The Skinny Rooster is off to a good start in Largo, making breakfast, lunch and brunch something to crow about.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published May 15, 2003
[Times photo: Scott Keeler]
Owner Steve Combs helps his staff prepare midday meals at the Skinny Rooster in Largo.
LARGO - The Skinny Rooster is a pleasant lakeside place with Fiestaware on the walls and crepes and frittatas on the menu, serving only breakfast, brunch and lunch, but there's nothing frilly or skinny about the eating.
Even a salad comes in a gallon serving bowl. Bacon is as thick as a copy of Bon Appetit. And there's little that's better than quiche for breakfast any time - unless it's breakfast that includes peach-almond pancakes, creme brulee French toast and eggs Benedict.
The name for this place that seats only 100 or so apparently means that the owners aim for breakfast and lunch to rise above short order and get dolled up with slick sauces, salsas, almonds and wontons. That adds up to $5 to $7 a meal, which may make it "gourmet" by some accounts. To me, it's a fair price for good eating, well cooked with some extras, sweet and savory.
One of those extras is the surprise lakeview patio in the central Largo spot, formerly occupied by Bruno's Lakeside Italian Restaurant. The new owners are Katie and Steve Combs, a former Bonefish manager, who wrote the menu. They have chefs William Grimm and Sam Culprison in the kitchen.
Spinach salad is not a difficult thing, but it's a pleasure to find one with well-cooked eggs, ripe tomatoes, thick, smoky bacon and a warm dressing that enlivens rather than deadens the greens.
Chicken breast sandwiches, which usually set off my Wimp Warning, are as macho here as any burger. Mine was thick, tasted of the grill, and was topped off with Swiss, avocado, tomato and sturdy bacon. Waffle fries worked, too. They were skin-on, crisp and puffy, maybe cut in-house; not the same as the fries of my fantasies, but better than most.
On the eggs Benedict, I took the spinach-tomato upgrade, and it was filling stuff with the pleasure of nicely poached eggs (don't you love it when someone else does that for you?), fresh veggies and the warm goo of it all. The Hollandaise was losing its smoothness and the Canadian bacon paled against the old-fashioned bacon on the other dishes. Get thee to another butcher (and get some fresh turkey breast, too) or ask our Northern neighbors for a source of peameal bacon, the good stuff. And the breakfast potatoes aren't as good as the waffle fries.
One other fix I'd make is the fruit-flavored tea: Asian restaurants manage this well, but too often flavored iced tea tastes flat and powdery, as this does.
Still the Skinny Rooster already sets out a good, broad selection of our favorite meals, and makes them with extra care and good bread (from Bruno's Bakery, which remains next door) in a rest-easy setting.
Sure, I like places where two eggs, grits, toast and bacon are under $3, but sometimes ladies and gentlemen want more when they lunch and breakfast. We get it here.
