Common sense dictates an Irish pub on a street known to embrace all ends of bar culture will do drinks okay, but not much else. But in keeping with classic Irish culinary tradition, O’Malley’s also makes the best breakfast potatoes: soft but not mushy, bite-sized but not too tiny, crispy but not burnt. With O’Malley’s [...]

Stop by Nick’s on a Saturday or Sunday morning and you’ll find yourself surrounded by a mob of people either already inhaling burritos or standing in a line that, at times, goes out the door. It’s a hyped place, but unlike most “oh-my-god-you-haven’t-been-there-before?!” sacred cow restaurants, Nick’s earns it. All three of Nick’s burritos (chorizo/bacon, [...]

Katella Deli’s pastrami is remarkably lean, with only the thinnest ribbons of fat running through each slice. The pastrami melt, however, isn’t for the health-conscious—tomatoes and cheese squeezed in with the pastrami, pressed and grilled and served hot with your choice of sides. It’s best to pick the onion rings, which are dredged in crumbs [...]

There’s not much to take in while you settle on an order—a cafeteria-style setup with alternating walls of brick red and banana yellow—but Gaffey Street Diner doesn’t break any breakfast conventions, so it shouldn’t be too hard to decide. The menu is a down-home one, offering everything from chorizo to biscuits cooked up from scratch. [...]

Perhaps it’s the creamy hollandaise-looking sauce ladled on top, or maybe it’s the attention to detail, but Crema’s omelet is well above its competitors. Just about any accompanying ingredient you select to be packed inside will make the perfect omelet: dense, firm and generously stuffed. Bacon, avocado and tomato are good choices, but there’s too [...]

Even with the oil islands, trash barges and breakwater, the view at Claire’s remains among the best in Southern California. There is no better way to take in and appreciate Long Beach’s prime spot on the coast than to enjoy a leisurely breakfast or lunch at one of the café’s umbrella-topped tables. If it’s just [...]

Anyone from Downey or who works in Downey or who drives through Downey knows Arthur’s, which is why the teeny restaurant—with about a dozen tables and a handful of seats at the counter—is packed virtually every morning. They come for the homemade chorizo, crisp and fluffy biscuits, potatoes O’Brien—home fries mixed with green pepper and [...]

Sugar shock seekers lost their best options this winter when Two Umbrellas—home of the California toast, a stuffed-to-busting dessert sandwich so decadent that calling it French toast collapses into understatement—closed for remodeling, probably causing a spike in local Seasonal Affective Disorder cases on the way out, too. But Two Umbrellas is back for daily service [...]

Bouchees dropped from the sky and landed in a strip mall with the best burgers I have ever had in Long Beach—former victor was MVP and I will happily examine further contenders suggested—and so the announcement that Bouchees would be gently extending into weekly breakfast service gave me surprise reason to wake up certain mornings. [...]

Every day at the Gaffey Street Diner

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
A visit by any Food Network star almost assuredly brings restaurants some fame—a gentle influx, perhaps, of eaters looking to try all the lauded houses of home cooking. But at Gaffey Street Diner, it’s easy to forget that the network’s bleached-blond host Guy Fieri once made [...]