Restaurant: Sophy’s Cambodia Town Food

Location: 3240 E Pacific Coast Hwy, Long Beach, CA 90804. (562) 494-1763

Date: February 23, 2022

Cuisine: Cambodian

Rating: Very good, huge menu of diverse dishes

Yarom and I went down to Long Beach in February 2022 to check out a bunch of Cambodian restaurants in a mini crawl. Alas we couldn’t convince anyone else to come with us on this particular day.

Our second stop was Sophy’s Cambodia Town Food. Very odd long building with the entrance hidden in the back. We had to walk all the way around to find it.



Inside there are a selection of take away snacks.

The large interior was clearly a diner or family restaurant decades ago.








The huge menu. Food here “overlaps” in a Thai and/or Vietnamese direction. I’m not enough of a South East Asian culture buff to know if that’s just that, being adjacent, “town food” in Cambodia is loosely similar to Thai and/or Vietnamese or if this particular restaurant just leans that way.

Beef Jerky. Sophy’s signature dish. Flank steaks deeply marinated, then oven-dried and then deep fried. Served with garlic and vinegar sauce. Definitely dry, definitely flaky and full of flavor.

A sour soup of chicken, maybe fish, and watercress. Unusual flavors but kinda delicious.

Banh Cheo. Pan fried crepes filled with ground chicken, shrimp, bean sprouts and onion. Served with assorted vegetables, a variety of mint and crushed peanuts in our tasty sweet and sour sauce. This can (more or less) be found at many Vietnamese restaurants and is probably typical of the Peninsula (aka South East Asia). Regardless, it was delicious here. The egg, tangy fish sauce and herbs all combine to make a lovely fresh combo.

Sauces and peanuts.

Yarom with the owner.

Sophy’s was quite tasty and given the vastness of the menu could be good for a full on 12-15 course dinner. I guess it’s in the “Cambodian corner” of the spectrum of fancier traditional “town food” found in South East Asia and as such has many overlapping dishes with Thai and Vietnamese restaurants, but it’s certainly got plenty of uniquely Cambodian ones as well.

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Restaurant: A&J Seafood Shack

Location: 3201 E Anaheim St, Long Beach, CA 90804. (562) 386-2000

Date: February 23, 2022

Cuisine: Cambodian

Rating: Well… it’s a shack

Yarom and I went down to Long Beach in February 2022 to check out a bunch of Cambodian restaurants in a mini crawl. Alas we couldn’t convince anyone else to come with us on this particular day.

Our first stop was A&J Seafood Shack.

It’s well know, but it really is a shack.


The menu and our order. This place is basically intended for a grabbing a quick lunch plate.

Grilled oysters. Fresh, sustainable oysters are grilled and served with zingy lime juice and pepper sauce as well as fried garlic.

Cracking them, they were pretty much just grilled oysters. The “sauces” were all on the side.

Grilled Beef Stick. Using the best cut of beef, marinated with fresh lemon-grass, garlic, turmeric and spices. Nice bit of char.

Khmer Sausage. Known as “Kwa Koh” in Khmer, this link is packed with flavors. Filled with hand chopped beef, rice, garlic, galangal and spices. This was my favorite, slightly sweet and fatty.

This stuff was kinda tasty, and the prices are right (aka very inexpensive). Unfortunately, it’s not all sold ala cart and it’s just a shack with a counter to eat at, so good mostly if you want a quick and tasty lunch.

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