Bizou Brasserie at Le Méridien Hotel – Tampa, FL

This past Sunday, we enjoyed brunch at Bizou Brasserie, a ritzy hotel restaurant at the Le Méridien downtown.  It opened about a year ago at the site of an old courthouse.  The design merges the original historic architectural features with mid-century modern furnishings.   It’s like someone filled The Oxford Exchange with West Elm’s current catalog.

We had a CL Deal so we got $30 for only $15, which was the perfect amount for our brunch check (it’s still posted on the Creative Loafing website, so if you want one, you can purchase one here while they last…)

They have a pretty concise menu, but everything on it sounded fantastic.  I ordered the crab cake benedict (buttermilk biscuit topped with lump crab cakes, sweet chili jam, poached eggs, and spicy hollandaise sauce).  Lance ordered their Bizou burger – it was a too early in the morning for burgers in my opinion, but he was excited about the caramelized onions at goat cheese atop the chuck and short rib half pound burger. 

I was thrilled with my benedict and the breakfast potatoes it was served with were wonderful.  Lance’s burger came with some of the best fries I’ve had in a long time.  The burger itself was a bit too messy for such a classy restaurant – the cheese and onions oozed everywhere.  The waitress did warn us that the burger came with a lot of cheese, but even Lance thought it was a bit much. 

They do also have a case full of exciting pastries that you can order right there at the counter – we saw a banana bread pudding that I may need to try next time.  Overall a great breakfast – especially for only $15!

Bizou Brasserie is located at 601 N Florida Ave, Tampa, FL 33602 and is open 6am – 10pm Sunday – Thursday and 6am – 11pm Friday – Saturday.   

Mount Dora Restaurants

Since I started a new job, Lance and I haven’t had days off together (I have Saturday/Sundays off and he has Tuesday/Wednesdays).  But a few weekends ago, he took a couple days off so we could spend some time together.  We wanted to find a town we hadn’t been to before, so we took a mini-vacation to Mount Dora. 

It’s a really little town north of Orlando – very laid back and quaint.  We headed up on Friday night and started off with dinner at Mount Dora Brewing/Rocking Rabbit Brewery (it seemed to go by two names…) True to their name, there is a giant rocking horse-style rabbit in the main dining area.  

It was crowded, so we sat out in their beer garden.  It was pretty with hanging lights and flowers, but we actually had to move into their screened in porch after a few minutes because the mosquitoes like me too much – I must have gotten 20 bug bites in the 5 minutes we sat out there, even with the citronella candles and fan on the patio. 

The patio was filled with unusual junk art and found objects – and they had a projector screen showing the live music & dancing in the bar area next door.

We ordered a flight of beers – their beer list was a little unusual because it appeared that they brew only 3 different beers, then blend them together to create their 3 other beers.  For instance, the “Dirty Blonde” was a blend of their porter and blonde ales, and their “Rabbit Pellet Porter” was a blend of their red and porter.  I think the red/porter blend was my favorite. 

For dinner, I enjoyed the coconut & panko crusted salmon filet and Lance had the prime rib salad with crispy onions.  Both tasty – unfortunately the dim lighting didn’t do my photos justice.  I think the crowd was a bit out of our age range – we were half the age of the rest of the diners, but it seems to be a popular local hangout. 

We stayed at the Lakeside Inn, a historic Victorian hotel that’s been around for over 130 years.  The room was very small, but the inn property was beautiful and they had a nice big porch lined with rocking chairs.  Pretty much everything in Mount Dora is within walking distance, so we just kept the car parked at the hotel and wandered the town.  

We headed to the Windsor Rose Tea Room & Restaurant for breakfast.  I think this was my favorite part of Mount Dora – such a charming little restaurant and incredibly welcoming.  It is very British – with artwork and trinkets depicting the royal family throughout.  We started off with tea and coffee – their tea is served in mismatching bone china cups & saucers made in England and they even brought out a tea cozy to keep my teapot warm. 

I ordered the Benedict Arnold eggs & hash browns and Lance had their Billy Bunter breakfast - two strips of bacon, Banger sausage, eggs, baked beans, and sautéed mushrooms.  I would come back to this place in a heartbeat…the whole experience was wonderful.  

The rest of the day we spent meandering through local shops – I found a cool adult coloring book that I’m pretty excited about at a store called Barrels of Books and Games.  

Then we drove to Renninger’s, a huge flea market and antique center.  It’s so enormous that we could have spent the whole day there.  Part of it was outdoors, so we cooled off from the August heat with snow cones.  There were plenty of really cool vintage furniture pieces, but we don’t really have space for anything in our little condo. 

Mount Dora is a great getaway for a day or weekend trip – we probably couldn’t have found much to do if we were there a whole week, but we really enjoyed our stay. 

Mount Dora Brewing/Rocking Rabbit Brewery is 405 S. Highland Street, Mount Dora, FL 32757 and is open 11am – 11pm Mondays and Fridays, 11am – 3pm Tuesdays – Thursdays, and 8am – 11pm on Saturdays - Sundays. 

Windsor Rose Tea Room & Restaurant is located at 142 W. 4^th Avenue, Mount Dora, FL 32757 and is open 9am – 4pm Monday – Tuesday and Thursday – Friday, and 9am – 4:30pm on Saturdays - Sundays (they are closed on Wednesdays).  

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.