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…

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.

Look for Brian Addison’s full, updated profile on Ellie’s in the coming days.

38-month aged jamón Ibérico from Telefèric

6420 Pacific Coast Hwy. #160

There are many things that Telefèric brings with its investment in Long Beach but it is unquestionably its traditional Spanish cuisine that is the highlight. But there are two areas where Telefèric shines best: through their cocktails and through their tapas, especially when it’s simple.

Take it no further than their 38-month aged jamón Ibérico. Yes, I recommend adding it on top of the pan con tomate—where macerated tomatoes, salt, and olive sit atop toasted bits of Spanish bread—but the aged meat is perfectly fine on its own. Served at room temp, just at the point where its salty lines of fat begin to trickle out unctuous droplets, this is traditional Spanish cuisine at its finest.

For Brian Addison’s full feature on Telefèric’s inaugural menu, click here.

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. 

For Brian Addison’s full feature on The Vintage LBC, click here.

Loat cha from Phnom Penh Noodle Shack

1644 Cherry Ave.

I have never been light when it comes to the words or love I have for our Cambodian community and its cuisine. Whether it is a bowl of silky, umami-packed nom p’joe from Crystal Thai Cambodian or pulled pork banh chao from Battambong BBQ, I feel every person experiencing understand the weight of what it took to get that dish to your chopsticks.

Cambodian food in Long Beach is more than a cuisine; it is the essence of a community that was nearly annihilated from history.  Those that escaped the genocide made their home here in Long Beach after being taken to Camp Pendleton by rescuers from the U.S. military. For that reason alone, Long Beach is home to the most traditional, concentrated cluster of Cambodian cuisine.

This family-owned shop opened in 1985 and has since been serving the best forms of Cambodian food in the region. Their loat cha—glassy tear-drop rice noodles are melded with garlic fish sauce, peanuts, and plenty of gai lan and peanuts.

And as with all Cambodian dishes here, they’re more than plates of food; they’re beautiful displays of culinary art and cultural resilience.

Turkish sweets from The Coffee Station

440 Pine Ave.

This story behind The Coffee Station in DTLB is definitively hard to describe in a caption but one I love so much that I hope people take the time to read and share it. The story of two brothers—one a former UFC fighter and the other older one in his corner—is such a beautiful example of how we often have to make the hard choice to switch dreams. To be less selfish. To explore something wildly new.

But even more, their love of their Turkish heritage is utterly infectious. It is felt through the hints of cardamom layered in lattes. Their desire to bring hookah to the space in order to better activate it at night, much like the late-night coffeeshops found throughout Istanbul. And it is perhaps no better reflected than in their perfect Turkish sweets, especially their Turkish delight.

And when I say “perfect,” I mean it: From lokum (or what we call Turkish Delight) to helva to dondurma, Coffee Station offers the city’s best takes on these Turkish staples. There are ones filled with apple so powerfully that it honestly takes like an apple pie. A rose petal-covered, magenta square filled with pistachios and floral flavors. Hazelnut butter. Strawberry’n’coconut.

For Brian Addison’s full feature on The Coffee Station, click here.

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