30AEats.com contributor’s, Erin and Matt Browne, are the faces behind Brownie Bites: They visited Old Seagrove Beach, Florida and spent a lot of time eating and enjoying the town of Seaside, as well as the beach communities along scenic hwy. 30A.
AMAVIDA COFFEE & TEA
Located on the south side of the street in Seaside, I’m going to tell you right now that you don’t want to miss grabbing coffee and a pastry from Amavida! So just go ahead and put it in your travel plans right now – you’ll thank me later. Check out their website at www.amavida.com or visit their Facebook page right here.
It’s a small shop and bustling with people, but the service was pretty fast with different employees taking care of the pastry and drink orders to keep things moving.
Staring at the selection of breakfast sandwiches and sweet pastries is enough to make your mouth water while waiting to place your order.
Just look at these chocolate croissants dusted with powdered sugar. Heaven help me.
My hubby. He’s kinda cute. I think I’ll keep him.
I chose the bacon, egg, and cheddar sandwich served on a sprouted grain English muffin, and man was it tasty. It gave me the perfect boost of fat, protein and complex carbs I needed for a day of walking and biking around in the hot late Spring weather.
Matt chose the ham and gruyere croissant and said it was, in his words, “delish”. Perfectly flaky and buttery – all the protein hiding inside makes it healthy, right??
I can’t finish this section without talking about the coffee at Amavida, which is insanely good. I was 16 weeks pregnant during our vacation in Seaside and still in the process of getting over a major aversion to all things coffee (I’m usually a major coffee drinker!). I can say without a doubt that Amavida coffee is what planted that aversion firmly in my rear view mirror, and I could have had a mug every single morning – even the decaf is great! Matt ordered his usual cappuccino, which is the drink he uses to form his opinion about a coffee shop, and he said it was top notch.
So basically, you need to go to Amavida. That is all. Over and out.
IT’S HEAVENLY – GELATO AND ICE CREAM
We love this place!! You can request a taste of any gelato or ice cream selections before you decide on a purchase, and I recommend doing that because there are so many yummy and unique flavors that it is hard to decide!
It’s Heavenly is located down a short side path just off of the main courtyard in Seaside, around the corner from the Seaside Kids shop. There’s not much room inside, but there’s plenty of tables outside, some with umbrellas. Or just take your gelato on the go as you continue wandering around!
I decided on a cup containing both chai and pistachio gelato. The chai was out of this world… it’s so easy for chai-flavored anything to be disappointing in flavor, but this one made my taste buds explode – soooo good! As for the pistachio, well, it was also on point. I’m a sucker for anything pistachio. And you’ll have to forgive me here, but neither of us can remember the exact flavor that Matt ordered for his mini waffle cone. It was definitely either Nutella or some kind of chocolate peanut butter (both typical flavors for him to order). But what I CAN tell you is that he practically moaned while eating every last bite. The gelato here has a perfectly smooth texture and you will not be disappointed!
MODICA MARKET – CAKES FROM THE BAKERY!
In my other Seaside post I did a quick tour of Modica Market and mentioned the fresh cakes being sold in the bakery case. I promised you guys I’d come back to them a little later, so here we are! Modica serves up a great selection of drool-worthy cakes, so one day we picked up a couple of slices to-go that we could devour later that night. We selected two different flavors, and between the four of us we pretty much destroyed them until there was nothing but crumbs left.
I really wanted to get a photo of the case itself to show you some of the other selections available, but it’s a popular place to be in that little market, and there always seemed to be too much activity to get a clear photo.
Our first choice was the caramel cake, a triple layer slice of dense but moist vanilla cake that’s packed to the gills with caramel filling and frosting all the way around. Good choice. Good, good choice. Mmm…
Oh but this orange cake…
this was my favorite. It was either called Dreamsicle or Orange Creamsicle, I can’t remember, but it won’t be hard to spot if you’re on the lookout for it. Five thin layers of orange-y vanilla cake filled to the brim and covered with a smooth orange frosting and mini white chocolate chips around the outside. Um… yes.
I’m a major frosting lover, so my favorite types of cakes tend to be the ones with torted layers, giving you extra room to pile in the filling and frosting. Are you a frosting person as well? Yes? Then you will love this cake.
We only tried these two flavors, but I have heard marvelous things about Modica’s legendary chocolate cake, rainbow cake, and Milky Way cake. Heck, I just want to try them all!
GREAT SOUTHERN CAFE
One morning we popped into the Great Southern Cafe for breakfast, which is pretty much a staple in Seaside. They serve up a pretty amazing Sunday brunch, but when doing our pre-vacation research we learned that their breakfast menu is pretty amazing on any given day, so we had to try it out!
You can take a peek at all of the menus and get more information about location, business hours, etc from their main website. Or you can toss them a like on Facebook.
Matt ordered the biscuits and gravy, which the menu describes as “a giant helping of love”. They aren’t kidding! This is one massive pile of fresh biscuits and house-made sausage gravy. Matt can usually put away his food quite nicely, but even this defeated him. I grabbed a bite myself and it was soooo fantastic!
I was dealing with some lingering heartburn from the chorizo I ate on a previous evening (I knew it would happen! And yet I did it anyway!) so I opted for a simpler choice – the cafe breakfast consisting of eggs, bacon, a biscuit, and smoked gouda cheese grits. Those grits are amazing, my friends. Make sure whatever you order includes a side of those puppies – yum yum!
THE MELTDOWN ON 30A – AIRSTREAM ALLEY
You can’t pass through Seaside and not notice the line of cute Airstream food trucks that line 30A. We tried out several of them during our trip!
The Meltdown is all about, you guessed it, grilled cheese sandwiches! These aren’t just your regular ole sliced cheese and Wonderbread sandwiches from your toddler years, though, these puppies are amazing. Just look at that menu! I was incredibly inspired to come up with interesting ingredients for grilled cheese sandwiches at home.
Be sure to visit Meltdown on Facebook by clicking right here!
On our first trip, Matt tried the Red, White, & Blue – blue cheese-infused brie, bacon, caramelized onion, balsamic reduction, and tomato. Ohhhh baby.
I got the Smokin’ Turkey that included bacon, avocado, jack cheese, smoked turkey, and Albuquerque sauce. It was delectable, hearty, the cheese was ooey gooey, and I was full after eating only half of it! Well, I was also saving room for dessert, so ya know…
Later in the week, Matt and I returned to try out a couple of more combinations. This time I tried the Meatloaf Melt which included meatloaf, sliced ham, mozzarella, and melted Swiss on sourdough. This one had great flavor, but I think they were running low on meatloaf on that second day (we were nearing a holiday weekend and they were out of a few things) so it was a bit heavy on the ham and light on the meatloaf. Still, though, it’s a tasty combo!
Matt ordered the special that day, which I believe was called The Heart Attack. Aptly named, this thing was stuffed with cheddar cheese, bacon, and meatloaf (again, a very small piece because they were running low). It was supposed to also have caramelized onions, but they were out, so they substituted with another topping of Matt’s choice, but I can’t remember what he selected.
Regardless of being short on ingredients our second go-round, everything we ordered from Meltdown was delicious and I can easily toss out my recommendation to give this place a try!
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Where To Eat In Seaside Florida: Part 2
