The Ice Plant & Sea Oats Caffé – St. Augustine, FL

 

Last weekend was my friend Maddie’s bachelorette party in St. Augustine.  Her maid of honor Tessly’s family has a cute beach place up there, so we spent the weekend relaxing at the beach (and unfortunately getting very sunburned!) We enjoyed some pretty great food while we were there!

Tessly had the place all prepared with cute buckets of goodies for all of us and some incredible cupcakes from a local bakery (I need to find out which one…)

The forecast said it was going to pour all weekend, but we lucked out and got some nice perfect beach weather. 

Saturday night, we headed for an early dinner at The Ice Plant – a new local bar and restaurant.  Since they don’t take reservations and it’s such a popular spot, we decided we’d rather just eat early than chance waiting a few hours for a table.

The design reminds me of a blend of Ciro’s Speakeasy and the Oxford Exchange.  The building was adapted from an old ice plant (which is how it gets its name…)  Back in the 1920’s, the large crane that sits over the bar used to pick up enormous blocks of ice to be broken into small pieces and sold to shrimp boats.  They have managed to retain the vintage factory feel, but upgrading it to today’s popular industrial modern design. 

In keeping with the “ice plant” tradition, they hand carve their ice each day from large blocks of slow frozen filtered water into specific shapes depending on the drink you order.  The cocktails are a bit pricey, but impressive.  I would much rather spend $12 on a really fantastic drink than $6 on a rum and coke I could make myself.  You can tell that they take price in crafting their drinks just right – and the presentations were very pretty too. 

The waiters dress like they belong in the 1920’s – our waitress had a vintage looking apron with cats printed all over it.  She must have really liked cats because I got a cute kitty drawn on my receipt later. 

My Briar Rose cocktail was fantastic – with sherry, bonal, lemon, peach & blackberry jam, and mint.  I know most everyone enjoyed their drinks too, but the Kokomo cocktail was way too strong, even after the bartender watered it down with some club soda. 

For appetizers, we started with some soft pretzel bread, served with beer cheese fondue and dijonnaise dipping sauces.  The bread was actually a bit sweet and denser than a normal pretzel, coated with coarse salt. 

We also ordered a side of their hand-cut truffle fries for the table, served with a house ketchup and malt vinegar aioli.  They were topped with freshly grated parmesan and were delicious!  

For my meal, I had the valbreso feta gnocci – served with confit tomatoes, summer squash caponata, pine nuts, and wild oregano.  The most popular entrée that night was their half pound grass-fed Georgia beef burger with bacon-chive aioli, lettuce, tomato, onions, and their house curried pickle. 

My gnocci was really great – but I probably shouldn’t have eaten the whole plate.  It was a pretty generous serving. 

We made a stop afterwards down the street at Scarlett O’Hara’s bar – which I thought was a bit of a disappointment after having such incredible drinks at the Ice Plant.  We ended up heading back to the beach place since the long day in the sun had worn most of us out. 

The next day, a few of the girls had to head out early, but the rest of us went to brunch at a little hole-in-the-wall breakfast place called Sea Oats Caffé.  It was in a shopping plaza, and we lucked out that a table was just leaving as we walked in, because there weren’t a lot of seats. 

They had dozens of pancake flavors (some sounded really interesting like the chili chocolate lime and the jalapeño bacon cream cheese).  I ended up getting one of the specials, French Toast made with slices of angel food cake and topped with berries.  It was definitely more like dessert than breakfast, but it was really amazing. 

Our server was very friendly and the restaurant had a calm beachy atmosphere – it felt like we were down in the Keys.  Every time someone opened the front door, a pick strummed the guitar hanging above.  It was the perfect laid-back way to end our beach weekend.

The Ice Plant is located at 110 Riberia St, St. Augustine, FL 32084.  They are open 11:30am – 2pm Tuesday – Saturday and 11:30am – 12am on Sunday – Monday. 

Sea Oats Caffé is located at 1075 A1A Beach Blvd, St. Augustine, FL 32080.  They are open 7:30am – 2pm every day. 

Backfin Blue Cafe – Gulfport, FL

One of our Christmas presents this year from my parents was a stack of Creative Loafing deals to different local restaurants.  It was a really great gift idea because we’ve gotten a lot of free/cheap date nights out of them!  The only thing is you have to keep an eye on the expiration dates (usually you’ve got about a year until they expire, but some are only a few months…) 

Well last week we realized our Backfin Blue Cafe deal was set to expire, so we headed to Gulfport for dinner.  It’s a really laid-back town just west of St. Pete.  Usually when we go there, we’re by far the youngest people walking around (think most residents are retired…) 

The restaurant is in an old bungalow and the relaxed vibe makes it feel like you’re having dinner at somebody’s home.  Our table had reindeer salt and pepper shakers.  Being near the gulf, we decided to try out some seafood.  Lance ordered the Bacon Wrapped Basil Stuffed BBQ Shrimp and I had the Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi. 

Each was served with a simple house salad – then Lance had the mashed potatoes and I had the edamame salad with my entrée.  The coating on my fish was pretty generous – I definitely got my share of macadamias.  The edamame salad was pretty hearty – with chickpeas, corn, beans.  I couldn’t tell all the ingredients, but it was really tasty.  Lance’s mashed potatoes tasted homemade with some chunks and potato skins mixed in.  The shrimp was good, but the sweet BBQ sauce was a bit overpowering.  Overall, it was a great meal. 

We took a walk around town afterwards along the shore – most shops close up early, so there weren’t any open to wander through.  But we watched people fish off the pier and enjoyed the water views.  It’s not far from Tampa, but with the small-town atmosphere, it’s a nice getaway.    

Backfin Blue Cafe is located at 2913 Beach Blvd S, Gulfport, FL 33707.  They are open 4pm – 10pm Mondays, Wednedays – Saturdays, 4pm – 9pm on Sundays, and closed on Tuesdays. 

The Wharf – St. Pete Beach, FL

 

Lance’s sister Brandi & brother-in-law Jeremy are visiting from McCall, Idaho for the week.  We haven’t seen them for almost three years, so we are pretty excited to have them in town! 

It’s still snowing out in Idaho, so they wanted to head to the beach to enjoy the warm Florida weather and get their Vitamin D.  We spent the afternoon at Pass-A-Grille, which was packed with spring breakers. It was the perfect weather for a beach day – sunny with a breeze.    

We had lunch down the street at The Wharf, a beachy shack overlooking the Pass-A-Grille Marina.  It was pretty crowded, so we couldn’t get seating outdoors, but we got a window booth overlooking the water. 

 

 

We were going to cool off with some beer, but they were out of most of the local ones on the menu, so we settled for just waters. 

Since we were having dinner with my parents later that evening, we didn’t want to fill up too much, so we split a bunch of appetizers.  We started off with a dozen raw oysters.  They were some of the largest I’ve seen!

 

We also enjoyed the conch fritters and blacked buffalo shrimp, although it only came with 8 shrimp, so we devoured them quickly (it was an appetizer, so we shouldn’t have expected more). 

 

Since we were craving more shrimp, we shared the pound of peel-and-eat shrimp seasoned with Old Bay spice.  Jeremy had a PoBoy sandwich – they brought it out with fried grouper instead of blackened like he had ordered, but it still looked good. 

Overall, a nice place to relax and enjoy some casual seafood at the beach. 

The Wharf is located at 2001 Pass a Grille Way, St Pete Beach, FL 33706 and is open 11am – 11pm every day.