Great Southern Cafe, Seaside, FL (September 2011)

Sometimes you end up with a burger in an "odd" place.   We went to the Great Southern Cafe in Seaside, FL, for lunch yesterday.  You may, or may not, be familiar with Seaside.   It is a highly planned community between Panama City and Destin on 30A.   It was also the backdrop for the movie the Truman Show.   It has lots of shops and restaurants and a, relatively new, Airstream dining area, with several restaurants housed in vintage trailers.   

With another rainy day at the beach, we were heading toward the outlets in Destin and needed to eat.  I was drawn to the Great Southern by their  buy/cook local signage and the line wasn't ridiculous.   We looked over the menu and I was heading strongly towards shrimp and grits, but they couldn't be made without the despised portobello mushroom, so I fell back on the cheeseburger.  

We started with a black-eyed pea hummus appetizer.  We eat hummus on occasion, and this one had a decidedly southern spin.   The pita chips served with it were semi-soft and hot.   They were awesome.  The hummus was different.  Not bad, not great - just different.  We did eat all of the pita bites.

As I said, I went with the bacon cheeseburger.   The fries were beer battered and double fried (as were Jo's hush-puppies) which she said were awesome.  This was a good burger, with great bacon.  Note, I use the word "great".  There are three categories of bacon in my lexison: good, great and excellent.  This was on the high end of great.  To give a reference point for excellent bacon - the deep-fried bacon goodness at Ann's Snack Bar comes to mind.

Jo had fish that, even though we could see the ocean (dimly through the rain) didn't appear to be fresh and definitely wasn't cooked throughout.   I was about to write this place off as "okay, but no real reason to return", until the waiter asked about dessert.   We had both noted no less than four references to their homemade key lime pie, so we ordered a slice.

I started to say that I like key lime pie, but that would not do my feelings justice.  I Love key lime pie with a capital "L".  Key lime pie can be really good or mediocre.  Kind of the base line for acceptable key lime pie in my mind is Mrs. Edwards frozen key lime pie singles.  They are nowhere near as good as a well made pie, but an amazingly good copy for $2.00 something a slice.   

This pie was exceptional - thick key lime, with fresh whipped meringue almost as thick as the pie itself.  Good enough that we've talked about going back there for dessert after dinner somewhere else <g>

Le Tub, Hollywood, FL (March 2011)

2011 IS the year of the burger.  Okay, at least one of the years of the burger.   In March, heading to Miami for a conference, on the way south from the Fort Lauderdale airport, we stopped to eat at Le Tub Saloon.  This was another recommendation from Hamburger America.  Several years ago, it was chosen as the #1 burger in America by GQ Magazine.  Then Oprah did a special on it.  

We stopped for a late lunch on a Wednesday.  The parking lot was crowded, the inside was pretty full.  We took a table and looked at the menu - the most prominent item is the Sirloinburger.  The THIRTEEN OUNCE Sirloinburger.  We looked at the tables around us.  They looked huge.  So we decided to order one and split it.  We waited about 35 minutes.  I guess it takes a while to cook almost a pound of hamburger.  Good choice - it WAS huge.  But, amazingly, it was done exactly as we ordered it, all of the way through.

While we were waiting for our food, a pair of snowbirds landed and ordered at the table next to us.  A burger.  Each.  Twenty minutes later, our food shows up.  We hear Papa Snowbird say to Mama Snowbird, "oh my, we probably should have split one."

I'd go back.

T-Rays Burger Station, Amelia Island, FL (January 2011)

Back in October of 2010, a friend had e-mailed me when he was down for Georgia / Florida weekend about this burger place that I "had to try", T-Ray's Burger Station.

  

A couple of months later there was an article in USA Today about 51 great burgers - 51 Great Burger Joints Across the USA - there was Florida's entry, T-Ray's Burger Station.  

In January of 2011, I had to fly into Jacksonville for a meeting up in Brunswick. Amelia Island is, effectively, on the way, so I decided to swing by.   I drove by it the first time as it is, basically, an Exxon station turned into a burger joint.  There is no big sign out front, just a picture of a cheeseburger on the outside wall between the closed-in garage doors.

As you can see by the interior photo, they stopped part way through the conversion.  The cooler that used to hold soft drinks now serve as the cold storage for lettuce, tomatoes and cheese. The front counter holds a vast selection of college and roadside memorabilia.  The pumps are still out front, as is some of the Exxon signage.  The burger is simple - a good-sized handmade burger with steak fries.  Worth the drive off 95, but I wouldn't make a trip down there, just for the burger.