Atlantic City Trip - Borgata

I had to go to AC last weekend for a "trade show" that lasted, oh about 4 hours at the TRUMP Taj Mahal. What a dump. I felt like I was at a retirement home with gambling. It was so depressing seeing all these elderly people in wheelchairs with oxygen tanks, and some really obese people in motorized chairs tooling around the casino floor. I know they choose to be there, but it still looked very sad, to me.

The parking garage smelled like urine. This was on a Thursday afternoon when we checked in.

The esclators were dirty. There was grime in the marble and garbage everywhere. The staff wasn't very helpful, and didn't seem attentive. Our room was even worse. The fabric on the chairs was fraying, the bathroom was clean, but poorly lit. Our room looked out over the ocean, which was really nice, but they are building a new tower and the construction started as early as there was daylight. The decor was so tacky. Big chandeliers, lots of mirrors, and the Police were playing over every loudspeaker, since they were playing there next weekend. As were ads for the TRUMP Taj Mahal, and a gambling hotline.

I guess I was just very surprised by the lack of quality, cleanliness and attention to detail in the Trump casino.

We went over to the Borgata casino for dinner and that was so much nicer! It was 2-3 years old and looked like a hotel with a casino in it, not a casino with a hotel around it. The lobby was clean, beautiful and full of glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly http://www.chihuly.com/installations/public/borgata01.html

When we walked into the casino, there was a woman at a desk to answer questions. She had copies of all the menus for the restaurants and gave us her own recomendations, which didn't involve pushing the most expensive restaurant on us. She called the Bobby Flay's to make sure we could get in, and then she gave us a map and directions to get there. We got a little turned around and a maintenance person walked us direclty to the door of the restaurant.

Dinner was quite good. DH had the oyster and lobster shooters, I had tuna tartare, and someone had fresh local corn chowder. The shooters were very yummy, but I didn't really get a sense of the oyster or lobster even though I picked out the oyster and lobster to eat seperately. Since you were supposed to "shoot" these like a shot you lost even more flavor of the oyster. BUT I think this could make a great bloody mary or ceviche or gazpacho.

For the entree I had the Hanger steak with Bobby Flays steak sauce wich was nice and sweet with a strong flavor of cinnamon and fruity chiles. DH had a Spicy Southwest ribeye with roasted red and green chile sauce. We had the wild mushroom mashed potatoes with white truffel oil, the cauliflower goat cheese gratin (absolute heaven, soo yummy) and the creamed corn with roasted chiles. The creamed corn was a little dissapointing, I should have ordered the creamed Kale.

The decor was very chic and warm, lots of natural wood & stone and a big bar for watching sports. They have 3 flat panel screens in the bar/lounge area. The restaurant was full, the bar was about half full. The rest of the casino floor was empty, but it was dinner time. Even after we left it didn't seem that the Borgata had as much gambling going on, as the Taj. What I really liked about the Borgata is they had seperate non smoking areas for gambling. That would get me to go there and gamble. I was sad to go back to our hotel after dinner.

So, final review, Taj - thumbs down, Borgata - thumbs up. I would go back to the Borgata.