Organization

Sophy's


Sophy's is a family-run Cambodian restaurant in Long Beach, California, best known for its Cambodian-style beef jerky.[1] Its full name is Sophy's: Cambodia Town Food & Music. Sophy Khut opened it in 2000, and it now stands on East Pacific Coast Highway, on the edge of Cambodia Town.[1][2] Its long menu of Khmer dishes also carries Thai and Vietnamese favorites.[3]

History

Sophy Khut opened her first restaurant in Oregon after finishing school there. Friends told her about Long Beach's large Cambodian population, and she took over a small diner called Ruth's Country Kitchen on Anaheim Street, where the first wave of the city's Cambodian restaurants was clustered. In the fall of 2000 she changed the menu from eggs and bacon to Cambodian food and renamed the restaurant Sophy's.[1] She opened with help from the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and from Joe Picarelli, owner of Picarelli's Cucina Italiana, who introduced her to local residents.[4]

When the city named the stretch of Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero avenues Cambodia Town in 2007, Sophy's was already a neighborhood institution there. A year later its landlord declined to renew the lease, and the restaurant moved seven blocks away to Pacific Coast Highway.[2] Khut later renamed it Sophy's: Cambodia Town Food & Music, after the Cambodia Town Business and Cultural District, the first Cambodia Town in the United States.[1]

Nick Lem said in 2021 that he had taken over ownership in 2014, with Khut still active in the kitchen. During the COVID-19 pandemic he redecorated the dining room and added outdoor seating.[5] The Los Angeles Times identified Khut as the owner in 2025, and she still cooks there.[1][6] Her own story is recorded in the Oral history interview with Sophy Khut.

Food

The menu runs to hundreds of numbered dishes. Those marked "Khmer" are traditional Cambodian dishes, or Khut's versions of them.[1]

The signature dish is the beef jerky. Three cooks spend about two hours working slabs of flank steak with a garlicky marinade of ginger, black pepper and fish sauce; the meat is then dried, vacuum-sealed and fried to order. It comes with a vinegar dipping sauce hot with Kampot pepper, from peppercorns Khut buys only from the Kampot region of Cambodia.[1][6]

The Khmer side of the menu includes ahmok, a steamed fish curry served in banana-leaf bowls when the kitchen has time; beef tuk prahok, a fermented fish dip eaten with raw vegetables, and the milder tuk kreoung Khmer; and somlaw machu kreoung, a green soup built on a paste of lemongrass, galangal, turmeric and tamarind. There are dry Phnom Penh noodles, beef lok lak, black-pepper frog legs and chan pu, a crabmeat dish,[1][2] as well as plea salmon, a salmon salad, and beef skewers with pickled papaya salad.[5]

Desserts are made in-house, among them banana-leaf-wrapped sticky rice cakes such as nom kum, set out at the front counter beside bags of Kampot peppercorns. Drinks include Thai iced tea, fresh coconut juice and Angkor beer imported from Cambodia.[1][5]

Community

Concert posters line the walls. Live music is mostly heard in the back banquet room, at private parties or when Dengue Fever comes to town.[1] Locals gather there to celebrate and for arts, culture and civic events.[7]

In April 2025 Khut cooked the restaurant's beef skewers at the Khmer New Year festival that followed the 17th Cambodia Town parade.[8] From May 17 to 24, 2026, Sophy's took part in Long Beach Cambodian Restaurant Week, organized by the United Cambodian Community.[9][10] On September 11, 2026, it hosted the Kick-Off Party for the 12th annual Cambodia Town Film Festival.[11]

Press

The Los Angeles Times critic Jenn Harris reviewed Sophy's in March 2024, singling out the beef jerky, ahmok, tuk kreoung Khmer, tom kha, black-pepper frog legs, dry Phnom Penh noodles and nom kum.[1] The actor and cookbook author Tiffani Thiessen stopped there on a Long Beach food crawl with the paper in October 2023.[12] The Infatuation called it the best way into Cambodia Town's restaurants, and Resy included it in a 2021 guide to the city's Cambodian restaurants.[3][13]

Visiting

The entrance is at the back, off the rear parking lot, and street parking is nearby. Beer and wine are served.[1]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Los Angeles Times, review of Sophy's: Cambodia Town Food & Music (March 2024)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Los Angeles Times, Long Beach guide (December 2024)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Infatuation, Sophy's review
  4. ↑ Long Beach Business Journal, immigrant-owned small businesses in Long Beach
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 The Viking (Long Beach City College), owner of Sophy's discusses history (May 2021)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Los Angeles Times, Southeast Asian restaurants and tariffs (April 2025)
  7. ↑ Visit Long Beach, Cambodian cuisine scene
  8. ↑ The Guardian, Cambodia Town Khmer New Year festival (April 2025)
  9. ↑ Random Lengths News, Cambodian Restaurant Week (May 2026)
  10. ↑ Visit Long Beach, Cambodian Restaurant Week 2026
  11. ↑ Signal Tribune, things to do in Long Beach (September 2026)
  12. ↑ Los Angeles Times, Long Beach food crawl with Tiffani Thiessen (October 2023)
  13. ↑ Resy, a local's guide to Long Beach's Cambodian restaurants (July 2021)

Sources

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This page was last edited on 29 September 2026, at 02:30.