It’s not by chance that Taco Mesa has swelled into what’s probably the county’s most vaunted chain, adding satellite Mesa locations everywhere from Mission Viejo to Orange and spinning off an even more upscale relative in Taco Rosa. But essential to the restaurant’s Manifest Destiny is that the place has never suffered any sag in [...]

If you’re looking for a rock-solid introduction to the west-of-Haiti wonderfulness of Cuban cuisine, try Downey’s Habana Cafe. The restaurant stocks Cuban standards like ropa vieja (shredded beef and peppers), beef empanadas (stuffed pastries) and papas rellenas (balls of fried potato filled with seasoned ground beef) and makes a perfect way to get acquainted with [...]

Michael’s on Naples storms the island

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
At first, the servers at Michael’s on Naples seem stuck together, waiting in the back of the place in a single khaki clump. It’s not until the night wears on that the staff is pulled apart, each member running routes with baskets of bread and quartinos of [...]

Panty Dropper

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
It’s not often that a sports bar is filled with more women than men, but in the case of the converted movie theater that is Cirivello’s, bartender Mark’s Panty Dropper works better than any product Axe could ever dream up. Recalling ubiquitous jungle juices from fraternity and sorority parties of yore, [...]

MURPHY’S PUB
$3.50 Bottled Beers
Wed 4-7pm | 4918 E Second St | Long Beach 90803
YANKEE DOODLES
$2 Bloody Marys
All Day Sun | 4100 E Ocean Blvd | Long Beach 90803
LEGENDS
$3 Well Drinks
Every Day 3-6pm | 5236 E Second St | Long Beach 90803

Slowfish comes wrapped in black

PHOTO by RICK POON
Slowfish seems a negative space, one where all the usual sushi-house whites are underexposed into medium grays and endless blacks. The restaurant embraces this, though, as you can’t even see into the place—the windows are blacked out by a limousine-level tinting so dark that you can’t spot a [...]

Kyochon Chicken is yet another link in the local food-court chain, a Korean chicken stand that continues the tradition built up in places like Marukai and Mitsuwa. Kyochon’s host, however, is Freshia, a still-new market at the most outer edge of Garden Grove’s Little Seoul (the market technically sits in Stanton). Like Pinkberry before it, [...]

You can tell by the ground outside Porky’s BBQ that the place is going to be good—splattered around the restaurant’s street-adjacent tables are drops of dried barbecue sauce marking all the messy meals past. And really, anything less at a place like Porky’s would be a disappointment, a bucking of the usual barbecue bylaws. Porky’s [...]

Peru by way of China at El Rocoto

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
El Rocoto hits every equatorial trope: The walls glow a golden yellow, packs of tropical fish zip through a cool blue aquarium, the menus even come with a South American street scene sunken into their leather. And inside those bound books are all the Peruvian [...]

Dublin Dr Pepper

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
When cost-conscious major cola manufacturers switched to high-fructose corn syrup in the ‘70s and ‘80s—notably new Coke, which innovated itself into infamy—rebel bottlers like the Dublin Dr Pepper plant refused to pull traditional cane sugar from their sodas. Now as agitated scienticians consider removing HFCS to the same possibly poisonous [...]