“Best Long Beach food?” is a question often asked in my food group and a phrase I don’t particularly like to use, especially when creating listicles such as these. I want to, first and foremost, celebrate more than rank—and in that comes an admission: There are certainly missing aspects or holes in this list as there are with every list. Because food is such a powerfully subjective thing.

But what I hope I do accomplish is a sense of ownership amongst the chefs mentioned. Maybe a sense of achievement amongst the restaurateurs. And certainly a sense of pride amongst our denizens supporting these essential spaces. Our food scene is continually worthy of uplift—and these dishes, for me, exemplified just that.

In no particular order, here are stellar dishes from 2024, representing some of the best Long Beach food…

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Taco de tripa from Sonoratown

244 E. 3rd St.

The first time I had the mightily underrated tripas of Sonoratown was the wild moment I won Food/Culture Critic of the Year at the L.A. Press Club’s National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards—and it is why they are an order I rarely skip when go there. Sonoratown taco de tripa > any award on the planet.

For those skeptical of tripas, this would be the way to introduce them: An insane crisp, its velvety center intact, almost umami-like, these little rings are served up with their red salsa and avocado sauce, cabbage, and atop their perfectly perfected flour tortilla. Looking for a more gluttonous way to have it? Get their caramelo with tripa. Wondrous, I say.

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Pasta from Nonna Mercato

3722 Atlantic Ave.

No specific pasta; just the pasta. In a world where Long Beach’s pasta game is on point, there is one place which continually exercises creativity, deep dives into regional Italian food, a wildly awe-inspiring consistency, and therefore creates the city’s best pasta: Chef Cameron Slaugh at Nonna Mercato.

I say the best—a rarity, I know—because of many things. Chef Cameron gleefully plays with shape and flavor. Caramelle stuffed with pumpkin squash and lined with pepita sauce and honey-vinegar brown butter. Strands of farfalloni lined with a smoke boar ragú. Lasagna e velouté. Busiate with nduja and calamari or maybe hen. Agnolotti with duck, pear, and hazelnuts. Pici with whelks, a rather uncommon sea snail. Milk gnudi with Swiss chard.

This talent of shape and flavor is no better exercised than during his romantic, Italian-American sonnet to the carby cog of Italian cuisine that is Nonna’s “12 days of Pasta.” Add onto this the year he debuted Nonna as a dinner destination—which patrons will be thrilled to hear he might be expanding upon in 2025—and one can see why Nonna Mercato as a whole (and not just a single dish) uplifted the best Long Beach food in 2024.

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Whole fried catfish from Crystal Thai Cambodian

1165 E. 10th St.

Yes, of course, there is Phnom Penh Noodle Shack. Or Monoram. Or Sophy’s. But to experience the full depth of traditional Khmer cooking, Crystal Thai Cambodian is the space to go. (And for those confused about the “Thai” part—which I truly feel the space should just drop from its name—it’s because following the horrors of the Khmer Rouge genocide, where Long Beach saw an influx of Cambodian refugees, many people didn’t know what Cambodian cuisine was. Thai, however, was far more common—hence why you will often find Thai-tinged or Thai plates next to, say, nom p’jok at Crystal.)

And their whole fried catfish (“trei chhma chien” in phonetic Khmer, or ត្រីឆ្មាចៀន) is a wonder—which, I know, is not your typical Southern American-cornmeal-style but the fish itself is just remarkable. Mekong catfish—which is not a bottom feeder but actually eats river weed, making its meat this beautiful yellow color and wonderfully clean—is the star. Put a chunk of that in a lettuce wrap with their tamarind sauce, some fresh herbs—including the wonderfully bitter sdao, the flower buds of the neem tree; mint; Thai basil; cilantro…—maybe some Thai chile and voila.

It was a dish that defined Long Beach food for me this year.

