Greer's OC

If you’re looking for something out of the ordinary this holiday season, there’s the new Bluegold & LSXO at Pacific City in Huntington Beach. It’s a restaurant-within-a-restaurant concept from Jed Sanford and and chef Tin Vuong.

Bluegold is a California coastal eatery with unobstructed ocean views and a diverse menu. LSXO highlights cuisine from District 1 in Saigon (where Vuong’s family come from). Both concepts are open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and LSXO offers a relaxing afternoon tea with open-faced finger sandwiches, French pastries, and specialty sweets to complement international tea blends.

Bluegold’s menu offers European/Mediterranean roots and features dishes ranging from appetizers, charcuterie & fromage, hot & cold seafood (raw bar and steam kettles), vegetables & salads, entrées, pizza from the hearth oven, wood & charcoal surf & turf, plates du jour, and more.

LSXO is a 28-seat restaurant-within-a-restaurant at Bluegold. It’s a spinoff of the Little Sister brand (Manhattan Beach and Downtown LA), and follows a similar Southeast Asian inspiration. You can find it behind an unmarked door adjacent to the wine room.

 “There is no signage for LSXO—you can spot the entrance of it tucked into a section inside Bluegold, but you’ll have to know it’s there. While Bluegold is light, bright, and airy, LSXO is its darker, edgier little sister,” says Vuong. “Both restaurants operate out of the same kitchen, though the menus are completely different. LSXO offers straight-up, honest, home-style Vietnamese cuisine—the type of food I grew up eating with my grandparents in the San Gabriel Valley.”

LSXO draws inspiration from Southern Vietnam with a number of Chinese influences. While the menu is mostly different from Little Sister, there are signature dishes such as the beef tartare, imperial rolls, and salt & pepper lobster. Lunch and dinner items range from cold plates from the garde manger to salads, rice paper rolls, fish & shellfish, meat & poultry, both dry and soupy noodles, and banh mi (lunch only).

LSXO/Bluegold is open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve on Saturday, Dec. 24 and open daily from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

21016 Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach. 714.374.0038.