This past week Julie and I headed to Atlantic City for a wedding which we turned into a long weekend.  Neither of us has ever been before but we’ve heard a lot about it.  As usual with our travel plans we decided to stay an extra day (Thursday) instead of a dealing with the traffic and hanging out in New York for a night.  During our time in Atlantic City we tried to stay out of the casinos (neither of us really gamble and a smoked filled room full of zombies is not my idea of fun). The plan was to see the actual city so we mostly checked out places we read about in this article from the New York Times:  The Atlantic City the Boardwalk Emperor Knew.  We managed to book a night at the Chelsea Inn Bed & Breakfast for $60.   The place was perfect, if not for the hassle of canceling the other hotel the day of I think we would have just as soon spent the whole weekend there.  They have a 24 hour pub that serves food throughout the night. The bartender and the locals were great for conversation.  The Inn gave us two free drink coupons and we ended up finishing our night there at around 1am with some great fried chicken.  It was really one of the better bars we stopped at the whole trip.

After checking in we drove around town for a little bit and then checked out the boardwalk before heading to dinner at the Knife and Fork Inn for dinner.  The food was great and it reminded me of the Library Restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  We ended up watching all of our sports at A Damn Good Sports Bar at the Tropicana.  It by no means was great and at 10pm Saturday night it turned into a dance club.  That being said they had $5 Yuengling 40s so it worked.

On Saturday we spent our morning hitting up the wide selection of outlet stores and then checked out the rest of the boardwalk on the way to the Irish Pub at St. James Place. The highlight of the walk being the giant Monopoly Board (the game board for Monopoly is based on the streets in Atlantic City).  We stopped at Farlinger’s saltwater taffy and avoided being hit by seagulls for most of the walk. The Boardwalk reminded me of Coney Island in Brooklyn sans the guy fishing with chicken leg bait and a lot more massage parlors.

We stopped at Dock’s Oyster House with the plan of grabbing a drink and a bite at the bar before heading back to the Tropicana for football.  The bar only serves food from the Raw Bar so we asked about getting a table in an already packed dinning room.  The hosted squeezed us into the first table outside the bar and in the main walkway but it was fine and everything worked out.  I’m pretty sure they keep that table open for people such as us.  The waitress was great and the food was good.

* Side Notes:

*Before and after the reception we hung out at the Tun Tavern Brewery which had a pretty solid selection of beer.  I was a fan of the Leather Neck Stout.

** On our way to the wedding we swung by the grave/tomb of Nucky Johnson which is the person the Nucky Thompson charecter is based on in the Boardwalk Empire series.

*** $5 Yuengling 40s.  It’s hard to explain my astonishment when the bartender offered this as a special.

**** These photographs don’t quite do the hairdo justice.  Not to mention the guy spent the evening with his elderly parents playing video poker at the only sports bar in the city.  All very weird.

***** On Sunday we hit the trifecta.  We spent the day in Queens, heading over to our hold neighborhood where we scored pastries from Gian Piero Bakery at 1pm (unheard of), tracked down Piazza Pizza for a slice (which changed locations) and then headed out to Strawberry’s Sports Grill for the Steelers game.  Where as you can see in the photograph above that Julie found the trip worth while.