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Teta’s carrot cake from Ammatolí

285 E. 3rd St.

While Ammatolí—Chef Dima Habibeh’s James Beard-recognized Levantine restaurant—has always stellar sweets, the addition of Chef Dima’s daughter, baker Massah Habibeh, has brought their dessert menu up to a new level. Staples like their date cake, lemon olive oil cake, and tahini chocolate chip cookies have become an essential part of the experience at Ammatolí.

You can add Teta’s carrot cake to that list. Inspired by Massah’s grandmother in Amman, Jordon, this cardamom-forward take is topped with a wonderfully salty toffee buttercream frosting and walnuts. Not too sweet, masterfully complex, and nostalgic for anyone who was lucky enough to have a family member make them a carrot or zucchini cake.

Look for the full feature on Masah Habibeh in the coming days.

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Cult Classic from Waldo’s Pizza

Various locations; check Instagram

Waldo Stout, the charismatic, humble leader behind Waldo’s Pizza, has a culinary pedigree like no other. From L.A. legends like Bestia and Bavel to Long Beach staples like Little Coyote (for which he created the dough that was promptly stolen by its former owners and proclaimed as their own) and Naples gem Marlena under the dough-creation of Chef Michael Ryan, Waldo has had his hands directly involved in making some of the region’s best food. And that is what makes having Waldo’s Pizza—now a popup, hoping to become a staple brick-and-mortar in the future—such an honor for Long Beach’s wildly strong pizza game.

For me, it is no better exemplified than in his Cult Classic pie, a nearly perfect take on a Margherita pizza.

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Caviar and smoked salmon from Olive & Rose

255 Atlantic Ave.

I am sure I will get shit for this because, well, this dish is $120. And that’s because it comes slathered in an entire ounce of Chef Philip Pretty’s proprietary caviar from N25—more on that in a second. But let’s just be frank here about one thing: Olive & Rose is worth exploring and offers up Chef Phil’s most soulful food yet, removed from kitchen tweezers just enough that it doesn’t feel as systematic as the food at his Michelin-starred Heritage but also enough to remind people of Chef Phil’s dedicated to exactitude. (His endive salad would have made this list were it not for another bitter greens that outshone it above.)

And their caviar and smoked salmon dish—a hefty serving of smoked salmon, crème fraîche, chives, bits of other magic, and a layer of that proprietary caviar exclusively foraged for the Heritage team—is one worth uplifting. It’s simultaneously elegant and hearty. An ode to the mighty world of umami, if there ever was one.

But it’s really about that damn caviar: It’s a deep olive-y green with a funk reminiscent of a solid, MSG-crystal-filled slab of PDO Parmesan. And to add to the quality, Chef Phil and N25 only procure the top 10% of the roe inside a sturgeon’s belly, largely considered the best because the rest underneath falls to the pressure of gravity.

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Roasted carrots from Bar Becky

3860 Worsham Ave.

“Hell’s Kitchen” runner-up Chef Johnathan Benvenuti’s Bar Becky concept—officially having taken over Chef Ross Pangilinan’s Remix space over at Long Beach Exchange in East Long Beach—is a warmly welcomed one: His food harkens to a simultaneously deeply personal yet universal attachment to nostalgia that doesn’t read contrived or cheap. It is the food of American kids who had really good parents as cooks.

Speaking of American kids, there are usually two camps when it comes to roasted carrots: love and hate. For those blessed with worthy kitchen heads, be they mothers or fathers or both, who knew what to do with the mighty root, they can be sublime. Mixing traditionally sweet—a maple reduction of sorts—and creamy’n’salty—a whipped burrata that comes off as a saltier ricotta—Benvenuti has created a dish remarkably textural: There’s the toothsomeness-meets-softness of the carrot. The outright crunch of the roasted hazelnut. And the smoothness-gone-minimally-chunkiness of the whipped burrata. It’s a warming, wish-this-was-at-Thanksgiving dish.

