Try armadillo at Allen's Historical Cafe

Carl Allen, catfish platter and deceased 'gator at Allen's Historical Cafe, Auburndale

Sign at the entrance to Allen's Historical Cafe in Auburndale:
"This is not Burger King. You don't get it your way. You take it my way or you don't get a damn thing."
My kind of place.
If you're anywhere within striking distance, don't miss it. The company's great, the live music is fun and the entertainment ... is the menu.
Basically, if it runs, crawls, swims or flies, Allen's fries it. First night there (I had to go back) I had the catfish-turtle-armadillo platter.
The establishment's owner, Carl Allen, pulled up a chair, eyed my plate and said he doesn't eat armadillo. Yanks his teeth out. Actually, I found it pretty tasty and a lot easier to eat than the rattlesnake I had on our second visit. Too boney.
As for all this outrageous cuisine, deep-frying, like smoking, pretty much robs a critter of its individuality, but the turtle and armadillo weren't half bad, and don't put your platter of Carl's Okeechobee catfish within arm's length of me unless you've already ordered dessert.
Like the menu's entrees, this restaurant's owner is pretty unique. A central Florida "cracker" from away back, Carl started his career as a cow hunter at age 11. Back then, an unofficial breed of feral cattle called "scrub cows" populated Florida, and it was the cow hunter's job to round 'em up and drive 'em to the rails. The cowpokes kept the herd moving in the right direction with a crack of the drag, or whip, and they soon earned the nickname, crackers. The mounts that the crackers employed were stubby little "cracker ponies" that seemed to know what was on a cow's mind before the cow did, but there wasn't much to 'em says Carl. "We'd put our slickers on and you couldn't hardly see nothin' but head and tail."
It's clear that Carl yearns for the good old days. There's not a square foot on the walls of his 40-year-old restaurant that isn't covered with antiques (he says there's more than 20,000 items) and the music you'll hear on nights when live entertainment's on tap often focuses on the Florida that was.
On the first night we ate there Carl convinced Frank Thomas: another bona fide Florida cracker, and his wife Ann, along with guitarist Chuck Hardwick, to strum some authentic cracker tunes.
A song that Frank wrote called "Reality" stuck with me longer than Carl's fried green tomatoes:
"The Spanish brought the oranges from Florida.
Plant and Flagler brought the railroads.
NASA brought the spaceships, and Walt Disney gave us all a world of fantasy.
But somewhere along the way, have we lost reality?"
When you're in the area, stop in at Carl's place on Highway 92 about 10 miles east of Lakeland. Ask Carl to tell you about the cow hunters and order the 'gator platter. Florida's one of the few states left that's home to a critter that eats people from time to time, and revenge tastes sweet at Allen's.