I’m sure most people on the East Coast are familiar with the Borgata.. It’s a high-end casino in Atlantic City that brought that Las Vegas vibe to the beach. A beautiful casino, absolutely flawless in it’s execution, it quickly became the hot-spot for the young and wealthy. The Tropicana fired back with their French Quarters, with a number of great restaurants and bars, and catering to a much younger crowd.

The French Quarters is definitely cool, but I’ve stayed true to the Borgata.. Tonight, we went down to the Borgata to burn through about $5000 in comps that were due to expire soon. So 9 of us decided to have a nice dinner at Ombra, an Italian restaurant located in a wine cellar at the Borgata. I expected the best, but we were VERY disappointed with the food there.

I started off with the Truffled Grissini (bread sticks slathered with white truffle butter & parmigiano reggiano, wrapped in prosciutto), which was probably the best food I ate all night. Followed up with an average Caesar Salad. For my entre, I had the Beef Short Rib “Alla Napolitana” (16 ounce braised short rib, red wine-tomato ragu, stone ground polenta).. This wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t worth the $44 they charge. For dessert, I opted for the Chocolate Dieci (chocolate cake with creme fraiche chantilly, summer berry composta, frangelico syrup). The cake had great presentation, but it was average at best - The Great Wall of Chocolate at PF Changs is 1000x better.

Total bill for the 9 of us was close to $2000. Yikes!

Afterwards, we headed over to the B Bar to get some drinks and enjoy the eye candy.. Sadly, the only eye candy was a sexy waitress from Poland. The rest of the staff was average, and the clientele was pretty bad as well. It was a real eye opener, as Saturday nights at the Borgata used to be great! I wandered over to the Gypsy Bar to see if there was any talent in there, but it wasn’t much better.. The Gypsy Bar also had a live band playing, making it impossible to even hold a conversation.

We spent about 3 hours at the B Bar before settling up our tab (another $500 or so) and calling it a night. Next time, I’m going to the French Quarters to see if the nightlife there is any better. Here’s hoping!