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 […]
Long Beach Lunch
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Blue Bird Cafe Brings More Than Just Vegan Sushi Back to Alamitos Beach
Happy Elephant was Long Beach’s only sushi restaurant that didn’t bother stocking any fish. It was also the only vegan place around that served a full menu of reimagined and deconstructed Vietnamese and Thai dishes, a la Au Lac. The restaurant’s location next to Spicy Sugar in the middle of the Thai Town Gayborhood […]