If you’re looking for “old Florida,” you can’t get much older than Red Wing Restaurant. For over 60 years the stone building, which at one time was a private home, has served as a meeting place for Lake County growers, farmers, truckers and others. It’s the sort of place where you might find a boothful of grimy construction workers next to a table with a family with children and not far away a couple on a date.
But you will find some obscure menu items. It isn’t often that you see Buffalo fried frog legs. Even less frequently will you hear me say they were really good. The appetizer featured three haunches, each with plenty of meat, deep-fried and tossed with a hot sauce, a la Buffalo wings, except there was more meat on the legs than you’ll ever find on a chicken wing.
And if fried frog legs don’t appeal to you, or even if they do, you might want to try the fried dill pickles. Why this delicacy is seen so seldom I don’t know. But usually they’re served as dill chips. Here they’re long spears with enough surface area to hold the light batters and even substance to give a good, salty crunch.
Fried green tomatoes had a crisp breading with firm fruit inside. The ranch dressing was the perfect accompaniment.
On a lunch visit my guest had the fish and chips, which featured big chunks of pure white grouper with a golden crisp jacket. At first I thought it odd the fish was served without sauce, but after a couple of bites I realized none was necessary. The chips were sweet potato fries, which were firm, decidedly ungreasy and thoroughly delicious.