Periodically I post a “Hopelessly Suburban” essay, about how I try to be a bit more sophisticated and cosmopolitan. Because, well, I’ve definitely fallen into a suburban lifestyle, dare I say rut? Last week, my family and I went to Ocean City, NJ for the week. My in-laws joined us. For those of you not from around here, Ocean City is just about 10 miles from Atlantic City. Add the in-laws as built in free babysitting………and it’s date night!

We chose Atlantic City for a few reasons. First, because it’s not very easy to do web searches on restaurants in that area. We would have happily gone to a restaurant in OC or in Cape May, but couldn’t find one online. (Note to restauranteurs in that area-you may want to work on your SEO!) I subscribe to Philadelphia Magazine which is always profiling the AC restaurants so that is what we chose. After reviewing a bunch of menus, we chose the Bobby Flay restaurant at the Borgata as our destination. We have several of his books and we’re fans.

While sitting at dinner, we were trying to determine when was the last time the two of us had dinner out, just the two of us. We agreed that it has not happened during Brian’s lifetime (2.5 years) and quite possibly not during Kevin’s lifetime (5 years) either. So we were due! It was a quick and easy drive, albeit for the three tolls–one on the way up, two on the way back. Gotta love New Jersey–can’t go ten miles without hitting three tollbooths. The Borgata was very easily accessible, yet I am still mildly annoyed that they charge $5 for parking. Seriously?

All summer long, we’ve been saving our spare change in anticipation of this trip to the beach. Before we left, we picked all the quarters out of the bucket for the arcades on the boardwalk. I had about 100-150 quarters in this zipper pouch. Prior to going to the Borgata, I took about half of them and stuck them in my purse–would need them later for slots, right?

Wrong! Hopelessly Suburban rears it’s head. The slot machines don’t actually have slots at all. Only places where you can insert bills. $5 bills. That’s right. Not only do the slot machines not take quarters, they don’t take $1 bills. Only fivers. Want to play the penny slots? No problem, you just have to start out with 500 credits. So now I’m stuck lugging around a purse with about 75 quarters in it, all evening long. Sweet.

We ate first. Vegans–you can stop reading now, move it along.

There, are we alone? Good. I ordered the southwestern ribeye. It’s not usually a cut of meat I get, but we were at a steakhouse and southwestern style cooking is what Bobby Flay is known for, that’s why I chose it. With the smashed baked potato and the onion ring/salad/bleu cheese thingy appetizer. Before we left the beach house, my father-in-law was watching Dr. Oz, and he was saying how good onions are for you. Apparently I am that susceptible to marketing, because there I was, an hour later–ordering an appetizer I’d normally never order. But all of it was soooo good!

Bobby Flay Steak at the Borgata

I tried not to let my eyes pop out of my head and Hopelessly Suburban status show itself as I looked at the wine list. Yes, you can make a wine selection there that costs $50,000.  I made the restaurant faux pas of ordering a dry white with red meat, but I don’t really care. I’m not sophisticated enough to really care about wine & food pairings. I just drink what I like.

We were very surprised at their beer selection or lack thereof. The wine list was quite extensive, the beer list notsomuch. I don’t even remember what hubby ordered to drink. He had the veal and asparagus for dinner and a mango upside down cake for dessert. I was too full for dessert. All of the food was good, very good. Not best-I-ever-had good, but very good.

While we were eating, there were two guys at the table next to us who offered us their tickets to see the comedy show. They had been comp’d the tickets but weren’t going to use them. We took them, but ended up not going to the show. Instead, we played the games a bit and then went back to the beach house. I think we were home by 9:45. The casino, in my opinion, is still very smoky. I kept seeing signs that said “This is the smoking area” so I finally asked a security guard where the non-smoking area is. His reply was that “This casino is actually only 24% smoking area.” Thanks for nothing, you didn’t answer my question. But I really loathe cigarette smoke so we went home.

We have plans to go back to Ocean City next year, and I want to check out the Revel if it’s complete.