For a restaurant that goes so far as to stake its name (“fresh pasta” in French) in its signature dishes, Pâtes Fraîches does well, boiling its doughs down from organic rice, rye, wheat, barley, buckwheat and chestnut flours. The restaurant’s rye fettuccine is excellent, mixed with slivers of Virginia ham, zucchini and a handful of gruyère all tossed together in a white wine and sour cream sauce. Unlike most cream-based pasta plates, the fettuccine never sits too heavy, lightened by the sour cream and buoyed by the noodles themselves, airy things that unsurprisingly out-eat their boxed counterparts. For the purest of the lighter eats, however, there’s the rice gemelli, delicate corkscrews of pasta accompanied by mushrooms and asparagus in a nearly nonexistent gruyère cheese sauce. There’s also a rotating selection of desserts (a weightless chocolate mousse and a perfectly cool pear clafoutis to name two) that offers worthwhile pasta diversions.

PÂTES FRAÎCHES 400 E FIRST ST  LONG BEACH 90802  562.437.2222  PATESFRAICHESRESTAURANT.COM  OPEN TUES-SUN, CALL FOR HOURS  FOOD FOR TWO, $30-50

Tags: dinner, Long Beach, lunch, pasta