FIVE STARS IS FOR THE OVERALL EXPERIENCE AND CUSTOMER SERVICE NOT THE FOOD…read more My friend and I had a good time at the lre- opening night of The Bungalow Kitchen. My friend is a chef, so I really wanted her to experience the new menu with me. First, I have to give credit where credit is due. the customer service was top tier! We were greeted as soon as we walked up, and all of the ladies were so welcoming and nice. The bartenders were super nice as well, as was the GM. And of course, the aesthetic of The Bungalow never fails. The space is beautiful and definitely still has that Bungalow vibe. Our waiter, Devin, was great too! Now, on to the food... sadly, we were pretty underwhelmed. I hate that I have to agree with some of the Instagram comments I had seen about the kitchen because I really expected better, especially with all the hype surrounding Chef Eric and the new menu. One thing that really irked me was that our order of broccolini came out before everything else and sat there for about 20 minutes before our entrees arrived. Our waiter was kind enough to send out another order of broccolini once our entrees came, which I appreciated. They initially added it to the bill, but removed it once I mentioned it. The lasagna honestly tasted like something I could pick up already made from Whole Foods. The pork chop was cooked well, but it lacked flavor. The artichoke dish... I don't even really know what to say. The presentation wasn't great, and we kept pulling pieces of the shell out of our mouths, which was annoying. We had a couple of bites and just did away with it. The mussels were good, but there weren't very many. Mussels are pretty inexpensive, so it would have been nice to have a bit more, especially since they are small. The sauce had good flavor, and we ordered the baguette to dip into it, but it wasn't really a sauce in the traditional sense because it was pretty thin. I think it could have had more substance, especially considering they encourage you to spend $12 on a baguette to dip into it. One other thing I noticed was that Chef Eric was visiting some of the tables around us but never came over to ours. Maybe those were family and friends, so who knows, but considering there were barely any people in the restaurant, I do think it would have been nice for him to make his way around to all of the tables, especially on opening night. I will definitely be back to The Bungalow because I love the space, the people and the drinks. I'm just not sure if I'll be back for dinner. I'm willing to try some of the less expensive items and see how those are. Our dinner bill was around $250, in addition to the $40 we spent at the bar before sitting down. Unfortunately, for us, the food just wasn't worth the bill. Overall, we had a great experience with the staff and the atmosphere, but the food didn't live up to the expectations I had going in. Hopefully, some of these things improve because I really do want to see the kitchen succeed.

This review is only for their salsa/bachata dancing night and the bar…read more The bungalow has weekly salsa/bachata nights that include free dance lessons from 8 to 9:30. The instructors are great and the crowd is fun diverse (in terms of age, background, and experience dancing). The djs are also awesome play a lot of good music. The vibe is fun and high energy. It's nice to see a place that is filled with dancers of all skill levels just having fun and learning to dance. The venue itself is beautiful. They have a large open air dance floor that overlooks the marina as well as a smaller dance area inside near the pool tables. The decore is classy and elegant overall. On salsa nights they have drink specials in addition to the regular drink menu. Lastly I once lost my key fob there and someone returned it to their lost and found. I'm forever grateful to whomever returned it and the staff at the front door / lost and found. Overall it's an awesome place to come out and hang out and dance.

This is inside Whole Foods on PCH. Came here today to return…read moreAmazon orders. Saw everyone eating Oysters in an iced container. Hmmmm, went to fresh seafood counter and saw that they have a variety of both East coast and West coast oysters and will schuck them for you. Bought 1dozen and Took them to eat at The Breakwater. I was given fresh lemon wedges and cocktail sauce, utensils , and napkins. Super friendly waitstaff and packed with all kinds of people.... My first time here and will become a regular. I forgot how wonderful this grocery market is. Like a Disneyland experience!!

A bit different being in a grocery store, but not bad. Good beer selection. Save a dollar during…read morehappy hour. A bit loud and no food though I think you could bring something from the store. Bartender was very friendly and helpful. Gave us a few samples first so we could get the beer we liked.

The cocktails here are always so creative but what really impressed me is that they're actually…read moregood Drinks with interesting flavors lately often end up tasting gimmicky, artificial, or just... off. Here you can actually taste the ingredients they describe and somehow work really well together. And it's not just one or two drinks that feel unique and interesting it's basically their whole menu. Most recent time we went was when they had a guest bartender (Polo Chang). Some of the best cocktails I've had recently. I'm a huge fan of tea in cocktail his menu was amazing. We got way more drinks than we usually do that night because each one was better than the last. Only thing tho I really wish they kept their old menu. The drawings were beautiful and it had so much character while very easily communicating how each drink will look and taste. It went so well with the overall vibe of the place. But I may just be nitpicking because I have hard time reading the new dark menu in the dim light lolol I honestly would come here wayyyy more often if it wasn't for the very limited parking. Even with reservation it feels like never a guarantee we will make it there because we may or may not be able to find parking. If you are lucky to be nearby highly recommend uber.

