{"id":4046,"date":"2012-09-25T22:24:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T02:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=4046"},"modified":"2012-09-25T22:24:48","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T02:24:48","slug":"the-frog-pond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=4046","title":{"rendered":"The Frog Pond"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re a long way from home. Should we go left or right? Straight is also an option, but as anyone knows there’s no breakfast there. Just ocean.<\/p>\n

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We visited The Frog Pond at 7390 Gulf Boulevard, St. Pete Beach<\/a> on 22 September 2012. This has been on our to-do list for years. TBB Fan Jason K, you’ll be sad to hear that we did not meet any Frenchmen.<\/p>\n

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Thought bubbles. <\/p>\n

Over Ivo’s head … “I am going to break random things today and laugh, laugh, laugh.” <\/p>\n

Over Andy’s head … “I coulda been a stah on Broadway if I didn’t have all dees kids.”<\/p>\n

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Thought bubbles. <\/p>\n

Over Marek’s head … “I’m almost tall enough to steal your keys and drive your new car down the street and into the neighbors’ houses.” <\/p>\n

Over Andy’s head … “Having kids looked like such fun in those romantic comedy movies.”<\/p>\n

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Thought bubbles.<\/p>\n

Over Andy’s head … “If I loved these boys one mote more, I’d explode. They are everything to me.”<\/p>\n

Over Marek’s head … “I wish I could join another family.”<\/p>\n

Over Ivo’s head … “Hey you looking at this picture, can me and Marek join YOUR family and get away from our Neanderthal father?”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tia Cindy, this one’s for you.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ivo’s thinking, maybe this frog would be something I could knock over and then blame Marek.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Check out Ivo’s mad stacka skillz.<\/p>\n

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Check out Marek’s reaction.<\/p>\n

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We cozied up to the menu. Marek figures there might be something in his nose for breakfast. Stay classy, Marek!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A little Frog Pond philosophy. I always like a place that’s mom-n-pop and takes time to tell you Why They Care about what they do. The only drawback is that usually, and Frog Pond is no different, they take your order and whisk away the menus before you can read half of what they have to say. I love that they are “strongly opposed” to things! I read that and thought, hey, I’m also strongly opposed to things. Conveniently, the same things as they are.<\/p>\n

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Can’t get through the day without our coffee. Y’ought hear Ivo say “caffeeee?” It’d melt your heart like an acetylene torch on a plastic army man. By the way, “acetylene torch on a plastic army man” is another phrase that,as of this writing, is not found in Google<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Breakfasts: Innovators.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Marek, too. That’s the same look I get with a strong cuppa joe in the morning. Relaxing. Pleasant. Calm.<\/p>\n

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“Relaxing. Pleasant. Calm.” And then Ivo swings a knife at your head. And then you hand over your wallet and tell him you don’t want no trouble, man, here you go, take my cash, just don’t cut me.<\/p>\n

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Inside the Frog Pond, you’ll find a cozy, well-appointed atmosphere. Knife-wielding two year olds and lots of frogs.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

This is an impressive kick. Or ballerina move.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Breakfast came on a forklift. (Actually, delivered by a young waitress from Russia, not resembling a forklift at all.) Look at all this chow!<\/p>\n

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Ivo got the pancakes. Now, when you go to the Frog Pond because you read our review, you’ll see that pancakes aren’t really a big feature in the menu. Eggs, quiche, crepes (which are French, Jason K), are the big deals. Pancakes are a footnote. They were good, but the real winner was the waffle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Try to snag some eggs from Marek’s plate and you’ve got a fight on your hands. Oddly enough, he barely ate any eggs. He just didn’t like me messing with his chow. Hats-off to the photog (me) for snapping a dynamic shot (of me) in the egg-snatching fight.<\/p>\n

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Ivo has a new trick. Point. “Look there!” Then “Yoink!” as he steals something from your plate. Seriously, he tries to say “Yoink” and it comes out “oink,” which makes it even better.<\/p>\n

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Devil-eyed Marek has a belly full of bacon. It’s good bacon. Notice behind Marek that the dining room filled up by the time we were done. Not an empty table in the house.<\/p>\n

