Missed out on Brian Addison’s Favorite Things of past? We got you covered—just click here.

Too many years back, I wrote a very self-indulgent listicle that was about so-called “essential” Long Beach dishes; dishes that I loved and could depend on as long as that place existed—and I wrote it because there’s something so elemental and useful about a specific great dish at a specific place. It was less about some grander proclamation than it was about, “This is just great food.”

And after a year of not doing such lists, I want to return to it: Hence Brian Addison’s Favorite Things. Not some grand list of “essential dishes”—that is too hard of a burden to put on a restaurant: You better have this and you better have it all the time. But for now, in this moment, I am happy to share some of my favorite things.

In other words: Why not just own the moment? Without further ado, and once again in the third person, Brian Addison’s favorite things he is eating across Long Beach…

Pan fried noodles from EA Seafood

1607 E. Wardlow Rd.

Chef Jerry Wu—who slowly saved up while working at Nomad in order to open his own space—has hit the ground running with EA Seafood, his old-school Cantonese joint that overtook the former Kinokawa space after it permanently shuttered in July of 2023. He’s even brought on the city’s first array of formal dim sum—a gem if there ever was one.

The food is reminiscent of that found in SGV and Monterrey Park—and in that vein: There is no bad order at EA Seafood. The Szechuan eggplant? Marvelous. The Mongolian beef? Tender perfection. The salt and pepper fried tofu? Pillowy, crispy, umami. But for those who love the classic crispy egg noodle dishes of Chinese food-rich areas—San Jose and the Bay Area immediately come to mind—look no further than Chef Jerry’s pan-fried noodle.

Egg noodles—fried in their nest to a crisp—are laid into a bath of brown gravy and surrounded by chicken, shrimp, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and green onion. Savory, wonderfully textured, and warming, this dish is a perfect welcome to autumn.

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.

It’s a salt bomb worthy of, well, a beer.

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 actually come together with hands held. Add a pour of Moscato from wine master and General Manager Iano Dovi? Perfection.

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?

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.

Missed out on Brian Addison’s Favorite Things of past? We got you covered—just click here.