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Gnocchi lunghi from Ellie’s

204 Orange Ave.

Chef Jason Witzl has had one helluva 2024: Opening up his Jolie’s space on Coronado Island in San Diego, he was lauded as Chef of the Year. And, well, truth be told: it made us severely miss him here in Long Beach. Surely, his Ellie’s and Ginger’s spaces were running fine—but it missed that Jason-ness.

If you haven’t visited Ellie’s recently, you should: Their menu hasn’t exuded such a return to form in quite a while, where the food is fun, witty, and incredibly Witzl-fied. He has his Monday Suppers, a wildly affordable coursed dinner affair that starts at $38. He launched a Burger Party this past frieday that includes stellar $15 burger’n’fries combos. And with their dinner menu, there are many examples of this return to form, which I will go into in a full feature later. But for now, there is no plate that exemplifies this quite like his gnocchi longhi.

I really hate to revert to the word sexy but that is what the dish is and oozes. Perfectly produced, pillowy poles of potato gnocchi rolled into lengthy bits. Then slathered in a slightly spicy, heavily-black pepper-ed, vodka sauce before having a fine shaving of  black truffle and a dollop of burrata added. It is everything I expect from a Witzl pasta dish: acid, heat, umami, savory, and yes, it bears repeating, sexiness.

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Pommes “Sky Room” from Sky Room

210 E. Ocean Blvd. (inside the Fairmont Breakers)

Sky Room at the Fairmont Breakers certainly needs to find a perfected footing— as any restaurant does when it is new, though one particularly expects it when the restaurant is attached to a major city’s first luxury hotel, another restaurant, a spa, and three other bar spaces. That being said, its first outing is nothing short of an ode to what is largely a culinary gem cemented into Long Beach’s collective memory.

Easily one of the city’s best side dishes, this dish was described by Axiom BBQ co-owner Ian Mafnas as “borderline inspirational”—something I myself adhere to with the dish. 60% glorious butter—the French-style with high butterfat content—with Sky Room going through a full pound of chives every day for the dish, it is a gorgeous example of a side dish done perfectly.

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Fried quail from Hak Heang

2041 E. Anaheim St.

To love Long Beach is to love Cambodians and Cambodian-Americans—but to be Long Beach is to be invited to a Cambodian party at Hak Heang, an honor and privilege I’ve now experienced multiple times thanks to my adopted Cambodian family.

Celebrating Chef Chad Phuong’s birthday, we were greeted with the usual suspects of the things I love that appear at nearly every Cambodian party, be it in a back yard or event space like Hak Heang: the cold platter, where chilled meats like head cheese and bologna sit next to bits of jelly fish, cucumbers, chilled shrimp, and deliciousness. Fried rice with chunks of Chinese sausage.

But the fried quail was a new treat for me, where hints of lemongrass and Five Spice permeated the crisped-up fowl. It was damn near perfection.

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“Torito” taco from Tacos la Carreta

3401 E. 60th St.

I first wrote about taquero José Manuel Morales Bernal Jr. back in 2020 when they first moved to Long Beach (thanks to Bill Esparza over at Eater LA). And I discovered that much of what José learned he knows from his father, who was born in Mazatlán. The city’s love for carne asada is so pervasive that nearly every corner has the sweet smoke of carne grilling.

It won LA TACO’s Taco Madness in 2023. It won Long Beach’s Taco Death Match. They jumped up in ranking this year on the Los Angeles Times’s Best 101 Restaurants list. And it represents a pillar of Sinaloense cuisine—and Long Beach—on a level unprecedented in SoCal. Tacos La Carreta’s perfect taco, the mighty Torito, should be perpetually on this list.

A butterflied, roasted Anaheim chile sits atop a mound of mesquite-grilled carne asada and melted Jack cheese before being topped with bits of cabbage, raw onion, and their fiery salsa verde. These bits and strips of earthiness, saltiness, spiciness, and creaminess are folded into a handmade flour tortilla. The result? A perfect taco.