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Here’s the bill. $23 for three breakfasts isn’t bad at all, especially given the quality and quantity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We managed to escape without breaking any frogs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The chow was great. I haven’t had a waffle in years, and this one was truly tops. Bacon, eggs, pancakes were all serviceable. Lots of frogs. A restaurant philosophy. And the best part was the guy with coffee. There was a guy who came around every 10 minutes with the coffee pots, and it never ran dry. That was awesome. The price was right. I can’t find any reason to not award the Frog Pond with a Tampa Bay Breakfasts Five Pancakes rating.<\/p>\n

\"one-pancake\"\"one-pancake1\"\"one-pancake2\"\"one-pancake3\"\"one-pancake3\"<\/p>\n

\"Frog<\/a><\/p>\n

As we were leaving, we noticed this wicked little Mini sportster. There’s a lot of things I’ve never seen, and this is one of them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We’ll go here next time. Beverly’s is right across the street.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After the Frog Pond, we went to Sunset Beach.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We went swimming and did the stingray shuffle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Neat clouds on the ride back across the bay. Truly, a lovely day today. This is why we live in Florida.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On our way home, we stopped at Inkwood Books<\/a>. Our favorite book store in Tampa.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And to round out our trifecta of locally owned small business support today, we also stopped at Rollin’ Oats<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Just a normal day<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re a long way from home. Should we go left or right? Straight is also an option, but as anyone knows there’s no breakfast there. Just ocean. We visited The Frog Pond at 7390 Gulf Boulevard, St. Pete Beach on 22 September 2012. This has been on our to-do list for years. TBB Fan Jason […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[11,3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american","category-breakfasts","category-pinellas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p30Aox-13g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4288,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=4288","url_meta":{"origin":4046,"position":0},"title":"Tampa Bay Breakfast of the Year for 2012","date":"December 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Ivo, Marek, and I are pleased to announce the 2012 Tampa Bay Breakfast of the year. This prestigious award has been called \"The Nobel for Breakfasts\" and \"Huh? What are you talking about?\" by international news sources. Restaurants who win this accolade go on to see a spike of about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Breakfasts"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":975,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=975","url_meta":{"origin":4046,"position":1},"title":"The Brunchery","date":"January 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Our plan this morning was to go to Aunti Donna's on South Macdill Ave. Aunti Donna's appears to be closed. Breakfast is cut-throat business in Tampa, folks! We visited The Brunchery at 3225 S. MacDill Avenue on 9 January 2010. This was our first Tampa Bay Breakfast of the year\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/brunchery-marek-doesnt-pay.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3255,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=3255","url_meta":{"origin":4046,"position":2},"title":"Mamas Family Restaurant","date":"August 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"We've been to Mama's so many times. Mama's was our first ever review, back in early 2009. But this is the first time we've been by bicycle, ridden on 21 August 2011. On the way, we stopped to look at these neat motorcycles. Then we found this areal survey target.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Breakfasts"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/mamas-19-sleepy.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2105,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=2105","url_meta":{"origin":4046,"position":3},"title":"Paradise Restaurant","date":"November 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We're headed back across the bay, to give some more love to Safety Harbor. It's a lovely morning for a drive. I like to take sunny-day pictures for the benefit of our good friends and fans who don't have the pleasure of living in the Tampa Bay Breakfasts Official Territory.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/paradise-kiss.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3394,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=3394","url_meta":{"origin":4046,"position":4},"title":"The Four Coins","date":"November 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This trio is ready for action. Breakfast Action. It's a gloomy day in Tampa, this Halloween Eve. Marek isn't so much a young photog as a 4-year-old master of my smartphone. I'm equal parts amazed and annoyed that he can, for example, take this picture of me driving, despite the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Breakfasts"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/four-28-mostlightsever.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1688,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=1688","url_meta":{"origin":4046,"position":5},"title":"Angie\u2019s Grill","date":"July 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We visited Angie's Grill at 725 Cleveland Street in Clearwater on 10 July 2010. This was our first visit to Angie's. They have a nice little web site at http:\/\/www.angiesgrill.com\/. And we had Arthur join us as a guest reviewer! And, of course, Marek and Andy were on the scene\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/nl_image012.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4046"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4084,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions\/4084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}