I still don’t understand how I fell into food writing. Was I the only person in Long Beach who never cooked because their apartment is so old that if you wanted a fridge, it had to go where an oven was supposed to be? Besides loving my city immensely, was I qualified at all to […]
Flamin Curry Is New Affordable Indian Fast Food in Belmont Heights
It was only last month that this column space was extolling the virtues of Wok N Roll, a Chinese fast-food institution whose continuously replaced steam trays, cooked-to-order vegan and vegetarian options, and a friendly staff of extended family made it one of the best places in Long Beach putting a two-item combo into a Styrofoam […]
Brunch Life Fest Celebrates Long Beach’s Growing Love of the In-Between Meal
Anne Chua used to have a traditional view of breakfast: pancakes, waffles, a plate of bacon and eggs. But not long after turning 21, she was taken to brunch and discovered the popular Mexican dish chilaquiles. “It’s like breakfast, but also like nachos,” the now-26-year-old Long Beach native says. “Brunch is my favorite because there’s […]
La Tocada Fest Brings Latin Rock to the Heart of LA
John Frías says he was a clueless college kid when he first got the idea to bring popular Latin rock bands to the U.S. in the mid-1990s. The son of immigrants from northern Mexico, he had watched his father build a music empire out of a small nightclub in southeast L.A., turning monthly concerts with […]
Cambodian Chef Chad Phuong Aims to Launch a Food Truck
In the Battambong province of Cambodia in the early ’70s, Chad Phuong’s grandmother had a stall in their village from which she sold the classic Khmer cold noodle dish nom banh chok. When the brutal Khmer Rouge took over (and made private businesses illegal) later that decade, Phuong’s family fled to a refugee camp on […]
The New Black in Long Beach Is One of the Few Places Where You Can Get an Impossible Burger
The end of June marked week one at Black, the newest watering hole on the Broadway Corridor and the only straight bar brave enough to plop itself east of Alamitos Avenue and below Fourth Street. The Agenda Show ensured that the self-described skater bar remained full of too-cool, out-of-town visitors for the majority of its […]
RIP Bigmista’s Barbecue: Famous Long Beach Pitmaster Moves On
It seems cruel to lose one of Southern California’s best pitmasters just as barbecue season is heating up, but Bigmista’s Barbecue and Sammich Shop closed for good July 1 in the same manner as it lived—on its own damn terms. Since 2004, Neil Strawder (a.k.a. Big Mista) has been a fixture in the California barbecue […]
Wok N Roll Is the Long Beach Chinese Takeout Spot Bourdain Would Have Wanted
There’s an episode of Parts Unknown in which the late Anthony Bourdain explores a pre-Harvey Houston through the lens of its growing diversity. To view it as a landing point for newcomers from around the world, Bourdain insisted that the episode not include any white Texans; instead, he stops at a packed Indian grocery store, […]
Beach City Food Tours Shows Off Downtown Long Beach’s Culinary Scene
The only food tour through downtown Long Beach starts big — with a fiery flash, a drizzle of lemon juice and a hearty “Opa!” Five days a week, Beach City Food Tours initiates its lunchtime Downtown Long Beach Walking Tour at George’s Greek Cafe, where visitors savor the local institution’s famous saganaki appetizer, a so-called “flaming […]
Brewheim’s Indiegogo Offers Double Your Donation in Beer
Getting more beer for your money is always a good thing and the owners of OC’s biggest upstart brewery know it. That’s why the team behind Brewheim Beer Makers — currently under construction in Anaheim — are offering to give you more than double your dollars back in brewery gift certificates if you donate to […]
Long Beach’s Liberation Brewing Company Is Already a Local Favorite
It’s been a long four years for the Long Beach-bred team behind Liberation Brewing Company. When we first checked in with Dan Regan, Eric McLaughlin and Michael Clements in 2014, they were a power trio of marketing, brewing and financial talent still searching for a place to install their dream project: a tiny production brewery […]
Beer Fest Hopes to Save Long Beach’s Beleaguered Sunnyside Cemetery: What the Ale!