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Raviolini at Michael’s on Naples

5620 E. 2nd St.

There are few enjoyments in life than something that somehow feels simultaneously casual yet cultivated, leveling pretense but also lacking pedestrian qualities. This is sitting at Michael on Naple’s rooftop bar, where you will things like master mixologist Jocelyn Jolly navigate you through amaros or offer what she sincerely describes as a “porch pounder” of a cocktail should one or the other serve you better. Or General Manager and overall wine king Massimo Arrone will direct you to a Vermentino that pairs perfectly with your pasta plate that you decided to order when you said you would just be having a drink.

It’s a wonderful space and the ability to do just that—order some pasta under the open roof, sip on a cocktail or glass of wine—is worth every damn penny.

Chef Eric Samaniego’s seemingly endless iterations of the mighty world of pasta is, next to Chef Cameron Slaugh’s own take on the carby wonder, the city’s most underrated: Like his raviolini that he filled with house made goat milk ricotta and layered with lemon, butter, and asparagus. A welcome to spring if there ever was one, where the tart’n’funk of the humble goat’s milk acts a beautiful counterpart to the oily heaven of the butter.

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Smoked lamb neck from The Ordinarie

210 The Promenade N.

With Chef Nick DiEugenio’s consistently evolving menu at The Ordinarie—which, from his first menu last year to now, has taken deep dives into the Americana cookbook—the idea of how The Ordinarie contributes to the community and where it fits in on the larger scale of the food scene becomes much more honed.

So it was only a matter of time before he finally crafted his first ticketed dinner—and my Food Gods, was it spectacular. Yes, there were mighty prawns layered over polenta and brown butter cornbread with a malted barley funk. But none were quite as stunning as the smoked lamb neck with mulberry BBQ sauce. It was succulent as it was giddily gaudy and made for sloppy, shared eating. Unlike Chef’s neatly curated featured picture at the top, the actual dish came out with the entirety of the neck laid across flowers and herbs and slices of peaches, chunks of meat falling from its spine in a wonderfully out-in-the-woods vibe that either drew awe-stricken laughs or genuinely amused bewilderment at such a hunk of meat. Slathered in that mulberry sauce only added to the uncivilized beauty of it all.

I know it isn’t fair to include something you can’t order. But hopefully, it encourages you to attend special events like these and, perhaps, influence the chef to include something like it regularly. That being said, well done, Chef. When’s the next dinner?

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Black Magic oysters from Liv’s

5327 E. 2nd St.

Liv’s, the oyster bar-meets-full-on seafood restaurant in the Shore, has brought something to Long Beach that has long been needed. For instance, sexy oysters. And good wine. And solid seafood. But it is oh so much more than that.

Chef Kristine Schneider—joined by owner and chef Rob White, who also opened Hartland’s at 1900 Ocean in 2024—is no stranger to the food scene. Earning her stripes at Michael on Naples under Chef Eric Samaniego, Kristine has a truly deep sense of Californian-ness attached to her food. After all, she was literally attached to the farmlands of our state up in Visalia, a place she returns to as often as she can to not only connect to her roots but the very roots of food itself.

And their oysters—often chosen from the hyper-chilly waters of Canada—are perpetual examples of seafood perfection, particularly their Black Magic oysters from Prince Edward Island, should they have them. Marvelously meaty yet delectable delicate, these insanely clean, perfectly briney oysters are the ones I will return for on the daily.

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Hot beef sandwich from Dilly’s Sandwiches

 4144 N. Viking Way

There are many great things about Dilly’s Sandwiches, the keep-it-classic, keep-it-simple sandwich shop over in East Long Beach. Their off-the-menu peanut butter and pickle sandwich is a glorious offering—I kid you not—featuring bread and butter pickles from Kaylin & Kaylin. The pastrami and Reuben? Solid. Their turkey and salami? Happily traditional takes on the comforting classics…

But the hot beef is really where it’s at. Thinly sliced roast beef—from Los Angeles meat legend Russak’s—is layered with Tillamook cheddar and stuffed between two slices of grilled sourdough. Served with an essential horseradish dipping sauce, this comforting sandwich is just in time for the season while offering a perfect salt-bomb of a sandwich.

