There are easier ways to open a restaurant than spending two years turning an old tax office into a place where woven pendant lights float above a tiled roof, custom chairs welcome diners, and an upstairs fireplace gives you another reason to settle in. But Megan and Miller Dao have built Broth N Rolls with the kind of commitment that makes the space feel personal before a bowl ever hits the table.
“We poured our souls into this place,” Megan said before cutting the ribbon on the space with the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association. “I want people to feel like it is a space that is special and comforting. And, of course, to share and eat our food.”
Now open at 3910 Atlantic Ave. in Bixby Knolls, their Vietnamese restaurant is a beautiful addition to a neighborhood that has steadily expanded its culinary reach and a city that has seen its proper Vietnamese cuisine scene grow in the past few years. And beneath all that design sits something equally worthy of attention: family recipes, deeply comforting soups, and a willingness to have a little fun with fish sauce.
And yes, the future will bring Vietnamese breakfast.
Two years of work turned a tax office into Broth N Rolls
The transformation is striking.
Overhead, woven shades of different shapes and sizes cast a warm glow against the dark ceiling. A sweep of gray roof tiles stretches above the service area, creating the feeling of a small building tucked inside a much larger one. Beneath it, green tile, decorative black panels, and wood bring texture to a room whose height could otherwise feel imposing.
A staircase rises along one side toward the upstairs area. Plants soften the edges. The custom chairs speak to the attention the Daos put into the details people actually touch and use. And then there is that upstairs space: Made for rainy days and a bowl of a phở, Megan installed a fireplace that makes the nook incredibly intimate or worthy of renting out for a small party.
Across two arduous years, Megan and Miller rebuilt a space that had served an entirely different purpose. Converting an old tax office into a restaurant is already a substantial undertaking; creating this much character within it suggests how much they wanted the finished place to matter.
The food moves between family tradition and fish-sauce-covered fries
Start with the chả giò. Megan’s mother’s 30-year-old recipe anchors these hyper-savory fried rolls, whose netted rice paper provides a crunchy wrapping for chicken, shrimp, mushrooms, onion, carrot, and glass noodles. They offer an immediate introduction to the family cooking behind the restaurant.
The fresh rolls take several directions—none of which will misguide you: shrimp and pork with herbs and lettuce. Or turmeric-lemongrass tofu. The wonderfully salty grilled shrimp paste. And, the star, nem nướng, the grilled pork version with a wonton strip lining its center for that crunch amid the softness of the roll. Lemongrass pork skewers—another longtime recipe that comes from Mama Dao—round out the possibilities for those who want something flame-grilled before the soup arrives.
Then come the fries. Listed on the menu as nước mắm fries, the shoestring potatoes arrive slathered in a sweet-and-sour fish sauce, heavily layered with basil.
But the soups and phở are where Broth N Rolls makes its strongest case.
The wonton soup could be a contender for the city’s best: delicate pork-and-shrimp wontons in a light, salt-laden chicken broth—worthy of a bowl on its own—with fried garlic, onion, star-shaped carrots, green onion, cilantro, and bok choy. The chicken phở, surprisingly, is another standout, pairing chicken meat with chicken-mushroom meatballs in that stellar, clear broth.
The beef phở begins with a 12-hour broth and branches into a substantial range of bowls. Rare steak and well-done brisket sit alongside phở sườn bò. The ultimate one to go for? The Bixby house special brings together the classic section’s steak, brisket, short rib, and meatballs for those whose answer to choosing a topping is essentially: Yes.
The premium section offers American wagyu, filet mignon, and ribeye. And vegetarian phở features tofu and mushrooms in a vegetable-rich broth.
There is enough variety here to build your own routine: a familiar bowl one visit, a different cut of beef the next, a plate of those fries for the table regardless.
A strong focus on drinks—from Vietnamese coffee to teas and mocktails—is worthy of exploring at Broth N Rolls.
And the drinks deserve a look. Alongside Vietnamese iced coffee and bạc sỉu, the menu offers a full roster of zero-proof cocktails, including a longan-and-jasmine highball—a definite must-order—and a tamarind-and-ginger drink built around alcohol-free rum.
Broth N Rolls joins a growing Vietnamese food movement in Long Beach.
For years, much of Long Beach’s Vietnamese menus were crafted through Thai and Cambodian lenses. Those restaurants helped shape the city’s food culture, reflecting the overlapping tastes and histories of its Southeast Asian communities. The recent growth of Vietnamese-led spaces has given diners more opportunities to explore individual family traditions, specialties, and perspectives.
Sesame Dinette helped widen that conversation when it opened in 2022, with Linda Sivrican and her mother, Chef Judy Mai Nguyen, bringing their family’s cooking to Pacific Avenue. Its menu made room for both traditional Vietnamese dishes and playful departures, including a phở French dip.
Pickle Banh Mi followed with its Long Beach location in 2023, bringing the entrepreneurial work of Vietnamese women and their families into sharp focus. Its house-made baguettes, expansive sandwich menu, rice plates, and rolls helped establish a new local standard for bánh mì.
More recently, Mama Quach’s Kitchen opened in West Long Beach, where the family behind the former Lucky Chopsticks turned toward its Vietnamese roots. And the legendary Brodard officially opened its first Long Beach location at 2nd & PCH.
Now, the Daos add their own family story to that growing map.
What connects these places is the opportunity to encounter Vietnamese food through the people making it: their mothers’ recipes, their particular preferences, their decisions about what to preserve and what to invent.
At Broth N Rolls, that means a 30-year-old chả giò recipe can share a table with basil-heavy fish-sauce fries. A bowl of chicken phở can be enjoyed beneath an elaborate canopy of woven lights. And a former tax office can become a place where Bixby Knolls gathers over the Dao family’s food.
Two years is a long time to build a restaurant. The hope, of course, is that people will make it part of their lives for much longer.
Broth N Rolls is located at 3910 Atlantic Ave. Hours currently stand at: Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 2:30PM and 5PM to 9PM; Friday through Sunday, 8AM to 2:30PM and 5PM to 9PM.
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