San & Wolves - Long Beach

Witchcraft! How else can one explain a vibrant and whimsical, all-vegan bakery of Filipino pastries that taste even better their butter-lard counterparts?

Classics like this Cinnamon Roll are fluffy with a soft and chewy core, beautifully balanced with aromatic vanilla-leaf notes, and the sweet icing has a little salt. 

Ube Coconut Pan de Coco is best kept simple, a firm-crust bread-roll and a crumb with air like an island. 

Most creative is the Everything Bagel Donut, the most exciting thing I've eaten this year. It's innovative and unique, an astounding direction for savory pastry that I could not have foreseen. The seedy seasoning salts the crust, and combined with a few fresh scallions, it's an ultimate flavor-bomb. I do wish the cream was even less sweet, but it's a reminder that this is a donut after all.

Blueberry Babinka is basically a cornbread but a bit more oily-moist and sweet. 

Much citrus concentrates a Calamansi Loaf, much less boring than your lemon pound cake. 

A beautiful vegan bakery, with all fantastic pastries. All perfectly-balanced, dense and light, practicing sweet restraint. Butter could not make this better, and I would undoubtedly double back for another donut. 

Nonna Mercato - Long Beach

Lauded as one of Long Beach’s best restaurants, the line on a Saturday morning is proof that it’s at least a local fave. I don’t know if I was quite as enchanted as Eater, but I did like the apps a lot. 

In a cute cafe with an airy patio, Italian brunch and dinner are made from scratch, and the bakery churns out plenty of pastries and bread.

Spanish Milk Tea is a fantastic drink, a murky black with sweetened milk that finishes with floral notes and an aroma of orange peel. 

Bruschette should be basic but they make it their own with gorgeous wedges of heirloom tomato that carry such a depth of flavor. They taste like tomato but you didn’t know tomato could taste like this. I’ve only ever had savory bruschetta, but this one is sweet with creamy burrata, and threads of drizzled honey that make it absolutely divine.

I thought I’d tried all the cheeses, but the Tomino Alla Piastra is very new to me. It’s mild and smooth, slightly nutty, a salty/savory variety with a firm and rubbery (in a good way) rind. It’s an agrees with both sweet and savory pairing while still asserting its own unique profile. It’s a harmonious clash of sweet and tangy with acerbic notes of mustard that also mix with tangy-sweet dried apricot. I’ve never had anything like this, especially in this combination.

Floppy, folding Rigatoni tubes come with a tomato-based sauce with deeply cheesy notes. it’s beautifully rich but the sharper notes of rucola as a balanced finish that makes you just keep eating.

Pappardelle belts are impossibly long and wide, and the texture is the reason I’ll always order it if it’s there. The sauce is a meaty ragu, one that’s meaty and not much else. Too heavy and a bit crude, imo. 

Their bakery sure is pretty, with colorful croissants and every flavor of cupcake. The pink and white croissant has a creamy crust and is filled with the smoothest cream with just the right amount of sweetness and a breath of strawberry sunshine. A raspberry cruffin has a similar filling, and both taste more like dessert than a companion to your morning coffee. The matcha croissant just has the crust on top. The inside just has those airy, chewy layers, and I think it’s this simplicity I’m seeking. Like the ragu, they’re a bit heavy-handed with the bigger flavors.

S’mores cupcakes are a fantastic dessert later that night, and I may be biased because of my obsession with marshmallow, but these seem to be the perfect size to enjoy but not overindulge in, with just the right ratio of icing to cake. 

I liked Nonna Mercato but I can’t say I fell in love. The made from scratch concept is endearing, but their pastas could use more polish, and their baked goods try to be glam but venture into gimmick. If the 45-minute wait for a weekend brunch is any indication, there are plenty of people who don’t agree with my assessment, and in all fairness, even I’d be willing to eat there again.

Ammatoli - Long Beach

I have a theory that when it comes to dining, Long Beach has been long overlooked. 

After ripping into the house-made Pita at Ammatoli, I'm quite sure of it. These big puffy pouches of warm fragrant air are the best carbs in town.

Order some Mezza if you'd like - the Hummus is good - nice texture, the Batata Harra is great - potatoes in a killer chili sauce, and fried Kibbeh is cool - dense, meaty little bites. All lovely, but honestly unnecessary. The pita is good enough to eat alone. 