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Tomato and cucumber salad from Selva

3755 Anaheim St.

Sometimes, the simplest is the most rewarding when it comes to food—and Chef Carlos Jurados, who often approaches food with a marvelous maximalism when it comes to flavors and colors, knew little dress was required for this dish.

Gorgeous heirloom and cherry tomatoes—the best I had in 2024—and cucumbers are dressed a ramps dressing. (And let’s be honest: ramps are always the most underrated of the bulbs, out-shining onions and leeks like no other.) Topped with some feta and micro-greens, it was one of the most refreshing, beautiful examples of how quality ingredients continue be the star of our food.

And as for Chef Carlos, he continues to be a steward of Colombian flavors in a way no other chef in SoCal exercises.

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Spaghetti nero di seppia from Nettuno

210 E. Ocean Blvd. (inside the Fairmont Breakers)

Oh, the mighty return of Chef Giuseppe Musso is a warm, welcomed one. Taking over Nettuno—the groundfloor space at the newly minted Fairmont Breakers hotel in Downtown Long Beach—Chef Giuseppe has brought back hyper-classic, no-fuss, traditional-as-hell Italian food in the best setting possible.

And this is perhaps no better reflected than in his his masterful squid ink spaghetti, a rather sexy dish where the whites of seafood contrast with the beautifully layered blacks exuding from strands of dyed spaghetti. Layered with cuttlefish, shrimp, mussels, and Calabrian chile, it is the perfect example on why uncomplicated Italian food is so widely respected. A lesson in layers of undressed umami, it lets two things speak loudly for themselves: the art of pasta and the power of food from the ocean.

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Plàtano maduro relleno from Honduras Kitchen

3734 E. 4th St.

Dubbed the “San Pedro Sula” at Honduras Kitchen on 4th Street, this wonder of a plate is a fried plantain that is then slit down the center before being stuffed with beef picadillo and cheese and drizzled with mantequilla Hondureña. This is a hearty dish more than a comforting snack. 

The result—a wildly solid combination of salty and sweet—is something that is just as comforting as their baleadas but on a heftier level. The plantains—bright, caramelized—and the picadillo—salty, with a slight fattiness that is quite nice—is a reminder of how often we can be removed from the beauties of Latin America below the Mexican border.

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Beer-braised pork shank from Rasselbock

4020 Atlantic Ave.

Rasselbock has long been the steward of traditional German cuisine in Long Beach, having been home in Bixby Knolls since 2016. And its owner, Germany native and Logn Beach resident Björn Risse, is looking forward to nearing the decade mark with his array of schnitzel, bratwurst, goulash, käsekrainer, strudels, and plenty of house-made mustard to go around.

But one of the most important aspects of Rasselbock? Watching people enjoy traditional German fare: a beer’n’brat… Or a plate of their schnitzel… Or a Bavarian pretzel with the house-made array of mustards… These simple German plates are largely missing from the formal restaurant landscape in Germany, where traditional food has been relegated to the table at home. “In all honesty, it’s not that easy to find German food in Germany because most of the restaurants are other cuisines,” Björn said when asked if he, when returning to Germany annually, explores the trends in German cuisine and applies those modernizations here at Rasselbock. 

And perhaps in no heartier of a way is this poem to German food written on a plate than the space’s hunky beer-braised, bone-in pork shank, laid atop polenta and vegetables.

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Double-cheeseburger from The Win~Dow

4600 E. 2nd St.

The Win~Dow has always been destined for Long Beach, one of its owner the former COO overseeing Long Beach staples like the 555 and King’s Fish House.

And also? They’re just a stellar value. Kicking off the smash burger trend in 2019, there is not a single entity which offers what The Win~Dow offers at the value it offers it at. It’s why I included it on our essential Long Beach dishes of 2023 list: There is, indeed, a special alchemy to it all when the burger is enjoyed in its full, original intention. A salt bomb in the best way possible, with the pickle cutting through that salt and fat but not overwhelming it.

