Local Places, Local Faces

Friends, we are still tasting those chicken wings.  For this installment we went to Spring Hill–twice, Crystal River and Hernando.  We were all over the place!

Our first visit was to Rookies II in Spring Hill on Anderson Snow Road and Spring Hill Drive.  It’s tucked back inside a shopping plaza.  We picked this place because it was close to the Suncoast Parkway and we were on our way to the airport.  (Third time that weekend.)  Anyhow, we invited a bunch of independent judges to meet us there.  So there was Terry and me, Jes and Andrew, Donna, Yvonne, Vera and Michelle.  This was over a month ago and someone ordered wings, and there was shrimp and quesidillas and a rueben, a taco salad and perhaps more.  (Okay, truth in blogging, I should write about these bar hops as soon as we leave the pub.  But sometimes I don’t, on this one I waited a month and I didn’t take notes.  But, come on, we were on the way to the airport! Who takes notes after they’ve drank a few beers and they are on the way to the airport????? And no, I wasn’t driving.) So I can’t tell you who had what but we all had a really good time.  There was some kind of crazy competition going on in the parking lot so we had entertainment, too.  Service was good.  Food was yummy.  And beer was wonderful.

Then Terry and I stopped at the original Rookies on 19 a couple of weeks later, it’s past Spring Hill Drive but not all the way to County Line Road.  Great directions, right?  Anyhow, we left ‘happy banjo lesson’ and this was the closest place that served food and beer.  (Beer is always nice after ‘happy banjo lesson’.)

Our next chicken wing visit was prompted by a friend telling me that she was performing at Crackers last Wednesday.  Couldn’t miss that! 

Crackers is usually crazy busy but it was kind of empty when we got there on Wednesday evening.  We found a table back in a corner of the tiki bar where Paula was performing.  But then the place started filling up and all the spaces were filled so we invited some woman to join us.  Okay, they weren’t strangers–I probably knew at least one of them.

Our last stop was at Chicken King in Hernando.  Terry had this place on his list of Chicken Wing restaurants.

I said to Terry, ‘I don’t know about this place, looks like there could be a bunch of little kids in there.’  But there wasn’t.  No one in that dining room could have been young enough to have small children. 

Chicken King probably shouldn’t have been on the list of chicken wing spots.  But if you want good homemade food with friendly service and good prices, this is the place to go.  We were met before we even got in the door by a guy asking if a table for two was okay.  Seriously, this person met us out on the sidewalk.  Our server was pleasant and efficient. Terry got “wing dings” which were pretty much fried chicken like my Mom used to make.  I got Chicken and Dumpling and I’m pretty sure that my Mom was reincarnated and working back in the kitchen.   I told a worker at the counter that I thought there should be some chocolate pie to go along with the meal since that’s what my Mom would have served.  And she pulled one of the fridge.  While Chicken King didn’t win the best wings contest, it certainly gets high marks for a friendly family style restaurant.

With Terry as the wing judge, he said that Crackers wings were as good as Neon Leon‘s which was the winner thus far. But I’m going to put my two cents in and say that Crackers gets extra points for the view and the music! 

Our new winner is CRACKERS!