Clearwater Beach, FL

Finally, the post on my little weekend trip is here! I went to Clearwater Beach with one of my friends and we had a blast! It was nice to get away, even if it was just for a day or so. We left saturday early afternoon as soon as I got out of work. I had made a huge fruit salad to bring along and snack on during the 2 hour drive. I also had brought water and a bunch of fruit strips/bars/etc just to be prepared! I am not a happy hungry person  The drive was uneventful and we just chatted the whole way. When we got there they had upgraded us to a “Poolside cabana room” because the other room type we had reserved (a regular one w/ 2 queen beds) were all filled up. So it was pretty cool, we had a great view! The only thing that was kinda weird was the “curtains” were like these gauzy white somewhat see-through curtains. So everyone at the pool could probably see in our room?

This was our view:

Isn’t that gorgeous?

This was our hotel, outside (from the back)-we stayed at a Holiday Inn

Our hotel was actually not directly on the beach…It was “On the rocks!”

But the beach was only a block or two away so it was no big deal.

We had reservations that night to eat at Rusty’s Bistro which was located in the Sheraton resort on Sand Key (about 3 minutes from our hotel by car). I found the restaurant by going to this website that a friend told me about and filtering through the restaurants they listed and looking at all the different menus. I wanted fancy but not super expensive.

(I had also emailed Jenna from Eat Live Run for a recommendation since she lives in the Tampa area. She recommended the Island Way Grill , which, ironically was one of the restaurants I had considered, but unfortunately I didn’t get the email until sunday or monday. Oh well, Next time! Thanks Jenna!)

Anyways, dinner still turned out pretty good. I could absolutely not decide what to get so when I heard they had a “Prime Rib Buffet” I jumped on that. It actually consisted of A LOT of food. There was salad bar, peel-your-own shrimp cocktail, crab legs, prime rib, etc. Now, usually I think of buffets as being more casual and not something you would find at a fancy restaurant. But if anything, I would say this was a buffet but it was a fancy buffet. And the food was pretty good!

First they brought out bread and breadsticks with three dippers:

(I love the presentation on this)

From closest to farthest: paprika rolled butter, a kalamata olive-caper-garlic mixture, and olive oil w/ herbs. The olive tapenade was really yummy, as was the oil (I always add salt!) but the paprika-butter tasted just like regular butter to moi. I had one bread stick and a couple pieces of bread.

I also ordered a glass of the Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio. It’s one of my favorite white wines. **Not Pictured**

Second plate:

Salad topped w/ chopped egg, tomatoes, a few croutons and a teeny bit of ranch. Shrimp and cocktail sauce, and steamed beans/carrots. I ate all of this. Gotta eat your veggies!

Third plate:

Crab Legs!!! (yes, that is drawn butter), plus some kind of alfredo-crabmeat shell pasta dish (it was yummy but I didn’t eat all that…I didn’t want to be stuffed) and dauphinoise potatoes which I kept calling Dolphin potatoes. I didn’t eat all these either, just wanted to try them. They were delicious and creamy with a hint of cheese? But let’s talk about the CRAB LEGS!! These were AMAZING. There was so much meat in them, they tasted so fresh. It was awesome. They were the highlight of my meal.

4th plate: No Picture   But it was just a small piece of Prime Rib which I had maybe 4 bites out of. It was good. I just had to taste it b/c, after all, it’s prime rib!

5th plate:

Love the presentation here as well

Overall, Rusty’s Bistro was relaxing yet upscale. Service was good-our waiter seemed rushed, and he forgot my wine the first time I ordered it, but then he took it off the bill without me even mentioning it. It seems like it would be a nice upscale place to take family as well.

After dinner we went back to our room and both conked out. Sunday morning we woke up early and I looked online for a close and cheap breakfast place.

Introducing:

This was also on Sand Key, maybe 4 minutes from our hotel. We were seated right away and handed menus…

There was a little blurb on the bottom of the menu that made us giggle…

For breakfast I ordered the Almond  French Toast:

I drizzled some maple syrup on top but not a lot-these had great “eggy” flavor.

Plus a side of eggs for some more protein:

Sunny-side up

And my friend ordered the Blueberry Pancakes…I forgot to take a picture but she let me have a bite. I promise you, these were Officially The Best Pancakes I Have EVER Eaten In My Entire Life. I Swear. (Sorry Grandma!)

After breakfast we went to the beach before we had to checkout!

And we played frisbee!

There’s Me!

We did the whole lay-out in the sun, go in the water deal also, then rushed back to our hotel to check out by noon (we had requested a late checkout so we could suck up as much sun as possible!)

Then we headed back, but on the way back I wanted to stop at the Publix Greenwise market in Hyde Park (I think that’s the closest one to Orlando). I fell in love as soon as we parked in the parking garage and rode the escalator down into the store! Check this out:

This place was huge! We only stayed long enough to wander a loop around the store and then for me to buy a giant pretzel and a loaf of Organic Cinnamon Nut Bread.

Then we drove around for a bit trying to find a place to eat lunch. I was really craving a cheeseburger with fries!

We stumbled across this place called J. Alexander’s and decided to try it out. It looked a bit fancy and the prices were a leeeeetle bit more than I’d wanted to spend, but I didn’t know the area and just wanted a Good Cheeseburger.

The menu was what I would call “Extremely American.” It had all your basics-burgers, steaks, salads, pasta and a few fish dishes. At the top of the menu it even says something like “Real American Food” or something like that.

I ordered the Old Fashioned Cheeseburger with Tillamook Cheddar Cheese (Tillamook? lol)

Perfect. Except one thing. The whole time I’d been talking about a cheeseburger, I was saying how I wanted “Big french fries” to go along with it. Like steak fries or really thick regular fries. So we both started laughing when the server delivered these with teeeeeeeny tiiiiiiiiny skinny fries.   I still ate them. But it wasn’t the same. The Burger was delish though.

Me, happily stuffed after eating that burger!

And after that we finally made the drive back to Orlando. We had a lot of fun and were sad for it to end so soon! This trip was so random, can’t wait to take another trip soon and hopefully with more people next time!