They’re all about community and so are we—so welcome to Long Beach.

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Cocacho relleno from Ruta 15

1436 E. 7th St.

Ruta 15 is bringing a level of mariscos to Long Beach that echoes some of the region’s best spots. It also harbors the essence of a culinary tradition in Mexico that is as precious as corn itself, where seafood becomes a representation of not just its people’s gastronomical talent but the way in which Mexican people come together.

Ruta 15 harkens to the places where the seafood of the day is displayed over ice. Where oysters are shucked off the side of the road. The places where a variety of house-made hot sauces line up for your choosing. The type of place that would exist in Jalisco. Or Nayarit. Or Sinaloa. The very states where La Carretera Federal 15—or Ruta 15—runs through, a freeway that stretches from Nogales in the north before hitting the coast and ending inland at Mexico City.

Executive Chef César Sánchez understands Richard’s assignment clearly—and perhaps no clearer than the space’s beloved cocacho relleno. A hallowed coconut bursts with chunks of aguachile shrimp, bit of octopus nad sea scallops, classic ceviche, a mango-y salsa macha, toasted peanuts,
cubed coconut, red onion, tomato, cilantro, toasted árbol chili, and avocado slices.

It is nothing short of fabulous.

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Bitter greens from The Attic

3441 E. Broadway

Chef Cameron Slaugh’s wife asked when her husband will no longer be considered underrated—as if, by this point, he should be, well, rated. But I assured her that the only “rate” a chef should want is the under one—and while I have been calling him underrated for nearly four years now, that title still stands. While others in the city seem to receive a constant influx of adoration and accolades, Chef Cameron—one of our city’s best—doesn’t quite get the light others do. And that’s a shame. Because he’s brilliant.

His latest creation—a prix fixe dinner series dubbed “Southern Nights” at The Attic—is proof of that. And while there are many highlights to this extraordinary deal ($55 for four courses), one doesn’t stand out quite like one of the salads.

As always, his mastery of the salad proves unmissable: his “Little Gem” is the textbook example of a stellar gem salad. But it’s his bitter greens salad, where leaves of radicchio and boats of endive are melded with house-made cheese, pears, and smoked almonds. A perfect salad if there ever was one, where fans and skeptics of bitterness might ac

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Beef carpaccio from Marlena

5854 E. Naples Plaza Dr.

Marlena is the city’s best new restaurant. Their service. Its cocktails (thanks to the mighty return of David Castillo). Their kitchen (thanks to Chef Michael Ryan).

And Ryan & Co.’s newly minted brunch menu (which includes some pretty stellar drinks on top of multiple dishes that are list-worthy) exemplifies that: An absurdly awesome toast with Bufala ricotta that is life altering in terms of ricotta; an eggs Benedict pizza that actually works; a lox’n’hashbrowns dish that makes you want to skip the bagel (okay, okay, tranquilo: it makes you sometimes wish for a potato pancake instead)…

But it’s the carpaccio that makes my heart weak.

With Ryan’s history—enveloping his mentor’s, Chef Evan Funke, often off-the-cuff, let’s-make-something-happen-with-these-ingredients-we-have ideal—there are random specials that popup, like a masterful take on carpaccio: Creating a perfectly pickled giardiniera, frying sage and basil leaves, and slicing some gorgeous heirloom cherry tomatoes.

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Scotch deviled eggs from ISM

210 E. 3rd St. Unit A.

The pickled egg at ISM Brewing was launched as an Oktoberfest special, served over a bed of chicharrón and slices of pepperoncini. The plate was an immediate crowd favorite, especially when paired with the brewery’s stellar Festbier. So naturally, it made sense for Chef Holly Ann Sharp to expand it for an all-out eggy menu.

