FaT Voted Best French Restaurant

The Frog and Turtle was voted by Portland Phoenix readers to be the Best French Restaurant in, er, Portland.

The inspiration of mostly good reviews (click here for a quick sample) since it opened at 3 Bridge Street last fall, FaT receives complimentary words in the write-up: "The donuts are well on their way to legendary." Well said.

As for the geographical dissonance, at least Phoenix editors acknowledged the Frog and Turtle's Westbrook digs.

- John C.L. Morgan

FaT Acorn

The Frog and Turtle is hosting a Renaissance Dinner tomorrow night.

For $60 (tax and gratuity included), you can feast on whole pigs, turkeys, and roasts, while washing all that manly meat down with beer, ale, wine, and ports. Yowser, my jowls droop just thinking about it.

Anyway, Acorn Productions will complement this "commoners' dinner" with a production of their Naked Shakespeare program (everyone relax, the title's figurative).

Consider the event an example of New Westbrook synergy.

- John C.L. Morgan

Another Day, Another F&T Review

Click here for yet another review of the Frog and Turtle (excuse me, the F&T), via the folk(s) at PortlandPsst!.

It's getting to the point where I should inquire about a little stipend for being the Frog and Turtle's de facto marketer and promoter...

- John C.L. Morgan

P.S. Since I'm already laboring for the love of it, I might as well round up all the various reviews of Westbrook's food factories I've been able to grab with my grubby hands: here and here.

N.L. English: Frog and Turtle "Concept Works Like a Charm"

The Frog and Turtle, the restaurant located at 3 Bridge Street, received a good review from the Portland Press Herald. Click here to read the review in its entirety.

- John C.L. Morgan

A Gift for the Westbrook Foodie

Here are a collection of links your hard-working correspondent has gathered to help you decide where to eat next in the Paper City.

Burrito: here, here, and here.
Casa Novello: here.
Fajita Grill: here and here.
Medeo: here.
The Frog and Turtle: here, here, and here.
Wake N' Bakery: here.

And for all my German-tongued readers out there, here's a comprehensive--if a bit dated--list of eateries in the 'Brook. Guten Tag.

- John C.L. Morgan

P.S. A tip of the cap to the excellent Portland Food Map for its help.

Paper City Pub Crawl: A Review

The first annual Paper City Pub Crawl in Westbrook was successful in the sense that I survived to write about it. As for attendance, let's just say a good time was had by all, um, two of us.

The night started at 6:45p when my friend Walter and I walked down Seavey Street to Mill Side Tavern. The crowd inside the bar was light, but heavily clad in flannel mackinaw coats. We each got a drink, Walter a Bud Light, and me a shot of whiskey from the "lowest shelf you have." The bartender obliged with a glass of Senator's Club. After we got our drinks, we hopped onto the unattended pool table.

Forty-five minutes and two games of 2v2 pool later, we were having a grand time. All irony aside, Mill Side Tavern was probably the most enjoyable experience of the night. I learned that I broke the rack "like a girl;" my pool partner, a Mill Side regular, dispensed the sageful advice that the most effective way to piss off my old lady was to always give into her and never fight back; and my fellow Pub Crawler and I shared edible shots. The shot glasses are made of chocolate and are about the size of medium-sized thimbles. Frankly, it's a bit of a rip-off, but at least I can tell my grandkids that I had an edible shot of Bailey's at Mill Side Tavern when I was young and wild. As for Walter, a few of the bar maids (who were very friendly, by the way) convinced him to forgo the Bud Light filling in favor of strawberry-flavored vodka. Good idea.

After a cold walk (this will be common theme, so I'll try to vary the way I phrase it) from Mill Side to Stockhouse via the old Portland & Rochester Railroad, we settled into a table at the restaurant. I felt a hint of culture shock when we first got into Stockhouse. We had just come from a cozy tavern with a fluid social space to a relatively sprawling and rigid restaurant in which each table is more like its own island than a place to merely park your drink or plate. We had appetizers, but left after a relatively unremarkable hour. Stockhouse is a better bar in, say, July or August than it is in January.

We hopped onto the railroad again after crossing Main Street (note to self: invest in one of those railroad handcars for the next crawl) en route to Skybox bar on Brown Street. The air was sharp, the railroad was caked with crusty snow, and a decision loomed ahead of us: Do we slide down the hill before we get to the Black Bridge and cross the Presumpscot via the metal footbridge, or do we cross the bridge and crawl down the hill onto Brown Street? We were feeling adventurus (or stupid, or influenced, or whatever other curse you prefer) and gingerly walked across the top of the bridge with black sky over our heads and black water below our feet.