It’s not every day that you can drink craft beer to bring a 112-year-old cemetery back to life. But that’s exactly what Ryan Hughes and Martin Svab of Phantom Carriage Brewery want to you to do at their dark-arts beer fest that aims to #SaveSunnyside. Dubbed “A Celebration at Sunnyside Cemetery,” the June 30 event […]
Long Beach Newcomer Lacquered Needs to Rethink Prices on its Great Food
Of all the recent restaurant openings in Long Beach, none has caused quite as many conflicting opinions as Lacquered. On the one hand, it’s a small counter-service restaurant owned by an enthusiastic Harbor Area husband and wife team who parlayed their respective fine-dining experiences (him: The Fifth Restaurant in Toronto; her: Wolfgang Puck) first into […]
Check Out Your Nearest Homebrew Club for the Latest Experimental Beer: What the Ale!
Any professional brewer will tell you homebrewing is the boot-strap heart of craft beer. Many of Orange County’s best breweries (Cismontane, Beachwood, the Bruery) started in their brewmasters’ garages, and the Southern California region is rife with historic clubs that date back decades (some even before homebrewing was legal—oops!). But even in the era of […]
Long Beach Chefs Are Working Towards a True Farm-to-Table Cuisine
The big rigs zooming down the 91 freeway are hardly visible over the lush early-spring crop at Organic Harvest Gardens. Leafy purple kale, fluorescent rainbow chard, tall stalks of fava beans and pockets of herbs and colorful flowers spring from dozens of grow beds spread across the half-acre urban farm. This North Long Beach lot […]
Mexican Craft Beer Finally Has a Legit Home in SoCal: What the Ale!
Not too long ago, the only way to drink the stellar stouts and session IPAs from Baja California’s burgeoning craft beer scene was to trek across the border and try some for yourself. Since Mexican breweries need a pricey liquor license in order to sell their own product, this usually meant stopping at one of […]
California Kabob Factory Is Long Beach’s Next Great Middle Eastern Food Spot
The eggplant and falafel panini at California Kabob Factory is a sight to behold. You might order it expecting to get the namesake vegetable and a few fried chickpea balls pressed between two pieces of sliced bread. But “panini” is a serious misnomer for this knife-and-fork invention that’s stuffed with tomatoes and French fries and […]
Dry Terped IPAs Are the New Frontier in Weed-Beer Mashups: What the Ale!
Dank, piney, citrusy, skunky: Hops and weed might look alike, smell alike and even taste alike, but it wasn’t until recently that local brewers started exploring the aromatic possibilities of combining these two green, resinous flowers. Last summer, downtown LA’s Concrete Jungle Brewing Project opened with a lineup of old-world and new-school beers, including an […]
LB Vegan Is Bringing More Animal-Free Pop-Ups to Long Beach
When German Rivera first went vegan 15 years ago, there were surprisingly few restaurants in L.A. where someone could eat a hearty plant-based meal. The animal lover and graphic designer, who came from a food-obsessed family in Mexico, got excited over simple discoveries: the new Native Foods in Westwood, a secretly all-vegan Thai restaurant in […]
Beachwood Brewing LBC IPA: Our Beer of the Week!
Let it be known: Beachwood Brewing’s LBC IPA is the new unofficial official beer of Long Beach. To be fair, this classic West Coast-style IPA kind of already was, since it’s one of only two alcoholic beverage (besides the Long Beach Tea–ugh) to even bear the name of the misunderstood beachside metropolis – not to […]
Loaded Cafe Is the Mexican-Owned Greasy Spoon the Future Needs
The greasy spoon diner is an icon of mid-century American culture, but it’s most prolific form is really a slice of Southern California. With home-style meals, cozy-booth settings and snappy service, freestanding kitchens slinging pancakes and burgers become important community spaces – where working-class folk from across the community could sit side by side at […]
