There are plenty to choose from, but it’s with the halibut taco that Baja Fish truly makes its mark. Here, the weightier corn tortilla is wisely swapped for its flour counterpart, a thin thing pocked with crisp brown spots collected by just the right amount of time on the grill. Piled inside are hunks of [...]

Baja Fish perfects the fragile fish taco

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Like so many ocean-adjacent restaurants before it, San Pedro’s Baja Fish is positively nautical: tables, stools and walls washed over in varying shades of sea-borne blue, every corner covered in aquatic paraphernalia, glossy groups of fish, scaly mirrors and sculptures and gaping sets of shark jaws. [...]

Hole Mole’s potato tacos
I’m a subscriber to the theory that potential hangovers can be beaten by eating something before passing out. By the looks of the line outside Hole Mole’s bar-adjacent Fourth Street location, I’m not the only one. After a night of the Fourth Street Crawl, I find myself at Fern’s not just for [...]

La Concha’s enchiladas
It can easily be argued that from its tree-lined beginnings in Park Estates to its concrete crossing of the LA River, Anaheim Street is the most diverse path through Long Beach, an essential artery that cuts through just about every spectrum of city life. And so La Concha seems a perfect fit, [...]

Getting your fill isn’t a problem at Tacos San Pedro—almost everything on the menu requires two hands. Tacos come two tortillas thick, meat piled in neat mounds with onions and cilantro perched on top. The al pastor tacos—pork marinated in a blend of spices and turned a deep red—are especially good. The flautas, topped with [...]

Oaxaca Mio’s mole negro, the most common mole, is a wonderfully semisweet, mildly spicy mixture of Oaxacan chocolate, nuts and dried chiles—great for mole first-timers and veterans alike. Most interesting of all the moles, however, is the mole amarillo, with its chowder-like consistency and flavoring of hierba santa (like cilantro, only spicier). But there’s more [...]

It’s very rare (and difficult) for a veggie burrito to escape sloppy bean-and-cheese territory. Yet Merced’s vegetarian burrito does just that. Starting with a basic foundation (beans, rice, and cheese), the burrito builds up from there. The vegetables are fresh and aromatic—and above all sensible: just bell pepper, onion, tomato, cilantro, mushroom and zucchini doused [...]

El Gallo Giro’s menu is a certain one for those who hound taquerías, but that’s no sign of sagging quality. The tacos are as good as any, wrapped up in the restaurant’s in-house tortillas, stretching to the size of a softball. But the real draw is the torta: thick cuts of just-baked bread housing meats [...]

Brite Spot’s food is the real deal: some of the most authentic in Long Beach, and it’s almost uniformly great. Tecate is exactly what you should use to wash down a well-done but juicy wafer of flank steak (the one true cut) that arrives flame-seared. Depending on your luck, it’ll be either done to perfection [...]

Softball-sized specialties at El Gallo Giro

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Just inside El Gallo Giro is a head full of color: strings of papel picado hung up in mismatched rainbows, booths edged in bright greens and reds and yellows. Out of the speakers comes a head full of music, too, horns casting out triumphant little soundtracks on [...]