This was my first time at this establishment, and I have very mixed feelings about the experience…read more The food was very good and the drinks were creative, but I really wish the service had been better. We sat at the bar, and I expected to receive service from the bartender, but he didn't acknowledge us for the entire night. Instead, our server took our order. After a while, she informed us that the crispy rice we ordered was sold out. She mentioned that the bartender was supposed to let us know, but he never did. What made the experience more uncomfortable was that the bartender seemed to be giving most of his attention to the Caucasian customers on the other side of the bar. We were the only Asian customers there, and unfortunately, this left us feeling like we were being treated differently because of our race. The good food and drinks helped compensate for the poor service, so we decided not to let it ruin our evening. However, things got even more disappointing at the end. After I paid, I noticed that I had been charged for the crispy rice even though we never received it. When our server tried to address the issue, the bartender appeared to ignore both her and us, so we eventually left. I hope management sees this review and reaches out to me to address the overcharge and the overall experience. Overall, although the food and drinks were good, the service and the way we were treated left a very negative impression. Unfortunately, I will not be returning.

Loved this place! Super cool dark ambiance and the mocktails were incredible. Really loved how…read moreeverything was decorated and they had a Psychic there this night to do tarot card readings, which I really loved. Service was excellent and we did try the pretzel as well, which was well seasoned and very large. I didn't get to take a picture of that unfortunately. We will be back!! I'm really looking forward to trying their tea service.

Small cute bar. Pretty detailed and diverse cocktail menu. However we tried some and they were all…read morereally sweet. Staff was nice to hold my jacket I'd forgotten behind for a week. Check hours before visiting and go early on Friday/weekends. Gets busy.

My first time dining at Marlena to celebrate a friend's birthday. We had a party of seven and had…read morereservations for a weekday evening. It was a Tuesday and the restaurant was quite busy. We sat on the patio where the ambiance was idea since they have a motorized patio louver system that they can control the dining atmosphere. We started off with a bottle of chardonnay and ordered appetizers of crispy fried cauliflower, spicy salami pizza made in their wood fired oven and bufala ricotta toast. We followed with salad with anchovies and three different in pasta entrees, a 32 oz dry aged tomahawk and a 14 oz prime ribeye. The tomahawk included an arugula salad and fingering potatoes. We dined family style and everything was delicious. We ended with desserts of chocolate olive cake, burnt Basque cheesecake and vanilla soft serve gelato. Service was exceptional from the entire staff. I definitely recommend Marlena for your special event or for a wonderful dining experience.

My wife and I went to celebrate our anniversary. This place has a great local vibe and was very…read morebusy. We had a reservation and were seated right away. The service was very good and the food for the most part was excellent. We had the olives and blanco bread as an appetizer. The bread was fresh made and came out hot straight out of the oven. The olives were marinade in fennel pollen and orange. I couldn't get enough of them. We shared a beat salad that was very tasty and my wife had the rack of lamb which was delicious. I will say that I did not enjoy my main course of Porchetta. I felt like it had good flavor, but it wasn't cooked well and the center where the pork belly was supposed to be tender and melting was very tough, chewy and inedible to me. Despite this one dish I really liked the restaurant and I am eager to go back and try something different.

Great service, food is great as well , Alissa was amazing she is very friendly and uplifting she…read morehas amazing service , highly recommended coming here with friends/family

