West Coastin’ It and La Creperie Cafe & Bohemian Bistro

Strange fact about me.  I have never been to the west coast.  The furthest I’ve ventured is a one week trip to Vegas in August, that made me feel like I was living under a giant blowdryer and sent me home whining.

But I’ve always wanted to see the Pacific.  And for the first time this week…

I am.

Mr. Wonderful came out on business for a few days, and since it coincided with our anniversary, I get to play all day while he hits the convention center, which is about the most beautiful convention I’ve seen

Long Beach is a commercial shipping beach with huge cranes and an industrial area at one end of the beach.

and then in the middle is this flurry of entertainment like a huge aquarium, a arts center and the convention center.

Then at the other end lies its namesake.  Long Beach.  Cuz lemme tell you, that sucker is one LONG BEACH.

I ventured out and found the beach yesterday on my own, after carefully plugging in the hotel address into my GPS since I am quite famous for getting myself lost. The weather is a bit cool for ocean swimming, being in the 60’s but I loved sitting in the sand with my camera and feeling the salty sea air kissing my face while watching little children run quickly in and out of the ocean shivering into their Momma’s waiting towel clad arms. Because it’s onlya bout 68 degrees here tops right now and the weather is not cooperating with me by sending the sun out.

We ate lunch at a quaint little creperie on 2nd Street in the Shoreline District of Long Beach called La Creperie and it was delicious.

The decor is what I would call classy bordello with two enormous gilded mirrors, lots of red velvet and gold fringe and a really cool painted mirror on one wall.

At the back of the restaurant, you can watch them make the crepes on Crepe griddles through the large plate glass window.

They pour the batter onto the griddles and then take a special spatula and twirl it around lightening quick onto the griddle to spread it out.

I can only imagine how many walls I would splatter practicing this!

Then the guy took another long thin spatula and just deftly slid it underneath the crepe, flipped it, let it cook some more and then flipped it.

Then adds it to the stack waiting for the guys making the filling.

Now the fillings offered on the savory crepes range from ratatouille to jambalaya, and we were overwhelmed with the delicious choices.  So we did what anyone would do.  We looked for the guy sitting at the bar with us that was loudly talking “foodie talk” and asked him what to get.

Oh, you don’t do that?

Hmmm. I just always think everyone else wants to talk food I suppose.

He recommended the Crepe Carbonara. So Mr. Wonderful complied..

This crepe had chicken breast slices, mozzarella and smoked bacon in a creamy garlic parmesan sauce with pesto dolloped on top and it was soooo delicious.  I was thinking I was going to be coveting this crepe until mine arrived and I took a little taste.

My Dipollo crepe featured fresh wild mushrooms, herbs de provence and mozzarella with chicken, and smothered  in a sherry cream sauce.  This was mushroom heaven for me.

The crepes were wonderfully rich and we couldn’t add on a sweet crepe which La Creperie has many choices of.  We were just too stuffed.

Maybe soon.

But for now, I’m heading out to the beach to take a long walk with these guys.

I figure if I keep up on the exercise I can eat these crepes all week.  What do you think?

La Creperie Cafe and Bohemian Bistro & Bar
4911 E. 2nd Ave
Long Beach, CA 90803
website

If you’re looking for La Creperie, here’s a map to help you out!

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