Chef Arthur Gonzalez's new restaurant, called Panxa Cocina, has opened in Long Beach at the spot recently vacated by Christy's on Broadway. Christy's closed last summer after a 20-year run. It was named after its owner, Christy Bono, who is the late Sonny Bono's daughter.
You might remember Gonzalez as the owner and chef of ROE Restaurant of Belmont Shore, a seafood joint that had to revert to serving its food out of a truck when renovations on its building hit road block after road block.
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With ROE Restaurant now closed, Gonzalez starts fresh with Panxa, which is Latin-influenced, with posole, mushroom albondigas, and sopapillas on the menu. But seafood dishes such as ROE's calamari fries seemed to have stuck around.
The restaurant had its grand opening New Year's Eve.
Check out the full menu on its Facebook page.
3937 East Broadway, Long Beach, California, (562) 433-7999; http://www.panxacocina.com/
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.