I used to believe that Father’s Day was something of a runner-up holiday, a consolation prize awarded to fathers after the gala celebration of Mother’s Day, with its flowers and candy and chocolates and brunch. A day given to fathers, somewhat begrudgingly, when they’re given the honor of standing over the Weber burning steaks, chicken and fish, until they’re finally released from toil, and allowed to collapse on the couch and watch a Dodgers game in peace, with a cold one in hand.
And boy, was I wrong!
Father’s Day, in one incarnation or another (and there are many!), has been around for centuries. In the Middle Ages, it was St. Joseph’s Day, honoring the earthly father of Jesus. (His heavenly father is honored daily!) In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the ancestors of Christ are celebrated with the Sunday of the Forefathers — beginning with Adam. (It’s a long list!)
Indeed, there’s hardly a country on Earth that does not honor fathers in some fashion — from Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia and Belarus…to Soldier’s Day in Mongolia, and Dia do Pai on Macau.
Father’s Day as we know it began on Mother’s Day in 1909. A woman named Sonora Smart Dodd sat in her church in Spokane, Washington, listening to a sermon about the sacrifices mothers make for their children. The sermon touched a nerve. Smart Dodd’s mother had died when she was young, and she had been raised by her father — who also raised five sons.
He did it all alone — farming the land, caring for the children, doing the double work of a father and a mother. Smart Dodd felt it was high time for a holiday to honor fathers as well as mothers. As a date, she chose a Sunday close to her own father’s birthday.
But as with Mother’s Day, the all-male United States Congress refused to make it official — they felt people would think they were patting themselves on the back. And that’s how it stood, until 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson celebrated the day with his family — and Father’s Day has been with us ever since.
And yet, unlike Mother’s Day, it’s a bit hard to define. I’m a father. And all I really want is a chance to take my beloved labradoodle George (who as a former breeding dog has dozens of offspring) for a nice walk in the hills, followed by a chance to take a nap on the couch.
My singular regret is that Father’s Day is in June, long before football season, so I can’t veg out watching a Rams game. But instead, my family will insist we go somewhere of my choosing, probably with an assortment of relatives. I’ll be given a shirt I don’t need. I’ll be asked, politely, not to light that cigar I’ve been saving. The best thing about the day may be that I’m given the chance to go back to a favorite restaurant.
And what might that be? Given my druthers, here’s my Father’s Day list…
If my paternal soul cries out for the solace of barbecue:
Robert Earl’s BBQ
703 E. Artesia Blvd., Long Beach; 562-726-1116
The proprietor’s name is proudly etched on the door, a mark of honor, and a way of saying that what you’re served is the work of Robert Earl — a master of slow, barrel pit smoking, “with real wood.” While your meat is emerging from the barrel pit, consider the sides, for each order comes with two out of potato salad, coleslaw, mac and cheese, baked beans or greens — no gimmicks.
But then, there also are no gimmicks in any of the meats — this may be the most straight-forward, classic barbecue in Long Beach. Go for the rib dinner, the pulled pork dinner (obscenely tender!), the rib tip dinner, the beef rib dinner (ribs pulled, far as I can tell, from prehistoric critters of awesome size!) — Robert Earl’s Combos with two meats or three meats.
Beef ribs, for the record, are only offered on weekends. There’s beef brisket too, as tender and sweet as a mother’s love. Of course it is.
If my nostalgia for a tasty slice overwhelms me:
Michael’s Downtown/Michael’s Pizzeria
210 E. 3rd St., Long Beach, 562-491-2100, www.michaelsdt.com; 5616 E. 2nd St., Long Beach, 562-987-4000, www.michaelspizzeria.com
There are those who argue that the pizza served at Michael’s Downtown/Michael’s Pizzeria is not just the best in Long Beach, not just the best in Southern California, but the best in America. Maybe, maybe not. But it is, simply speaking, a great pizza. You can enjoy it, with an opinion or without. And with prosciutto and guanciale and Calabrese salami or without.
This is not doctrinaire pizza, following the dictates of the Pizza Police of Naples, who have declared that any pie other than the original Margherita (mozzarella, tomato sauce, basil — the red, white and green of the Italian flag) is a bogus parvenu. They also restrict the size of the pizza. They’d be outraged to find that Michael’s offers a gluten-free pizza. And horrified by his pies with artichoke and goat cheese, with shrimp and clams, with chicken and red onions.
And lest I seem to be avoiding the issue, let me go on record to say this really is one of best pizzas I’ve ever had. I love the superb crust, with a memorable crunch, burnt just a little as it emerges from the blazing wood-fire of the double ovens.
The crust stands high around the edge, a levee of sorts, holding in the mushrooms and olives and puddles of cheese — and even in the case of the carbonara, a pair of organic eggs, which spread the goodness of their yolks all over the surface.
Diet? What diet? It’s Father’s Day, so bring on the fried chicken!
Belly Bombz Kitchen
11824 Artesia Blvd., Artesia; 562-402-5400, www.bellybombz.com
Belly Bombz Kitchen is pretty much perfectly named.
In an age of restaurant names that simply ooze healthy, organic, natural, farm-to-table, warm and cozy, Belly Bombz is unapologetically what it claims to be — a casual café that serves dishes that hit you in the gut, and stay there until your body figures out what the heck is going on. And while you deal with the shock of what you’ve consumed, you can enjoy a tasty craft beer, and muck about on your plate for one more morsel.
