Ocean Steak — Restaurant in Atlantic City

Edit to reflect most recent visit on 5/30: This restaurant has been rebranded as Ocean Steak (formerly American Cut). After a disappointing outing 2 years ago, I returned in hopes that the rebrand would have revitalized this location. Unfortunately, I experienced more of the same mediocrity. While I was appreciative that the restaurant was able to seat my party without a reservation, the food at this place simply leaves much to be desired. The location is dimly lit and intimate. The large bar area and the rear wall covered in various wine selections are visually appealing. Our waitress was knowledgeable and attentive. The mammoth shrimp were enormous, incredibly flavorful, and I enjoyed each bite. The crab cake was also a solid selection. The wagyu meatball did not have any unique flavor that would distinguish it from your standard meatball and the ricotta cheese, though flavorful, seemed like an attempt to distract from the fact that this is nothing more than a typical, generously portioned meatball. I would not order this again. The 6 cheese lobster mac was an ambitious attempt, but the various cheeses simply do not allow any singular cheese or combination of cheeses to truly shine. My girlfriend enjoyed her sea bass, but my bone-in ribeye served as the most disappointing element of my experience. I was expecting something far more flavorful, but the steak had a charry taste that overwhelmed any other flavor. The steak just seemed to lack flavor in general. I can't justify another visit here after consecutive, underwhelming experiences.

Original review: I had a fantastic and memorable outing at this location on Valentine's Day of this year. I recently returned to Oceans Resort, and having another stellar evening at American Cut was one of the primary reasons for my latest visit. Upon arriving at my 10 PM reservation, I was greeted by the hostess, who was very frigid and unpleasant. I should have taken this as a sign and opted to skip the reservation, but I proceeded anyway. My girlfriend and I were then escorted to a half-booth located directly next to the waiters' register, which, to me, was one of the worst seats in the house. Who wants to enjoy an intimate dinner and have to deal with server's ringing up orders mere inches from their table? But, I digress. We politely requested to be moved to a different table, and the hostess begrudgingly satisfied our request.

As far as the food is concerned, the west coast oysters and the shrimp were great. The fact that there is not a minimum quantity of shrimp that must be purchased was also extremely convenient (we ordered 4). However, those represented the highlights of the food that we ordered. The Ribeye Filet was dry, bland and incredibly disappointing. I can confidently state that it ranks amongst the worst steaks that I have ever had. The rack of lamb that my girlfriend ordered was slightly better, but nothing memorable. The most disappointing aspect of the evening was the side order of fries that I ordered to pair with my steak. During my previous visit in February, the fries were hand cut, incredibly seasoned, thick and borderline magical. These fries are no longer used and have been replaced with a generic French fry that is no better than frozen French fries that can be purchased from the grocery store. They were disgusting and incredibly disappointing. I pride myself on not making life difficult for those in the service industry, but I had to insist that the fries were removed from my bill. I don't know if these fries serve a cost-cutting tactic, but they were absolute crud. I hoped to lessen the blow of disappointment by ordering the popcorn sundae, and immediately after tasting it, I knew that I had made yet another poor selection. The dessert is a prime example of "style over substance". It pains me to think that this may be my last visit to...

