restaurant in downtown Augusta, GA. Augusta’s downtown is actually pretty big – which is appropriate considering that it was Georgia’s capital for a hot minute – but also has a lot of empty storefronts. Maybe one day it will fill up again, but in the meantime I will take the easy parking 😀
Anyway, my husband and I went out to celebrate my birthday and the fact that we had a babysitter. It had been about 2 years since we had a dinner out without the kids, so this was a real treat. Really this is a place to go without the little ones. It’s kind of noisy (Frog Hollow is also a bar), expensive, and they literally clear the crumbs off of your table between courses. We had a reservation for 8 PM on a Saturday; it was busy when we arrived and without a reservation the wait was at least 30 minutes, so if you want to visit, plan ahead.
We started with a couple of appetizers. I was not sure what to expect of the Eggplant Fries – I think the fact that they are topped with powdered sugar threw me off. Despite the sugar, they were savory and delicious with a creamy inside. It’s one of the better done eggplant dishes I’ve tasted. The watermelon salad was good but a bit underwhelming. The parts of the salad were all individually very good but it felt like there was something missing to tie it all together. We tried pickled watermelon rind in Williamsburg last year, and for some reason I anticipated something more like that. The most interesting element of the dish was the feta. Grocery store feta usually just tastes kind of salty to me, but this tasted very much like goat cheese to me. In fact, I double-checked the menu description to see that it was feta! This feta comes from a local farm and is made from goat’s milk – I guess I have never had fresh feta before – this is how feta should taste.
I LOVE gnocchi, so of course I had to try the Spring Pea and Mushroom Gnocchi. There were more mushrooms on this plate than gnocchi! I was disappointed for about 30 seconds until I tasted it. The whole thing was amazing. I know my picture isn’t the best, but the hen of the woods mushrooms look so much fancier than any mushrooms I can buy at my normal grocery store, and I loved how the thinner caps have a more delicate texture. It looks like this was a seasonal item as it is no longer on the menu – I’m glad I caught it while it was available!
My husband had one of the night’s specials – a pork chop that had been marinated for about 12 hours and some sort of tomato salad. While it was a special that night, our server said that it was a customer favorite, so I think they offer it somewhat regularly. It looks huge because it is bone-in but it was a reasonable serving size. Most importantly it was not dry, as pork chops, in my experience, tend to be.
To finish off we shared a Peach Buckle. The peaches are a special variety (Lori Annes) from another local farm, and I’m pretty sure that the ice cream was house-made. I could have eaten this whole thing myself, even after everything else.
I hope we get the chance to go back to Frog Hollow. It was such a treat to indulge my inner foodie for an evening and there are a lot more dishes on the menu that I want to try. This place is highly rated for a reason, folks!
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