Organization
Little Lalune Cuisine
Little Lalune Cuisine, also written Little La Lune, is a Cambodian-Thai restaurant. It is at the east corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Cherry Avenue in Long Beach, California.[1][2] Han Pok and Chhaylee Saing opened it in late 2011 as a smaller successor to the family's La Lune, a Cambodia Town restaurant lost to fire that year.[3][4]
History
For years La Lune was one of the banquet restaurants of Long Beach's Cambodia Town, where people celebrated birthdays and anniversaries and launched mayoral campaigns. In April 2011 a fire destroyed it. Its loss left a gap in the Khmer community, and the Saing family moved quickly to fill it with Little La Lune, a small spinoff in a quiet strip mall.[4] The restaurant opened in late 2011 in P.C. Plaza.[3] The family also runs La Lune Imperial nearby.[3]
The new dining room broke with the old banquet halls. Pendant lamps light wine-red walls above white booths with backlighting, and the room also has bamboo lanterns, elephant statues and metal flowers on the walls.[4][3] The menu dropped banquet dishes such as lobster tails and platters of dessert for a shorter list of everyday Cambodian and Southeast Asian food.[4]
Food
The cooking draws on Cambodian, Thai and Chinese influences.[3] Mornings bring rice porridge, a true soup of broth, swollen rice grains, fried garlic and cilantro, with pork, chicken or catfish. It is eaten with cha wai, or fry bread, a freshly fried cruller.[4][1] Phnom Penh noodle soup comes with fish balls, shrimp, squid, dried baby shrimp, rice noodles, cilantro and fried garlic, and a bone soup holds marrow-filled shanks in a pork and beef broth.[4][3]
Sdao, the bitter young shoots of the neem tree, is served as a salad with bean sprouts, cucumber, scallions, roasted pork and fish, dressed with a slightly sweet fish sauce.[4][3] Beef sticks are marinated with lemongrass and lemon leaves and served with a Khmer papaya salad sharp with ginger. Pork chitterlings are deep-fried and come with a sweet and tangy dipping sauce.[3] Other dishes include beef lok lak with a peppery lemon sauce; cha kroeng, chicken, beef or frog legs rubbed with a paste of lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf; a sweet soy pork chop; a Thai-style crispy noodle salad; and a Khmer-style kimchi of chayote, ginger, cucumber and carrot. A taro shake is made with vanilla and coconut.[4][3]
Visiting
The restaurant offers dine-in, takeout and catering, has a private parking lot in front and at the side, and is wheelchair accessible.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Little Lalune Cuisine, official website
- ↑ Little La Lune Cambodian-Thai Cuisine, home page
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Food GPS, Little La Lune: Cambodian cuisine with flair in Long Beach (May 2013)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Los Angeles Times, The Find: Little La Lune continues Cambodian tradition (September 2011)