I picked this restaurant for my friends and myself for our annual get together figuring that a Marc Forgione steak house would be the ideal spot for us. Boy was I wrong. The reservation was originally for 8 but they were very accommodating when asked if I could please add 2 chairs (and unfortunately that Is where positively ends for the night). We were a party of 10, mid-40’s, big drinkers, as well as big eaters. Our waiter was definitely not Johnny on the spot with the drinks. We waited sometimes 15-20 min for a drink. Some of the guys even ventured back to the bar to get a drink. Our appetizers came out in a reasonable amount of time. They were mostly salads and seafood. When you order a Wedge salad normally it comes out like a huge wedge of iceberg lettuce with bacon and blue cheese and cherry tomatoes. This was a very anemic looking Wedge Salad. Tiny, lacking dressing, very underwhelming. The Shrimp Cocktail (I know, I know. You are saying, “how the hell can u mess up shrimp cocktail??) came out plastered in Chef Forgiones “special” cocktail sauce, which was nothing but ketchup and hot sauce with an over abundance of horseradish. I have never had shrimp cocktail that way. Didn’t enjoy that at all. Now onto our entree’s. From when we got appitizers we waited 90min for our entree’s. Our Waiter kept on coming over and saying it’s coming, almost ready, and even lied and said the food was being plated (food didn’t come out for another 20 min after that line). This is where the disappointment sets in. Our entree’s came out very plain looking with no kind of “wow” efftect triggered. I had ordered the 40oz Tomahawk for 2 with one of my friends. The presentation was lackluster. The steak was sloppily cut off the bone and just looked terrible. The steak was cooked to temperature but was a little cold. Some of the fat had started to turn back to white like it was when it was cold. First 2 things I said after seeing the steak was, ”is that 40oz?” and to my friend jokingly, “what are you going to be eating tonight?” There was no way that was even anywhere close to being 40oz. Maybe with the bone but no way 40oz of meat. All other dishes had the same lackluster presentation. One of my buddies ordered the Tomahawk Chop and the bone was bigger then meat. It didn’t come out with the accoutrement that was supposed to be with it. DO NOT...I repeat DO NOT order the Corned Beef Ribeye. This was probably the worst tasting entree of the night. Burried in corned beef seasoning. The salt factor was off the chart. Looking at the dish gave you hypertension. Then 3 steaks came out over cooked. They tried to quick cook one of the steaks, a filet migion, by butterflying it. This made it into a piece of shoe leather. It was returned to the kitchen only to come back as they tried to pass it off as a new steak. This is when we finally got the Manager involved. Within 10 min a perfectly cooked steak was served. The sides were tasteless and underwhelming. The funniest side that came out was a single glazed carrot. Now when we asked our server about the sides he said the glazed carrotS would be good. Never specified that ONE single medium sized carrot was the ridiculous portion. For a $14 side you would expect a generous portion of carrots. We were not offered a round of drinks, free desert, coffee, or even an apology for the 90 min entree wait time. The only thing the Manager did was comp the filet migion. All in the dinner bill was $1,400. I do not mind spending money on a great dinner. This was definitely not one of those great dinners. Extremely...

So when you go to a steakhouse that does over 700 covers on Friday night you don’t expect your food or the service to always be top notch. Well when you visit the steakhouse at Ocean Casino all bets are off because they are always on point.

So let’s start With the service. When you have a waiter like Anthony that goes out of his way to Pick up bagels on his way to work (because he knows you enjoy a great bagel instead of a dinner roll) and put them on the dinner table before you get there you kind of know what’s coming next. This guy makes you feel like you’re not sitting at a restaurant but that you actually went to his house for dinner.

We can’t leave the rest of the table crew Mike and Juan out of this because they make you feel the same way throughout your meal. These guys are all so friendly & accommodating that all three of them need to be cloned.

Speaking of meal Let’s take a couple of minutes and talk about the Executive chef Mauricio. When you come into a steakhouse like this and one night if you’re just not in the mood for one of their phenomenal ribeyes or porterhouse, what are you supposed to do?

All I had to do was ask our waiter Anthony to see if the chef would make me lobster Fra Diavolo over some linguine. The answer to my Request was answered with a “ don’t worry about it Robbie “.

Well 20 minutes later a beautiful meal served in a black skillet was brought to the table with linguine, chunks of lobster and to my surprise some perfectly cooked shrimp. It was fantastic. Everyone at the table watched me eat the entire skillet & actually commented that they’ve never seen me eat everything. But you know what the best part of that was? Mauricio the executive chef came out to the table and sat down with us and made sure that I enjoyed the plate that he had prepared for me. This Chef is the consummate professional & takes the time to get feedback on his dishes. I’m a big dessert guy and I had mentioned to him previously that it’s time to update the dessert menu as the choices were limited and not really up on my top 10 list. So what does he do? He makes us a bunch of almond tarts with strawberries that was to die for. He said a new dessert menu was in the works so it’s nice to know that they actually care what their customers have to say.

So to anyone reading this, please understand that I am in no way special, famous or of any importance. Friday night I was just a guy that was hungry and wanted something different for dinner and the entire staff from the front of the house to the back of the house brought their “A” game and made us all feel special as well as satisfied without being stuffed 😁.

Thank you to all of you for making our dining experience something out of the ordinary in a good way as well as preparing great food and making a great wine suggestion.

You know we will be coming back again and again so keep up the...