It is really rather silly that I've been here a... whole bunch of times, going back to pretty much…read moreright when they opened, and I still haven't ever written it a review. Well, let's fix that finally. So first off, service, I'd say definitely can vary based on how busy they are. When it's slow, service is super fast. When it's packed to capacity, which it *absolutely* can be at times, it can be a lot slower, not to mention way louder. I won't fault them too much for that though, since I'd rather be there earlier in the day when it usually isn't too busy, anyway.
Bar-wise, I won't mention each drink individually, since they change the drinks up periodically, and they've all been solid. I'm sad that $14-16 per cocktail is pretty much industry standard now, but that is, unfortunately, an entirely reasonable price at this point, if your cocktails are interesting and well balanced, which theirs all have been. Baby Gee still has the *most* interesting cocktails, but then, none of Baby Gee's cocktails are $14, which several of the best ones here, are. (I mention in that I think this is currently my third favorite cocktail bar in Long Beach, with Baby Gee at #1, cocktail-wise.) I will mention, specifically, that they have one great thing Baby Gee doesn't, cocktail-wise, coming in at $14, two slushy machines - for a long time, they've been a pina colada and a strawberry daiquiri, or for the same price, both mixed together (you want to do that). They also have a weekday happy until 6, in which, notably, the three core cocktails they keep on draft, are only $10. All three are quite good. (They also do $6 house old fashioneds all day Wednesday, also solid, if not as interesting.) They've also got a solid selection of interesting bottles of all sorts, many quite reasonably priced, and when they *aren't* too busy, they're always happy to experiment with me on new drinks with them. They do also always have a solid, if small, selection of craft beer. Finally, one of my favorite things here: $4 mystery shots, various constantly-rotating bottles, many presumably having been given to them by reps as sample bottles, though occasionally they've been leftover prebatch remnants from old cocktails, or other odds and ends. I don't *shoot* them, but that's a strong draw pulling me in here often - it's always been fun guessing blind what I'm sipping (you can ask them what it is, *after* you drink it.) Sometimes they only have one bottle, often they have 4+, and they can be basically *anything*. It is *also* a great way to get tipsier slightly faster for a lot less money, too, of course, if you aren't picky.
Food menu wise, they definitely beat the pants off Baby Gee, though. I've tried most of the food menu at this point (I miss working for a boss who liked to invite the team here for team building and then order us like half the menu at a time...) The main draw for me personally is their shumai, though enough one of handful of things they don't make in-house (they buy them frozen from some place in LA, I think), but they're *really* good shumai. (I'm picky - shumai meat is often kinda gristly, which theirs never are, and with the perfect dumpling noodle.) The har gow from the same source is also great (though the shumai is my favorite), and both are also a dollar off during the weekday happy hour. Not on happy hour, but still very reasonably priced for dim sum (from the same source), I can also strongly recommend the soup dumplings, both the pork and vegetarian bao, the sesame balls, and the radish cake. And make sure to get their chili oil if you like spicy (they're supposed to charge 50 cents per container, though they often don't. But it's totally worth 50 cents a container.)
They also have great skewers - I've tried the mushroom (wonderful), and the chicken thigh skewers (Homareya's are the best, but these are also great.) Their mushroom salad is excellent (it's just a mix of a bunch of Asian mushrooms, perfectly spiced, so I would get that and an order or two of shumai to go with it), the egg rolls are great, and while the bowl of noodle soup is technically definitely worth being $16, it's also $10 on Wednesday, so I'd recommend going there on Wednesday if you want to try the noodle soup (it is very good. $10 is a steal.) The fries, onion rings, popcorn chicken and fried rice are also... exactly what you'd expect from those things (I never order them because there's nothing exciting about any of them other than getting to dunk them in great chili oil, they were always ordered by my ex-boss for the table, but I figured I should mention them in the interest of completeness.) The only food item I've ever *not* been impressed by was their spring rolls, which the most recent time I ordered them, contained a "pickle" that appeared to be entirely un-pickled, and was way overstuffed with grocery store quality lettuce. (Though ymmv; a few months earlier I had their spring rolls and said they were great.)
Anyway: highly recommended.