UPDATE: It’s worse than we thought.
I’ve called Chianina quite possibly the best restaurant in Long Beach, but the Michael Dene operation has been given a new award: the best steakhouse… in Orange County.
Anointed as such by Orange County’s long-running alt-weekly OC Weekly—quite honestly the best publication to come out from behind the Orange Curtain—the paper’s gone full-on Leroy Jenkins in its disregard for not only the legal border between OC and LA counties (pictured left), but the agreed-upon boundary between its jurisdiction and that of its northernly sister-publication, the LA Weekly (never mind that of the Post).
OC Weekly‘s power-hungry editor Gustavo Arellano isn’t shy about his visions of conquest, either; in his list of ways OC is trying to put its life back together after having to face the fact that they are home to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (as well as Lake Forest), he claims his paper has “colonized the LBC for themselves.”
But fear not, brave Beachers, and believe not the propaganda; if his annexation claims were true, he’d know that no one in Long Beach has called it “the LBC” since ’99. Checkmate.
Even his readers, whose popular vote for Best Steakhouse went to Mastro’s (because like endless mozzarella sticks, chains never fail to impress in the OC), continue to respect the long-standing détente between the OC and LB—or at least understand the basic rules of a “Best Of” as dictated by geographic boundaries.
But we’ll take it. If you’re a refugee from Orange County who is desperately in need of a steak that will please your palate and sate your hunger, Long Beach will greet you with open arms. We’ve also got great coffee, world-class beer, and a booming music and arts scene, too, in case you’re missing any of those things on your side of the San Gabriel.