3 days in Los Angeles
 

My partner and I will be visiting Los Angeles and staying in the Long Beach area at the end of March (3/25-28). It is my second trip to L.A. and his first. We are in our mid-thirties and would love to hear of great ideas to do and see during our short stay. We like asian food a lot and any suggestion or recommendation on restaurants for dim sum, korean and japanese food will greatly be appreciated.

On Easter Sunday they have a sunrise service at the Hollywood Bowl.

Try Ocean Star Seafood Restaurant in Monterey Park for dim sum:

http://losangeles.citysearch.com/review/357470

The Monterey Park/Alhambra area is unofficially known as the new Chinatown, so you'll be able to find very good (and authentic) Chinese food there. However, beware that some of these restaurants might be TOO authentic for non-Asian palates (very "interesting" menu items like tongue and other body organs).

Another option for dim sum is Empress Pavilion in Chinatown:

http://www.downtownnews.com/rg01/empress.html

Long Beach frankly isn't known for great Asian food itself. The Monterey Park and Chinatown (just off of downtown LA) areas are pretty far away. And just FYI, when you're in Long Beach you're NOT in Los Angeles-- you're in the LA metro area, yes, but LB is its own city. I can't think of a dim sum place in LB.

Not too far from LB, KOI on PCH in Seal Beach (just southeast of LB) is a well-regarded sushi joint. Korean is a tougher nut to crack; you could just break down and drive up to Koreatown (off of downtown LA). If you're adventurous, Cerritos is well-known for having a large Filipino population, and there are a bunch of restaurants around South Street and Cerritos Mall. Westminster has a huge Vietnamese population (the largest outside of Vietnam) and has a whole area known as Little Saigon-- but you only go for the restaurants, since otherwise it's typical OC suburbia.

Really, if you're looking for off-the-chain Asian cuisine, I would have NEVER picked Long Beach as my headquarters (disclosure: I live in Long Beach and love it). I would have stayed up in LA proper and planned to hit Matsuhisa in West Hollywood as well as the Chinatown and Monterey Park areas.

The old Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles... It's a classic. I don't know how the food would stack up, but the atmosphere is a bit time capsule.

Near Long Beach in Cerritos there are many Asian restaurants. For example, Sam Woo's on South St. at Pioneer Blvd in Cerritos (near Long Beach). Two Korean BBQ restaurants in Cerritos that I know of, Jang Soo on Bloomfield just south of South ST, another on South just east of Sam Woo's (can't remember the name). I like Koji (Japanese style Korean BBQ) in Torrance, it's in shopping center at the corner of W. Carson St & Western. For Japanese we usually just go to one of the Todai chain in Huntington Beach. I know there are sushi places in LB and better Japanese restaurants elsewhere but don't claim expertise.

For an adventure, there are some Cambodian restaurants on Anaheim Street in little Cambodia. Caution in parking as the nbhd. is a bit dicey.

Of course Artesia's Little India and Westminster's Little Vietnam are not far away either.

If you do decide to go downtown Hop Li on Alpine St is consistently good for lunch (and has parking).

tcl-thank you for your suggestions on dim sum and websites, very useful.

rjw lgb ca-we picked Long Beach because we will be attending the world cycling championship events, thus the reason for our trip to Long Beach/L.A. Thanks for the tip of restaurants in Seal Beach.

mlgb- it is to my delight that you mentioned Little Cambodia. I went to Cambodia 3 years ago and loved their food, so I am very curious to visit there.