This is a restaurant of Belly Bombz that will make your belly very happy to have been bombed. The fusion here is heavy. The elotes is white corn with bacon and a Korean chili aioli mayo — a Mexican-Korean dish that cannot be denied. The chicken skin chicharrones stands somewhere between Latino and Jewish — fried chicken skin is a longtime Eastern European favorite; it comes with garlic salt for dipping, should you need more.
And then, there’s the hot Cheetos mac, which is — yes! — mac and cheese made using Cheetos instead of macaroni. It’s a touch of culinary genius, for Cheetos have crunch, where mac doesn’t. But that’s just a warmup — and it will warm you up.
Related: Best hot and spicy food for takeout and delivery in the Long Beach area
You need to move into the Bombz Zone, which begins with the wings, served both with the bone and without. (I prefer with the bone, because it slows down my eating, and gives me something gnaw on).
The wings come in eight flavors, all of them pretty much over the top, with an outlandish crust, thanks to the kitchen’s taste for coatings like burnt sugar, parmesan and Sriracha. Order too many; they taste good later as well, if any actually survive their first appearance.
There’s a Korean-style fried chicken sandwich — which means the chicken crackles with every bite — along with a bulgogi burger to which you can add a second patty and a fried egg, in case you’re a bit peckish. The truffle burger isn’t expected, but there it is. The pulled-pork grilled cheese sandwich is expected, and there it is too. And for those who want to go out in style, there’s a coffee stout variant on poutine, along with pork belly fries.
Popeye ate spinach — but I always related to Wimpy, who preferred burgers.
Slater’s 50/50
17071 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach; 714-594-5730, www.slaters5050.com
Not quite in Long Beach. But close enough for a truly remarkable stable of burgers — and anyway, it’s a fine drive down the coast to Huntington for such seasonal specialties as the Bloody Mary Burger, which when available is a big, fat, juicy “Sterling Silver” ground beef beauty flavored with Worcestershire and Tabasco, topped with grilled tomatoes, a garlic-olive tapenade, with bacon vodka sauce, served on a bacon pretzel bun, and stabbed (a la a Bloody Mary) with a celery stalk. (And yes, they are utterly bacon obsessed. Really — aren’t we all?)
The Armageddon Burger is a one-third pound ground beef, ground bacon and ground porchetta slab of meatloaf, wrapped in bacon and mustard, served atop prosciutto, topped with chipotle ketchup — on a bacon pretzel bun. It would have been a fine last bite, had the Mayans been right.
There also are beer cheese fries, fries with bacon ketchup, fried dill pickle chips, beer-battered onion rings, beer-battered jalapeños, fried bacon mac and cheese balls. There’s mac and cheese with Buffalo chicken bites, and with bacon and jalapeños. There’s a salad — a salad! — made with Top Ramen crunchies.
There’s also a burger topped with peanut butter, strawberry jelly and, yes, bacon. There’s a burger topped with Fritos. There’s a hyper-bacon burger with bacon-dotted American cheese, bacon dressing, and a slab of bacon on a bacon pretzel bun. And — yes! yes! yes! — one of the ingredients you can choose for the design-your-own milkshake is maple bacon. There’s a bacon brownie for dessert.
You also can design your own burger, with so many add-ons, your head will spin. But then, that’s Slater’s. A reminder that we live in a time of madness. In this case, very tasty madness too.
If the family insists on a proper sit-down, there’s always fish:
King’s Fish House
100 W. Broadway, Long Beach; 562-432-7463, www.kingsfishhouse.com
I grew up in a world of flounder and bluefish and mackerel — seafood cooked till it had the texture and taste of wet wool. King’s Fish House is so far from that, that it’s almost impossible to believe I’m eating the same aquatic species.
The menu, which is printed daily so that what’s fresh is what there is, is heavy with seafood dishes both serious and whimsical. This ain’t your granddad’s fish house. Or at least, not my granddad’s. Consider the oyster selection — four from the west, six from the east. There are familiar names like Hama Hama and Kumamoto. But there’s also Paradise and Pacific Kiss, both from British Columbia; and Barcat and Rappahannock from Virginia.
When an ingredient is from the wild, the menu tells us that, as in the wild Littleneck Clams from Long Island. When they’re farmed, we’re told that as well, as in the jumbo white shrimp and Penn Cove black mussels.
If you feel like going with the classics, there’s a Louie, topped with jumbo shrimp, lump crab, or both. There’s macadamia-crusted Alaskan halibut, and parmesan crusted Alaskan sand dabs. There’s fish and chips, Idaho rainbow trout amandine (from Clear Springs Farm in Magic Valley) and fried Mississippi catfish (from Simmons Catfish Farm in Yazoo City). There are several surf and turf options of beef with South African lobster tail. There’s even a New England clam bake with lobster, clams, mussels and red spuds.
But even though there’s plenty on the menu to satisfy Aunt Matilda, there’s also plenty for those who don’t want to roll with the same old same old. Consider the baked Penn Cove mussels. Sounds kind of mundane. But…the mussels are topped with spiced mayo, eel sauce, mushrooms and avocado. In other words, it’s a mussel equivalent of the outré sushi bar dish called Dynamite. It sounds wack, and it tastes amazing. Ditto the blackened shrimp taquitos, a sort of Mexican-Cajun combo topped with crumbly cotija cheese and guac.
There’s a ceviche that mixes salmon, mahi, swordfish and albacore in a citrus and tomato sauce that cooks the fish in its acid — it’s raw and cooked at the same time, always a good trick.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.
