Food in Long Beach

Opened on 4th Street in 2008 and more or less anchored Retro Row's turn from antique shops into a street people eat on. The kitchen does mole in several colors and a tableside guacamole, and the bar is known for a long tequila list. It is next door to the Art Theatre, so half the early tables are people with a ticket. Weekend service starts at ten for brunch.

Mon to Fri, 11:30am to 9pm. Sat and Sun, 10am to 9pm

A barbecue house at the Naples end of 2nd Street that has been smoking baby backs since 1992, in a dim wood-panelled space with booths and a long bar. The order is a half rack with the sweet sauce, or the beef dip if you want something you can hold. Takeout starts at ten in the morning even though the dining side does not open until noon on weekends. It is the closest thing to a sit-down meal within walking distance of Gaslamp.

Mon to Thu, 4pm to 9pm. Fri, 4pm to 10pm. Sat, noon to 10pm. Sun, noon to 9pm. Takeout from 10am daily

Five siblings have run this on Cherry Avenue since 1985, in the part of Long Beach that holds the largest Cambodian population outside Cambodia. The order is kuy teav, the rice noodle soup, built on a pork bone broth with the house sauce on the side. It opens at seven in the morning and shuts at three in the afternoon, because breakfast soup is the point. Closed Mondays.

Tue to Sun, 7am to 3pm. Closed Mon

Sophy Khut has been cooking on this stretch of Pacific Coast Highway for more than twenty years, and the menu runs long enough that regulars order by pointing. What she is known for is the beef jerky, flank steak oven dried and then fried, which arrives in thick pieces with a dipping sauce. The place also serves Thai, which is how a lot of Cambodian kitchens in Long Beach survived. There is a stage and a dance floor used on weekends.

Daily, 10am to 9pm

A metal bar on West 4th that serves New York style pies and slices until last call. The stereo is loud and the playlist is the kind of thing the staff actually own on vinyl, and there is a pinball and arcade corner off to one side. It is 21 and over all day, so the noon open is for adults killing an afternoon rather than for families. Slices keep coming after the kitchen shuts, which is the part that matters when a bill runs long.

Sun to Thu, noon to 11pm. Fri and Sat, noon to midnight. Kitchen closes an hour before the bar, slices until last call