It's always Freekah Friday - this dish is an everyday must. The chicken is the best rotisserie I've ever tasted, and that green wheat underneath is a lightly-crisped heaven of texture. Add the nuttiness of almonds, the sweet-tart pomegranate seeds, and a cool cucumber and yogurt salad, and it's the most balanced plate you'll ever eat. 

Meat Manoushe is a fun one as well, a fabulous flatbread topped with ground beef and lamb. 

For dessert there's a Knafeh Bil Ishta, a barely sweet clotted cream with floral notes from the organ blossom syrup. It's rich and really not very sweet. Not my personal favorite, but still very good. 

Pistachio Baklava is served with a scoop of ice cream, a beautiful combination. Sweet simplicity, just lose yourself in the layers of pastry, pistachio, and sticky-sweet honey. 

Wow, what a meal. The dishes are simple yet complex, the flavors sophisticated yet approachable. Even the pickiest eaters can enjoy pita bread and chicken, and the price is more than reasonable for this high caliber of cooking. A unique perfection is found here, and it's a lunch spot I highly recommend. 

Heritage - Long Beach

It’s a simple six-course menu, but two of the courses are dessert. The price seems affordable for a Michelin-starred meal, and I love the relaxed living-room ambiance of this quiet little Long Beach house. There's not a lot of space for tables, but they don't use the space greedily, placing the tables just far enough apart for privacy. 

The meal starts smoothly with a clean Kanpachi Crudo. Beautiful see-through slices of fatty sweetness uplifted by a citrusy pineapple, cooled by slices of celtuse. 

Cannonball Cabbage is covered in soubise and caesar, and it is as unideal as it looks. The cabbage itself has a smoky sweetness that's bold enough to stand alone, but those subtler notes are just soaked with sauce. 

Grilled Diver Scallop is the sole standout, the most tender slices interspersed with geoduck upon a sweet bed of sunchoke. 

Next comes perfectly pink slices of Iberico Pork Presa over a sweet little snap pea puree and a caviar beurre blanc. It's beautiful to look at, and the pork is exceptionally tender. 

And here is where it ends. There's no more dinner to be had, and we switch gears over a bowl of palate-cleansing Blackberry Froyo with its icy shards of pomegranate granita and tangy lemon notes. Remarkably refreshing. 

The last course is a Burnt Sage Honey Cake, with cute little pumpkin cubes and sprinkles of granola crunch. The cake itself is so perfectly crumbly yet moist. 

It’s rare that I criticize portion size, and I often deride the gluttony that fine dining feels the need to provide, but here they give you very little food. If you add up every dish here, including dessert, it’s maybe half a dinner plate. The price seems affordable, but it's quite pricey when you see how little your money buys. 

This food is backed by shiny new Michelin stars, one red and one green to boot.

Except I’m not sure Heritage deserved it. It pains me to say so because I love the concept and the vibe, and I thoroughly enjoyed what little I was given to eat. Although each dish is overall delicious, they seem to play it safe. They had access to the best and freshest ingredients but they made them into things that didn’t offend but also didn’t register. Their sauces are textbook, and their cooking skills are superb, but it's overall unremarkable; the same classics I've been eating for years. 

Tacos Lionydas - Redondo Beach

They lit out of Long Beach and regrouped on the side of Hawthorne Blvd, near the cross-street of Artesia. Pulling over is a no-go, but there's plenty of parking in the lot behind the stand. 

Order in your best Spanish, and if you don't speak it, now's the time to learn because (repeat after me), Burritos de Pastor is where it's at. Pork slice straight off the spit stays so juicy, saturated with seared spice. Their burritos are to-the-point; more than half is meat with a small scoop of rice, beans, and "con todo". 

The Carne Asada Burrito makes a strong showing if you're not into eating pork. The steak tastes flame-seared, and the melty cheese holds it all together. 

Catch them if you can...before the health department can. They've been shut down before but now they're back and I'll be back for more. 

Ike's Love and Sandwiches - El Segundo vs Long Beach

If sandwiches have a monarchy, Ike's is their benevolent king. A truly inclusive menu scatters largess for all, and their expansive menu promises one veggie or vegan for every two made of meat. 

I've only had the meat, but the non-meat are not to be overlooked. 

My first bite of Ike's was the Adam Richman. It's a chicken cordon bleu but so much better; fried chicken with clinging batter, glistening green pesto and avo coating honeyed ham.

