Open Long Beach Photo Gallery Long Beach is the commercial port to LA. There are huge container ships, cruise ships, oil tankers, strawberry flavoured ships and hotel ships. Yep, Cunard’s original (and sadly decaying) Queen Mary lies in the harbour. Spend $25 to do a self guided tour (there is also a ghost tour) and see how the more fortunate travelled the oceans with elegance in exuberant environments. Then watch sailaway parties of passing Carnival ships made of plastic!
Long Beach is part of LA County but is clearly a city in it’s own right. Downtown is impressively sized and has a skyline that can be seen from the beaches to the south and elevated parts of LA.
A local restaurant that I have been hearing so much about is “La Creperie.” On 2nd Street, where you will find many of the amusements Long Beach has to offer, is a French styled restaurant that oodles charm. Looking at the piano in the corner, I overhear our neighbouring table talking about impromptu jazz and singing performances that take place in the evenings. The décor is nice and full of character that you would more likely be seemingly to find at a Disney ride when looking at the concrete exterior. The lampshades above the bar are made from bottles of Mumm champagne and there are plenty more wall hanging novelties. We were there at lunch and it was pretty busy, but we were seated immediately and had a waitress who was knowledgeable and pretty attentive.
As for the menu? Well, they are mostly filled crepes! We had calamari to start, which was rings as well as the tentacle pieces with some dipping sauces. I ordered a seafood crepe filled with a concoction of fried goodiness. It was served in a very tasty creamy sauce and was nearly licking my bowl out. Mains are a dollar or so either side of $10. I looked online to find a menu and found a lot of mixed views including bad service but great food.
We didn’t stay for desert. We had already planned to go to the cupcake store conveniently only a few doors down. www.frostedcupcakery.com There was about a dozen different flavours priced at $3 each. Décor was courtesy of ‘50’s styling. Was the ‘50’s a golden age for cupcakes? Here it somehow made me think of gelatos which could have inadvertently made me change my desert preference! The store had seats to divulge cupcakes, but I felt had little else to entertain; other than me joining in the singing of “happy birthday” to another patron.
To my amusement, you could buy a little cupcake container; small tupperware style containers in the shape of a cupcake. They allow you to put one in a bag and avoid your gem of a cupcake being squashed. A neat little idea and something I first saw with bananas!