So this is a review that's been a *long* time coming (I've just been chronically overwhelmed for an…read moreequally long time.) I haven't been here often, but I *was* here right around when they opened, wherein I determined that the food ranged from quality but a bit overpriced, to just overpriced, a feeling I would still hold, generally speaking. Great vibe, solid service, but maybe a little pretentiously priced (and/or it's just stupid expensive to run a restaurant in this area, granted.) And with *super* pretentiously-priced cocktails, for how relatively simple they mostly are (if I'm gonna spend $18+ plus tip on a drink, I expect Baby Gee-level cocktails.) They also had an impressive wall of craft beer on tap, but also a bit pricey, especially compared to places not on 2nd street, so there was never a particular *draw*. But then I never actually finished reviewing it, because I'm super behind. Anyway, then also not particularly recently, they launched a happy hour, which at the time, especially for this particular part of Long Beach, was pretty stupidly good, with $5 decent sized smashburgers (6 with cheese, 10 with cheese and also fries), as well as $5 craft beer, pretty much all of them, including the fancy, exciting stuff (exciting if you're a nerd like me, the barrel aged stuff, for instance). They also had one specific half hour at the time, which I'd like to immortalize as a super fun idea, where one specific cheap but craft beer was some stupid price, I think like a dollar, but since they had a whole wall of rotating craft beer, a *different* specific cheap craft beer any given day. That's not relevant at all to my current review, but it was fun. Anyway, I still didn't write a review like a year ago when I took advantage of that happy hour, though I did take advantage of it a solid couple of times. Skip forward again to just a few weeks ago, I happened to be attending an event in the general area again, an event that was going to involve more alcohol than food and for which having a happy-hour-timed dinner in the area was going to be useful, so I figured I'd check out whether the happy hour was still there, and it was. At least as of a few weeks ago, the happy hour (3-6 weekdays) was still a thing, and it had gone up a whopping 55 cents per item. Ends up being effectively ~$17 plus tip for a quality smashburger, quality fries and a craft beer, though they didn't have as *many* of the fancy (barrel-aged or equivalent) stuff as they had the first time, they did still have some, and it was still $5.55 for any beer on draft they had. So happy hour wise, that's a pretty good price for this part of the country, I'd say. Obviously only since the burgers and fries *are* also absolutely quality burgers and fries. Not quite as wonderful as my gold standard smashburger at The Stache, perhaps, but still a great smashburger. My opinion on spending almost 20 bucks for what is effectively still just an old fashioned, hasn't changed, though. :p

Awesome Food Fop Service…read moreBest ambiance My birthday party was awesome I enjoyed everything about it the location is great the photo booth on the telephone booth are awesome the waitress was awesome I will come back again this was an epic night for my birthday

I recently went to Nigels Waterfront for a wonderful birthday experience. As we arrived the…read moreambiance was pleasant with photo ops, but that was the only good part of our visit. The service was very poor. We had Sabrina D. as our server but we had to ask 3 separate times and 2 different people for a simple ask of straws. She walked away twice stating she would get us some but had some on her waist and still walked away. Our wait time for the food was about an hour which was longer than expected. The food itself was great but our service made us feel neglected. When the food came out we all received our plates in different orders which created an awkward essence of waiting for us to eat. Overall the service was not the best with long wait times. Afterwards our server approached us with a bad attitude asking for a tip though she was rarely at our table, not present, and ignoring us with our simple requests. We thought this is quite Unprofessional! Good food, bad service.

Maybe I'm not the best judge of paella because I don't eat it often, but I loved it! The paella…read moremixta had such a rich flavor, and as the name suggests, it came with a mix of proteins: full sized shrimp, pork belly, octopus, and chicken. The crab croquetas were bite-sized and had a thin layer of tuna sashimi on top (yum). The cauliflower was crispy and deliciously breaded. It reminded me of chicken nuggets but in the best way. I need to learn how to make the romesco sauce bc it was so yummy!

The atmosphere here is very swanky, great place if you want to take a date. There is seating in an…read moreenclosed patio where you can watch the sunset. Inside there is a bar with limited seating. The cocktails here are amazing, always well balanced and great presentation. They explain each drink by its flavor profile. The bartender Tony was very knowledgeable and a joy to chat with. The food on the other hand doesn't blow me away. I've only been here twice and each time I came away disappointed by the food. The presentation is great but the food is always a little off balance. Some needed more salt, more acid or were just underwhelming for the price. The tuna tacos are a must order, the paella is pretty good but it dones have the Socorro that I look forward to with my paella

The food was delicious! Our food server Vida was awesome. She kept up well stocked with food and…read moredrinks. Very attentive. They gave us pictures of our experience. Over all it was a very good experience. We sat outside by the water the ambience was great.

Great place!! Love the view but there's no fans , no air circulation I the middle of summer Sophia…read moreis wonderful love that girl I'll be back when it's cooler !!

Stopped by 320 Main in Seal Beach for breakfast and it did not disappoint. I ordered the American…read morebreakfast with two eggs, sausage, sourdough toast, and homemade fries, and everything was cooked just right. The eggs were fresh, the sausage was flavorful, and the homemade fries were crispy and delicious. I also added a side of their crispy bacon, which was definitely worth it -- perfectly cooked and full of flavor. The atmosphere was quiet and relaxing since I got there right when they opened, which made it even more enjoyable. It's a smaller spot, but cozy, with both indoor and outdoor dining options. Overall, it was a great breakfast experience and I would definitely come back again.

Bad shrimp in my cocktail! It had mold on it. SO gross. I ate five of the shrimp and (they were…read morefine and the cocktail sauce was very good) BUT the last one was positioned so the bad spot was hidden. These were big shrimp and the bad spot was big, so don't try to tell me they didn't see it.