MAN EATS FROG BURGER LOVEBURGER

...or maybe it would be better said as, "Man eats the loveburger at Frog Burger."

As the menu plainly says, the "Love Burger" is a hamburger served between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches.

And lest you think this is some kind of playful, suggestive wording, a culinary slight of hand, or a product that utilizes a newly invented, custom designed grilled cheese, let me spell it out again: What you get is 2 whole grilled cheese sandwiches (like mom makes) with a hamburger sitting between them.

Your eyes look at this and tell you something is wrong, until they see the large, flowing spill of "special sauce" coating over the burger and behaving like a dressing on the underside of one of the grilled cheese sandwiches. It is the only thing hinting that the haphazard pile of food is designed to be that way, and you need to pick the whole disjointed pile up and get your mouth around it. A slight hint.

The burger was reasonably good but the experience was not outstanding. Part of the problem (I believe) is that it was cooked over a moderate heat. There was no crust on the meat nor any noticeable charing, and it was cooked to a uniform, medium doneness. But the bigger problem was that the two grilled cheese sandwiches make their presence felt - more of a statement than any normal hamburger bun could. An aggresively distracting and unharmonious statement.

The special sauce was OK but it was lost in the affair. I'm a ketchup guy anyway. I think of "special sauce" as something that has a self important air about it, but has no business calling itself special. It's precious, but not interesting, and certainly not assertive. Now, as I write this review, it is only a distant, non-impressionable memory.

The milkshake however, was outstanding! It might be considered pricey at $5.50 but the way I look at it is, I have no problem spending $5 for a beer, so why not for the rare ice cream treat. I ordered the black and white. Made with Bassett's vanilla ice cream and a long pump of a good chocolate syrup, it was swirled with on old fashioned blender to be thick, heavy and creamy.

As you can tell, this was not a small meal. I am a person who is well within his ideal weight and could easily make a lunch out of a single grilled cheese sandwich or a 4 oz. hamburger, this burger of love (and I cannot stop thinking that it is 1969 again) was a challenge to eat. It was like eating 4 lunches at one sitting, never mind the milkshake.

But as they say (more or less), "...on this day of man vs. food, man won".

Frog Burger is Steve Poses summer happening on the front lawn of the Franklin Institute. Hanging under a tent, it's like an overgrown backyard grill that doesn't quite seem like it should be there. Even getting to it was through a somewhat indirect path.

Frog Burger is not a destination place but it is worth a stop if you are in the area. But remember, it is at the Franklin Institute, so picture science-kid-o-rama in family and bus-load format. Service is pleasant but the process is not real fast. Reasonable for made to order food burgers but slower than many. Again, I think the temperature of the grill is a factor.

For me, I might try some of the other items on the menu, but as for the Love burger, it's one and done.