Cambodia Town, Long Beach, CA

Cambodia Town is the stretch of central Long Beach where Anaheim Street turns into the main street of the largest Cambodian community outside Asia. Homes in Cambodia Town are older and packed close together. The side streets off Anaheim and 10th Street hold small early 1900s bungalows alongside courtyard apartments and small multiunit buildings. Apartment buildings outnumber single-family houses on most blocks. Monorom on Anaheim Street is a go-to for prahok ktis, a rich pork and fermented fish dip eaten with raw vegetables, and for its papaya salad. Nearby, Hak Heang does seafood stews and has live music on weekends, and Phnom Penh Noodle Shack on Cherry Avenue draws lines for its pork bone noodle soup. Groceries here tend to come from the neighborhood's own markets. Bayon Market on 10th Street and Riverside Supermarket on Anaheim stock Cambodian and Southeast Asian staples, and La Bodega Market and Arteaga's Market cover Latin staples a few doors apart. Everyday errands can be done on foot, and Long Beach Transit buses run along Anaheim toward downtown. Parks are the thin part of the picture. Green space inside Cambodia Town is scarce, so most people use MacArthur Park just to the west, which has a playground, basketball courts and the Homeland Cultural Center, with the Mark Twain Neighborhood Library across Gundry Avenue. Anaheim Street also carries heavy traffic through most of the day. A good first visit is breakfast noodle soup on Anaheim, then a walk through Bayon Market to see what the kitchens nearby are cooking with.