Atlantic City
Jun. 24th, 2021 08:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingLast summer I read an academic monograph about American theme parks. It was a great book that I still think about all the time, but I have no interest in actually going to a theme park. The most I can probably handle is something called Rainforest Café, which is a theme restaurant decorated to make it seem like you’re sitting in a jungle. There are two of them in New Jersey: one in a mall in Edison Park (which is just outside of New York) and one in Atlantic City on the boardwalk.
June 20 marked my last set of deadlines, so I decided to treat myself by going to Atlantic City, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes from Philadelphia. I expected it to be a little sad… and it was in fact super sad. I’m not sure how to describe the sadness except to say that it was probably nice back in the 1970s maybe.
We got to Rainforest Café right when it opened, but there was still a 45-minute wait. It turned out to be the sort of place that makes borderline racist jokes on the menu and charges $30 for a bowl of pasta, and the general ambiance was so uncomfortable that we just left.
Next to the parking deck, there was a wholesale fish market called Barbera Seafood, and for $14 they fried us up a whole bunch of sea creatures, mainly shrimp and crabs. I also had deep-fried scallops for the first time, and it changed my life holy fuck. Since this place isn’t a restaurant, the food is take-out only, so we sat in the car in the shade of the parking deck and ate the freshest seafood I’ve had in at least a year straight out of the kitchen. I’m not sure I’ll ever go back to Atlantic City, but damn that was good.
About twenty minutes north of Atlantic City is another island called Ocean City, which also has a boardwalk. Unlike Atlantic City, Ocean City isn’t accessible by public transportation, and the people we saw were very… homogenous. It was nice, but also a bit creepy, so we drove back to Philadelphia before it went Shadow Over Innsmouth on us.
I can’t really explain why, but I’m fascinated by New Jersey. The entire state feels like a caricature of itself, like a theme park except people actually live there.
Next time I want to go to the Pine Barrens.
June 20 marked my last set of deadlines, so I decided to treat myself by going to Atlantic City, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes from Philadelphia. I expected it to be a little sad… and it was in fact super sad. I’m not sure how to describe the sadness except to say that it was probably nice back in the 1970s maybe.
We got to Rainforest Café right when it opened, but there was still a 45-minute wait. It turned out to be the sort of place that makes borderline racist jokes on the menu and charges $30 for a bowl of pasta, and the general ambiance was so uncomfortable that we just left.
Next to the parking deck, there was a wholesale fish market called Barbera Seafood, and for $14 they fried us up a whole bunch of sea creatures, mainly shrimp and crabs. I also had deep-fried scallops for the first time, and it changed my life holy fuck. Since this place isn’t a restaurant, the food is take-out only, so we sat in the car in the shade of the parking deck and ate the freshest seafood I’ve had in at least a year straight out of the kitchen. I’m not sure I’ll ever go back to Atlantic City, but damn that was good.
About twenty minutes north of Atlantic City is another island called Ocean City, which also has a boardwalk. Unlike Atlantic City, Ocean City isn’t accessible by public transportation, and the people we saw were very… homogenous. It was nice, but also a bit creepy, so we drove back to Philadelphia before it went Shadow Over Innsmouth on us.
I can’t really explain why, but I’m fascinated by New Jersey. The entire state feels like a caricature of itself, like a theme park except people actually live there.
Next time I want to go to the Pine Barrens.
