For a foodie bride, a meal-centric hen party

For JL's bachelorette party, we bridesmaids decided to whisk our girl off to a weekend in Atlantic City, NJ. With several months to go before the actual wedding, we all had a little leeway to drink, play, and eat to our heart's content—and so we did.

The twelve of us rented an enormous, beautiful house in nearby Brigantine, NJ, which along with five large bedrooms, three bathrooms, two living rooms, and an elevator, came with a spacious kitchen equipped with two sinks and miles of counter space. We put this to good use by preparing two meals over the weekend, a dinner and a brunch. Friday, the night we arrived, we made asparagus, baked salmon, steaks, bread with fontina and caramelized onions, and slices of buffalo mozzarella with tomatoes; the next morning we made roasted fingerling potatoes, scrambled eggs, omelettes, and fried up some Canadian ham (see JL's post here).

We whiled away Saturday afternoon shopping at the surrounding outlets, and then set out for dinner at Sonsie, located at the Pier Shops at Caesars. We chose this restaurant because of the presence of truffle fries and blue cheese fries on the menu, which JL has a special fondness for (check out her post). Here, the parmesan truffle fries were more successful than the blue cheese fries, the former being crispier and less heavy than the latter.

I ordered the filet mignon, which came with asparagus, a grilled portobello mushroom, and what the menu billed as a "stuffed Pommes Anna," a wedge of crisped potato cake with a layer of mushrooms and some other veg in the middle of it. The steak, which I had ordered medium rare, was perfectly cooked and really flavorful; I enjoyed every bite. The mushroom and stuffed Pommes Anna however were really salty. With the meat they were manageable, but alone they were too much.

We spent the rest of the night club-hopping and partying (we managed to hook up with a random bachelor party, which turned out to be a serendipitous pairing). Afterwards, most of us ended up at the Metropolitan, a 24-hour cafe/diner inside the Borgata. I ordered the Florentine egg-white omelette (spinach, mushroom, and onion), which was surprisingly well-prepared. It came with a side of home fries that were of the "deep-fried cubes" variety, something like seasoned french fries in square form. Yum.

The same preparation of home fries made a reappearance in the steam tables of the Borgata Buffet when we went there for brunch the next day. Most of the offerings here were a cut above other standard buffets, with the most notable being the plump, excellent shrimp in the shrimp cocktail, which both JL and I went back several times for. I also liked the mini waffles, the mini chocolate-coconut muffin, and the smoked salmon.

We parted ways after eating, with two cars headed home and one car headed for another round of outlet shopping, and so it was at the buffet that we all bid each other farewell. In a few months JL will enter the land of marriage, and given her enthusiasm for food, it was appropriate that her bachelorette party was so full of tasty eats. All in all, a successful weekend!

For the full set of (food) photos, click here.