Junk Food Nation, I’m back from AC!  And I thought I’d take this morning to recap some of what happened over the weekend. You know you’re old when it takes you more than a day to recover, just SLEEP-wise, from a weekend long bender. Hence the near mid-afternoon posting of this blog post.  Stay classy, me.

But first, the results of my first giveaway, with a prize of three Simply 7 Snacks! I’m giving the win to Jess @foodettereviews – congratulations!  I’ll be DM you for your address and chip selection so I can mail you the prize.  Enjoy!

So this past weekend, I headed up to Atlantic City to celebrate my birthday with some friends. And by friends, I mean a bunch of dudes.  And by celebrate, I mean indulge in vices.  The drive from DC is something like 3.5 to 4 hours total.  Along the way, I managed to find this little morsel at a rando-ass gas station in New Jersey:

A little “Junk Food Guy Seeking” here: Häagen-Dazs Limited Edition Blueberry Crumble Ice Cream! Holy crispies, where the hell did this come from? And why hasn’t it been in my mouth before??

Now the H-D website lists that this is available from February til December, which means I have less than a month to FIND this ice cream, and jam it into my mouth with my fingers.  Why didn’t I just buy it when I found it, you ask?  Two reasons: (1) I was on the road, was the driver, and didn’t really want to gorge on a pint of ice cream prior to what I was *about* to subject my stomach to over the next 24 hours, and (2) the cooler we brought with us (stay classy, us) was already full of alcohol.  Cough.

Once we got to AC and checked into some upgraded rooms thanks to a little cash-in-hand transaction (which, I must be honest, I really didn’t think worked anymore, but apparently anyone can be bribed), my buddies and I needed a place to grab a quick lunch before hitting the tables.  And where else did they want to go…but Hooters.  ARRRRRRGH.

You’ve all heard my rant about Hooters, and thankfully there was no birthday singing or anyone proclaiming us the fun table.  And our waitress was cute and normal, and not some trying-too-hard slootbag. Above-pictured were the remnants of the loaded tots I had. No Hooters wings for me – can’t stand the breading.

It was time to hit the tables.  Roulette and Pai Gow in Bally’s (Pai Gow is Chinese for “most maddening way to lose $100 in an excruciatingly slow period of time”) and Poker in Caesar’s (I did not wear sunglasses).  By the way, over in Bally’s I noticed that they added a new game to their repertoire:

Beer Pong in a casino?  Dreams do come true!

By this time, there was enough beer and other assorted liquids in my veins that the night started to get a lil fuzzy.  I know we destroyed the Caesars buffet (I live tweeted each dish I had, and I’m not sure I’ve ever had that much seafood in one sitting.  At one point, I looked down and all I saw were crab leg shells and pools of butter.  I was like, WHO ATE THESE?!  And then I realized it was me.  Chuckle.  Oh, beer.)

The next five hours involved more imbibing and getting my ear drums blown out at DUSK (warning: link produces horrible music), the nightclub at Caesars.  It was a good time, and it’d been a while since I’d seen so much ass hanging out of mini-dresses, so it was nice to restock that mental well.

After leaving the club, some girls we found/befriended/whatever wanted to head to Trump to play Blackjack, which turned out to be a wonderful idea, since I recouped all of my losses from AC and then some.  Jorge the dealer, I’m glad you exist. It was a wonderful run until one of the girls spilled her beer all over the table, ruining our mojo and ending that table’s use for the evening.  Bitter, I was.

As we left Trump to head back to Caesars in the wee hours of the evening/morning, we approached the long escalator which lead out of the casino.  An employee was fiddling with the controls to the down escalator, since it was squealing a little bit.  We asked if it was safe to go down, and he hesitated but assured us it was.  Happily, we began riding down the rapidly descending escalator…when he STOPPED THE ESCALATOR ON US!  WHY????  WHY DUDE?? Either that, or it just BROKE while we were on it. Thankfully, no one was hurt, although everyone stumbled, shrieked, I may have wet myself, and grabbed onto the railing.  But had we not been hanging on – that would’ve been it. There’s no stopping physics. There’s only one thing to do, which to fall forward and say hello to the spiky edges of the escalator steps with your face. And if you’re a girl with heels on, which these women were…yeah. It could’ve been a real messy ending to the night.

At some point, we made it back to our rooms, where we found some members of our group who we had lost earlier that evening passed out with all the lights on.  My friend Doug needed some H2O, so he went and bought this:

This was two dollars.  Ladies and Gentleman, Atlantic City.

The next morning, after a shower, shave, evacuation of bowels, and promises to never do this again, until the next time we do it again, there was only one goal in mind: White House Sub Shop. White House Sub Shop!  WHITE HOUSE SUB SHOP!

White House Sub Shop is a dive sub shop about two blocks off the boardwalk that sells, well, amazing subs.  It’s one of those places that doesn’t have a website, because they don’t need one – they’ve been doing what they’ve been doing for about 65 years and it’s worked out fine, thank you very much.

This sub shop ranks amongst my top three, along with Hoagie Haven and Taylor Gourmet.

The menu at White House Subs is pretty simple, with hot and cold subs.  There are your classics – italian, cheesesteaks, chicken park, meatball, turkey, ham, etc.  There are no crazy over-the-top combos here, just good classic meat and cheese submarine sandwiches.  They only sell Pepsi, which wrinkled my nose, but whatever.  And they have TastyKakes on the menu – nice.

You might be wondering why a whole sub costs around $15.  Sounds pricey, no?  Well, it’s simple – the subs are just effing huge and can serve two people.  More on this later.

Just wanted to give you a feel for the shop – everything was about this place was both tacky and wonderful at the same time.  From the napkin dispensers…

…to the endless photos of famous people on the walls. Presidents, Frank Sinatra, Regis, Paula Deen, beauty queens, army generals, musicians, comedians, you name it – they’d all come here to scrum down on so sandwiches.  If you’re ever in Atlantic City, you have to come here.

But does the hype overshadow the subs?

Junk Food Nation, this is White House Sub Shop Chicken Parm…a half order.  Served simply on two paper plates, this sub was bursting with chicken and cheese and tomato sauce. First, the bread is the king here: delivered daily from the Formica Brothers bakery is right down the street, the sub roll is fresh and crispy on the outside but really soft on the inside, giving the mouth a good chew and holding the ingredients well without falling apart.  Do you know what I mean? There was a good give to the bread as you bite – a perfect roll.  Didn’t crumb everywhere, or cut your mouth open with jagged crust pieces.

The cheese was a mozzarella, gooey and oozy and nice and salty.  Brilliant.  The tomato sauce was plentiful and NOT BLAND – very tomatoey with a good basil undertone. It was tangy with a nice flavor.

The kicker to the park, however, was that they used sliced chicken, or the same type of chicken you’d find in a chicken cheesesteak instead of your traditional deep fried chicken cutlet.  I didn’t think I’d like it at first when I saw that, but in the end, it was amazing.  Because the meat isn’t processed and breaded, the chicken flavor really comes out and it is able to absorb all the flavor from the sauce into the meat.  The taste of the sub didn’t taste friend, and while I like the crunch of chicken cutlet, the firmness of the bread mixed well with the innards of the sandwich to produce a truly stellar Italian sub experience.

Really really good.  The only way to cap off the AC experience.

So that’s it, Junk Food Nation – my weekend in a nutshell.  Tell me what you thought of it in the comments below or hit me on Twitter @junkfoodguy or on my Facebook Page.  Tomorrow, I get back to my normal reviews of junk food with my normal morning posts.  Normalcy, I welcome you.  Happy Monday, everyone.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy