In Atlantic City's Ducktown section, a safe culinary bet

THE EIGHT YOUNG women in matching silver crowns squeezed neatly into the front couple of booths, giggling a bit and looking politely hungry for their steaks and subs.

On that July day, the eight Miss America candidates - Miss Pennsylvania from the East to Miss Wyoming from the mountains - may have been the latest celebrities to hit Atlantic City's White House Sub Shop over the last 62 years, but they were certainly not the first.

The walls of the White House are chock-full of photos, many ill-focused and faded, from performer Tiny Tim to baseball's Joe DiMaggio to comedian Bill Cosby to even the Beatles, chomping down on overflowing White House sandwiches.

The White House has, essentially, held down the culinary fort at the corner of Arctic and Mississippi avenues as that general area of Ducktown - the old Italian neighborhood of Atlantic City - slid into decline even as the casinos a few blocks toward the ocean thrived.

Now, though, the White House has become the anchor of a sort of restaurant row around Arctic and Mississippi. While the casinos are going more upscale with big names like Wolfgang Puck, Bobby Flay and Georges Perrier, the eats are ethnic and homey out in Ducktown.

Next door to the south of the White House at 2303 Arctic Ave. is Panchos Mexican Taqueria. Panchos is an unassuming place - no Beatles or DiMaggio on the walls, but plenty of inexpensive and unusual Mexican fare.

For instance, under the "tacos" section at this "autentica taqueria Mexicana" are 13 choices of fillings - $3.25 for a single and $9 for a three-taco platter. Besides the expected chicken, pork and beef are tripa (tripe), lengua (tongue), chivo (goat) and cabeza (pig's head). There are fajitas for $8.50 and burritos from $6.50 to $8.

Among the homemade drinks for $2.50 are those made from tamarinds, rice milk and cinnamon, and dried Jamaican flowers.

Across Arctic from Panchos is Formica Brothers Bakery Café. For nearly a century, the storefront at 2310 Arctic Ave. was a standard bakery, selling the Formica breads and those especially wonderful cannolis. A couple of years back, though, current owner Frank Formica gussied up the place with bright colors and café tables, and he's added some weekend evening jazz concerts.

Formica said he decided to fix up and bring in the café because of The Walk, the outlet shopping district a couple of blocks to the north, along what had been a strip of tenements along Michigan Avenue.

Where before, he said, he did about 150 walk-in customers a day, now, on a good Saturday, especially when he has the jazz groups, he gets 400 customers for his cannolis ($1.50 for a small, $2.50 for a large, and $3.25 for a chocolate-covered one) and about 40 other items ranging from tomato pie ($1.50) to biscotti ($1.80).

Formica's also provides rolls for the White House subs.

Never "hoagies," the subs at the White House are a strange bit of New York at the Shore. Regulars know to call ahead rather than stand in what can be interminable lines - in the front for seats and in the back for takeout.

Half-subs - more than enough for a meal and in two dozen varieties - go from pepper-and-egg ($5.20) to chicken cacciatore ($6.50) to cheesesteak sub ($7.50).

Back across Mississippi at 2243 Arctic is the Barbera Seafood Market, "Your Feast of the Seven Fishes Headquarters." But even when it isn't time for that traditional Christmas fiesta, the takeout at Barbera's is extensive.

There are fried and sautéed platters with either rice, fries, cole slaw or, unusually, broccoli to pair with crab cakes ($6.99), Canadian flounder ($7.99), wild salmon ($8.99), smelts ($5.49) and more. There are chowders, shellfish, salads and even a whiting sandwich for a mere $3.99.

If Barbera's has mostly a lunch takeout crowd, the venerable Angelo's Fairmount Tavern, just up Mississippi a block at 2300 Fairmount Ave., is more the dinner place of the row. The Mancuso family has run the place since 1935 - the Great Depression, strangely enough, being one of Atlantic City's heydays.

The place is an homage to those days and the decades slightly after. One Friday night last month, the music at Angelo's was strictly Tony Bennett - until it was strictly Frank Sinatra.

One wall of the main dining room is replete with old photographs of New York Yankees - circa late 1940s to early 1960s, when the Yankees were winning the pennant most every year.

Those who loved Moose Skowron and Mickey Mantle and even the old second-string catcher Charlie Silvera - and even their great-grandchildren - gush over the Italian fare at Angelo's.

"Hey, this is the best I ever tasted," said one middle-aged gent to the black-and-white-clad waitress about his mussels fra diavolo ($7.25).

Looking across his table at a red-mouthed toddler, he added: "He loves it, too."

Dinners are certainly cheaper than the casino bigwigs' joints: a broiled flounder dinner, for instance, goes for $15.75, and even a 16-ounce steak will only set you back $24.25.

Back at the White House, the Misses Maybe-Americas were smiling for photos with 'tween girls and signing all sorts of T-shirts.

Maybe the high-rollers would spend this night with Wolfgang and Georges, but the ghosts of Sinatra, Sammy and Dean were definitely waving to a Mancuso or two at Angelo's, doing a few clams at Barbera's, hitting the White House for an Italian sausage and parm, and stopping at Formica's to buy a round of cannolis for the house. *