Thursday, February 11, 2010

French Fry Diary 91: 6ix A Bistro, Bally’s Atlantic City

The thing that I will never ever figure out about casinos is that they are, at least the gambling part, open 24/7, but the restaurants are only open for small windows here and there during the day. So when The Bride wants to hit the casinos, usually late at night, I, the non-gambler, am either left twiddling my thumbs for the night or eating at the last-choice-possible-café.

One such eating establishment, unless I wanted to walk the mile to the Boardwalk, is called, oddly I might add, 6ix A Bistro, and it’s at Bally’s. Like most sit-down restaurants at the casinos they strive to look a bit more upscale than your average diner yet barely manage to do so with their food. The potato and side selections relevant to this blog are no exceptions.

When the favorite fried food came to the table I was surprised by the presentation, but little else. The 6ix fries were natural cut shoestrings served in a wide paper cone. Portion size gets high points but the Invisicoat ruins the rest. They taste only meh and are suitably crispy but little else to talk about. These could have been really good were it not for the wretched Invisicoat. And the choice of Pepsi over Coke didn’t help.

Their onion rings were huge slices of onion, beer-battered and looking a tad greasy. But the truth was worse. They were much greasier than they looked and nowhere near as crispy as they looked. Another sad side serving at 6ix. The waiter who was incredulous at me for ordering both fries and rings might have gotten a bigger tip had he mentioned the portion size and asked if I was sure that’s what I wanted – but he didn’t. Maybe it was a bad night, or maybe he was just rude. Hope he enjoyed his appropriate tip.

A return visit in the morning hours (same problem as during the late night – how about a good twenty-four hour eatery at a twenty-four hour casino?) gave me a chance to sample their home fries, which actually looked quite good. They were scalloped potatoes sliced very thin, with some onion, scallion and bits of green.

I was delighted when these were served as they had the potential to be near-perfect breakfast potatoes. One forkful however was all it took to find the truth. They were soggy, undercooked and greasy. Had they been crispy, well done or even deep-fried they would have been perfect, but I was told they don’t do that. Well, I didn’t eat them. Shame.

Pretty much low marks all around for 6ix A Bistro at Bally’s. This is mediocre diner food at best, and just awful crap at worst. The appearance of the place is nice, but the food is just not good. Avoid at all costs.


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