And there is nothing more decadently wonderful than her Scotch deviled egg. There’s already a masterful take on the Scotch egg on her menu. It’s a perfectly boiled egg—where the yolk is creamy, not crumbly—and is surrounded by house sausage before being breaded and deep-fried. But on this version, she halves the boiled egg, scoops out the yolk, replaces it with sausage, breads it, fries it, and tops it off with the deviled yolk from whihc was stolen from the womb. It’s a beautifully bright topping to the fried part, bits of mayonnaise and mustard blended with pepperoncini, parsley, dill, chives, paprika, and the slightest hint of garlic.

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The Smokey Wedge from The Vintage LBC

4236 Atlantic Ave.

Yes, libations, bites, and cheeses. The Vintage LBC comes off as a cheese shop—and indeed, it is. But it is much, much more than that. Owner Vanessa Harmon—along with her chef-slash-general manager Allison Porzner—have crafted a stellar bistro. wine bar, and cheese shop that’s a great place to get down on wines’n’cheese. A definitive space for salads’n’sweets. And, of course, a great place to buy cheeses, tinned fish, bread, crackers, accoutrements, and other market goods.

It is such an underrated space.

And their “Smokey Wedge” salad? One of the city’s best salads. Using Rogue Creamery’s stellar Smokey Blue Cheese—a cheese, mind you, cold smoked over burning hazelnut shells—as a base for the house-made buttermilk dressing, it is a BLT lover’s dream of a wedge. 

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Tamarind chicken wings from Manaow

3618 E. Broadway

In the world of Thai food, Long Beach has some genuinely great options—but we are just beginning to see spaces dive into the richer, more complex parts of Thai cuisine, like Chiang Rai (though it is not quite near the heights of spaces like Amphai Northern Thai Food Club in East Hollywood). But for the ones who stick to the safer, more common menus? We have a crop of restaurants that do it rather well.

And that includes Manaow (which I’ve talked about before on a previous underrated restaurants list).

While they have solid appetizers all around—their chicken satay is simple goodness at its finest—there is nothing I return to more than their tamarind fried chicken wings. Salty meets sour bombs in these delicious fragments of fried fowl, where one can attempt to incorporate a bit of the dried chile on it is wok’d with or ask for a side of mashed Thai chiles if you really wanna bring the heat. Either way, you can take it whatever level you like but even without the chile, these wings solid. (And yes, they fry them properly so they do take a bit—be patient, dammit.)

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Banana pudding-stuffed beignet from SnoCorner

1701 Atlantic Ave.

SnoCorner is nothing short of a gem. The tiny-but-mighty sweet shack at Atlantic and 17th defines what it is to be dedicated to the sugary concoctions of the Big Easy. 

And yes, there are funnel cakes, reminiscent of the county fair and cooked to order, also likely the best version in the city. And, of course, there are snoballs—deliciously smooth, ice-cold treats tailored to your flavor preferences. With soft serve? Check. With condensed milk? Check. All the flavors you need? Check.

But nothing is as quite spectacular as their beignets, a months-long-in-trial-and-error recipe that is spectacular with nothing more than a little powdered sugar. But owner Ashley Monconduit has taken it to a new level by stuffing one with house made banana pudding (a recipe handed down to her by her Louisiana grandmother). The result? A damn near perfect square of goodness.

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Spicy dry pot from Northern Cafe

4911 E. 2nd St.

Northern Cafe Long Beach opened with a menu that shocked fans of the SoCal staple. And it shocked patrons because it was minimal. A single page that left dim sum almost entirely off the menu, minus a few soup dumplings. A drop in wok plates that echoed a sharp cutting of offerings from its other locations. 

So there is nothing but welcomed warmth for Northern Cafe’s expanded menu offerings. But perhaps nothing is more gloriously Northern Cafe-d out than their stellar, heat-meets-umami bomb that is their spicy dry pot. Texturally fabulous—strands of shoestring fries meld with tofu bits, broccoli, mini-bunches of Shimeji mushroom, celery strands, and tenderized beef—and a beautiful ride of flavors that range from salty and spicy to acidic, this dish exemplifies why so many love Northern Cafe.

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