Skybox was d-e-a-d, so we left after about thirty minutes. We did witness a man and woman outside threaten to shoot each other, though, so that was mildly entertaining. Oh well, Skybox's loss would be The Frog and Turtle's gain (we aren't egotistical or anything) because we would now able to squeeze in a visit to that heralded hot spot before ending our night at Profenno's.

Since it was a Friday night between 9 and 11p, The F&T offered a spot to cool our heels with live music. After enduring a half-hour of thumping in the dj'd Skybox, musician Tom Dee's mellow melodies were a welcome respite, as was the bar's laid-back atmosphere. Walter continued on his Bud Light binge, while I had my first Beefeater Gibson. I'm not generally a big fan of gin (forget about Moxie being the official beverage of the state, gin's pine-needley palette is the real taste of Maine), but it was actually a good drink. Next up was Profenno's, the bar where every night is a high school reunion.

Profenno's is the happy medium of all the diverse bars in Westbrook. The everyman's bar, if you will. It is there that Mill Side's coziness is complemented by Stockhouse's food menu. You can feel at home with a Budweiser in your mitts like you would at, say, Skybox, but you also wouldn't feel out of place if you were cradling a glass of wine like you were at The F&T. Besides, where else in Westbrook can you rub shoulders with the city's mayor, while also reminiscing about life in The Hamlet with fellow trailer-park alums? And all this while being supervised by a bouncer named Butch.

- John C.L. Morgan

A Few Toasts In Honor of Neal S. Dow

Here at Riverbank Republic headquarters, we don't usually require a reason to imbibe. However, we'll be drinking with purpose this Friday night when we (casually and haphazardly) organize the first annual Neal Dow Pub Crawl in Westbrook.

Though Neal S. Dow served as an officer in the U.S. Civil War and was the Mayor of Portland in 1851, he is most well-known today for his leadership of the temperance movement in Maine and the United States in the mid-nineteenth century.

A founding member of the Maine Temperance Society in 1827, Dow was instrumental in the passage of the Maine Law, which made Maine the first state in America to prohibit the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol. Of course, the United States as a whole later followed suit when the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on January 16, 1919, thus making alcohol illegal throughout the country. Hence Dow's nickname as the "Father of the Prohibition."

Which leads us back to the first annual Neal Dow Pub Crawl.

On the one hand, it does seem paradoxical to honor Neal Dow with a few toasts of adult beverages during the anniversary week of the constitutional amendment that realized the severe prohibitionist's lifelong goal of national prohibition. On the other hand, it is merely a classy way to honor our dry foe for his noble efforts. After all, the Eighteenth Amendment was later superceded by the 1933 passage of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed prohibition (true fact: The Twenty-first Amendment is the only amendment in the U.S. Constitution ratified explicitly to repeal an earlier constitutional amendment). Besides, it is always easier for the victor to hail the vanquished when the defeated has no chance of ever winning again.

So hailing our vanquished we shall do.

Starting at 7p on Friday, January 18, Riverbankers will be at the Mill Side Tavern on Main Street. After about an hour at Mill Side, we'll go to Stockhouse Restaurant for a few more toasts. Then, after about an hour at Stockhouse, we'll cross the Presumpscot and spend an hour at the Skybox Pub on Brown Street. After Skybox, we'll cross the Presumpscot yet again and finish the evening with a nightcap at Profenno's Pub. Got all that? However, depending on circumstances, we may make a pit stop at The Frog and Turtle en route to Profenno's. As I said earlier, the planning for this has been casual and haphazard. Nevertheless, if you have nothing else going on, join us at these fine establishments for drink, friendship, merriment, and of course, to honor the memory of Mr. Neal S. Dow.

Finally, a note of disclosure: The official Pub Crawl will demand some walking and exposure to brisk air (it's not called the Pub Drive for a reason). We aren't anything here at Riverbank Republic if not responsible.

- John C.L. Morgan

A Large Dose of Coolness

I was catching up on some reading this morning and noticed The Maine Switch named the opening of the The Frog & Turtle as one of Portland's Top 10 Food Milestones of 2007. Dubbing it Maine's first gastro pub, The Switch said the Westbrook restaurant brought a "large dose of coolness to the up-and-coming mill town."

Ironically, The Switch also mourned the closing of the "short-lived, but much-loved" Chicky's Fine Diner in May 2007. The irony, of course, is that Chicky's was replaced at 3 Bridge Street by The Frog & Turtle.

- John C.L. Morgan