When you’re ready to leave the house Saturday night and the question, “where should we go?” simmers in the room, the mind searches its bar database for a place with good atmosphere, good drinks and good food.
For me, the answer would be Beer Belly on Long Beach Boulevard and Third Street.
Still fresh in their first three months of operations, Beer Belly Long Beach is the baby sister store to Beer Belly in LA’s Koreatown, which after six years of business is expanding to Long Beach and it’s wide net of draft beer enthusiasts.
When using my Maps app to find this place I noticed it is categorized as a gastropub, a term I was familiar with but was never quite clear on the literal definition. The answer was simple. Gastropub: A pub that serves high-quality food. Thank you Google. At least I knew a little of what to expect, or so I thought.
The food menu was relatively short and easily compartmentalized into the seven basic food groups: meats, mac n cheese, sandwiches, fries, salads, snacks and dessert. Yet upon closer examination I realized it was quite the imaginative menu.
It seemed no two dishes had a single ingredient in common, and some of ingredients were entirely unfamiliar. For example, I ordered the Fried Chicken Cuban, which was “pounded and cuban spiced breaded chicken, chili braised ham hock, apple beer mustard, house pickled jalapeño and swiss cheese on a sesame baguette.” My bartender Ryan recommended it over The Blvd. Burger since it is “truly unique.” But the burger comes with arugula and candied bacon slaw, which doesn’t sound like any burger I’ve ever had.
Curious, I read on to discover things like bacon-fat fries, short rib poutine mac, and the dessert menu that — other than the Captain Crunch crusted french toast — is all deep-fried junk food like Twinkies and Pop-Tarts served with ice cream and Nutella sauce. That was when I concluded this cook was baked.
I arrived to Beer Belly on Saturday at about 4 p.m. assuming it would be slow, but they were still busy from the women’s march. My sandwich came out in around half an hour, a little longer than I expected. I figured the staff was either still catching up from the rush or maybe it always takes this long, because it seems everything made at Beer Belly is carefully crafted.
Tucked behind a wall of colorful garnishes, these bartenders deserve to be deemed mixologists. They often made drinks that seemed to have a 15-step process.
I was going to keep it simple with a beer, but not even that was easy. The beer menu is almost exclusively from breweries I’ve never heard of, but are apparently are all local to the area. These guys knew their beer. We talked shop, I learned some new things about nitro beers and I tried a couple tasty new ales.
Though I was there as a solo reviewer, I still enjoyed myself. If I return it will be for the atmosphere of Beer Belly.
With a finite amount of booths and tables, guests might end up making friends at the bar or at one of the three communal tables.
The TVs were so high on the wall I got a kink in my neck from looking up at them. Then I realized that might be on purpose, so people will stop watching basketball and socialize.
Since seating is slim, there is a lounge area in the back with couches and bar access. It also didn’t hurt for me that they were playing bands like Cold War Kids, Modest Mouse and Alt-J.
As eager as I may be to return, Beer Belly will probably have to be reserved for payday. After two beers and a sandwich I was out a little over $30 — granted, that sandwich lasted two meals and I did splurge on the $3 upgrade to duck-fat fries. It was a choice sparked in curiosity, but I was underwhelmed. Duck-fat fries are not that different from regular-fat fries.
Plus, if I could eat there often, I think I would discover the lack of irony in the name Beer Belly.
In summary, I feel Beer Belly is a place to try new things. If that tickles your fancy I would stop by sometime, but be aware your wallet might take a hit.