I liked the Damon Bruce less, but I'd eat it anytime. It's a monumental munch with stacks of sliced steak and onion rings.

The Ménage a Trois is good if you like sauce. There's sauce and sauce and more sauce, and a whole lot of dirty sauce. I love their chicken with anything, but I don't have to have it with everything.

What this place needs is MORE MEATBALL. The Super Mario is a marvelous madness with stringy, melty mozzarella sticks with a kiss of marinara. 

Have some chicken-fried and cold beer on a Friday night. The Screaming Eagle is a southern best with bbq ranch and pepper jack.

They capitalize on the colors, honoring Kobe with his black and yellow. Purple slaw pumps up the beef, and I love the bbq on a slice of Swiss. 

It's called the Backstabber because it sneaks up on you. Acidic artichoke creeps up on an unsuspecting chicken-cheese with caesar, sweetening and amplifying something that sounds so boring, making it anything but.

It's so hard to live so far, but when El Segundo can't deliver, at least the Long Beach location keeps up. 

A direct comparison of the Adam Richmans (Richmen?) shows that like most things, they're better served fresh and hot. That said, the Long Beach version doesn't seem as quite as clean in the execution, same with the Super Mario and Menage a Trois. 

The Stephen Hawking is a new one, a stack of tender turkey with bacon, like a club sandwich dripping with orange glaze.

I don't love the Long Beach location like I love the El Segundo, but suffice it to say that I like Ike's. I like Ike's anywhere, and I like Ike's everywhere.

Belmont Brewing - Long Beach

Drink on an empty stomach. Drink here only if you can and eat only if you must. But drink first until you can't taste the food. Thumbs up for the beer but thumbs down for the food.

I do like the beer. The tasting flights are well-priced, and there are several standouts. The Strawberry Blonde is a great ale, the IPA has a smooth finish, and I really liked the Pale Ale as well. The view of the pier and the shipping cranes in the distance are stunning, and unlike the South Bay's beach cities, Long Beach doesn't come with a side dish of douche.

Steamed Mussels go well with any beer. These are in a standard garlic-butter-white wine mix, but they are a little bit mushy. Better overcooked than under, but they could be cooked a little less.

The Poke Bowl was a mistake. MY mistake, not theirs. It's a nice mix of ahi tuna, salmon, and shrimp, and all the seafood is quite fresh. I love all the veggies as well, but the house made poke sauce ruined it for me. It tastes like mostly hoisin sauce, and I'm not a fan. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if plenty of other people are - it's just too much for me.

The Mediterranean Burger is a fun one. Bacon strips flop over a juicy patty, and the goat cheese is a creamy touch. The brioche bun is a a nice little extra as well.

The Brussels Sprouts are...confusing. Bitter and crisp, these little nubbins are cooked right, but they’re also coated with balsamic, which makes them strangely sugary-sweet and sticky. I’m usually all about contrasts, but this is strange.

I am dramatic. The food here isn't bad. It's fresh and it's not wrong; it's also not extremely right. That said, don't come for the food - just grab your meal elsewhere and enjoy your bottoms-up at Belmont.

Crooked Duck - Long Beach

A plucky little place, The Crooked Duck. Parking is a pain unless you snag one of their three spots in front, assuming you don't leave after seeing the dreaded line out the door at Sunday Brunch. 

Inside it's intimate, a cafeteria/diner lovechild, but the patio is where it's at. We were stuck inside, but we didn't mind escaping the heat. 

I'm craving a Corned Beef Hash, and theirs will do. A healthy balance of beef with potato-onion-pepper, roasted with a dash of thousand island. The thousand island that they roast into it seems promisingly unusual, but it honestly doesn't add anything. 

My choice of sunny side up eggs break open, and an amber river fill the the meat n' potato chasms with satisfying yolk. The flavors are definitely good enough, but I have yet to have my mind blown by a hash, and this one isn't it. 

Like lobster bisque, Chicken Fried Steak & Eggs is a dish I can't turn down. The chicken fried is done pretty right, and the sausage gravy will suffice in southern California. 

There's a homey, community feel to this place, and it plays the role of a local forever-favorite that modernized and minimally evolved to stand the test of time. The place is cute, the service tries, and even the most dour of diners can't help but crack the smallest smile at The Crooked Duck.