Tony's Steaks, Asbury Park (Peter Genovese I NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

If there’s one food in dire need of a public relations campaign, it’s boardwalk food. It gets no respect, and maybe it shouldn’t. Underwhelming and overpriced, boardwalk food caters to — takes advantage of? — a captive audience.

But there is good, even great, boardwalk food out there, if you know where to look. In 2018, I spent six days walking the six major boardwalks — Asbury Park, Point Pleasant Beach, Seaside, Atlantic City, Ocean City and Wildwood — most of the journey in a blistering heat wave. I stopped at 77 restaurants/stands, sampling close to 150 items, everything from fried pickles with sexy sauce to Seagull Droppings (ice cream, and no seagulls were involved).

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