Manhattan Beach Post — Restaurant in Manhattan Beach

The restaurant, also known as M.B. Post, was just opening for its dinner service as we arrived, with the front windowed walls thrown open to take in the summer weather, and the wood with modern metal frames throughout the restaurant gave off a beachy chic while touches of nostalgia were brought in with multiple post boxes and the menu delivered in an envelope like a mail package.

We started out with their infamous bacon cheddar buttermilk biscuits with maple butter. They are worth the hype, warm, gooey with cheese inside and speckled with bits of delicious salty bacon and everything was gone from when we each picked ours up just a few minutes either. The maple butter was not needed. If we had not already ordered a third of the menu I might have been tempted for another round.

Now let me pause to discuss some of the handcrafted cocktails. The impressive looking Mo-Pho-Jito, a mojito with starr, kaffir lime, mint, ginger, and coriander honey and a name that makes you roll your eyes but also crack a smile as you order it. The Manhattan Avenue, a manhattan with templeton rye, vanilla, caramel, and bacon dust. You read right, Bacon Dust.

Then, there was the hint of apple pie but not too sweet with cocktail named The Fall of Man, penicillin with compass box ‘oak cross’, apple, maple, cinnamon. And, the Hearts of Darkness, matador with hacienda de chihuahua, pineapple, basil, clove, smoke, oh so much smokiness. Also, finally, the cocktail called Avila’s Heir, a clean citrusy palate cleansing margarita with corralejo reposado, serrano, mandarin, yuzu.

Now back to the food, to our meal of the small plates between the four of us. The ones we loved the most were:

Raviolo- it was a seasonal special of egg yolk raviolo with herb ricotta, snap peas, baby artichokes, red onion jam, and lardo. We attempted to share (each plate had a single supersize ravioli aka raviolo we split in half) and we carefully spooned the broken yolk as we cut the raviolo as to not lose it on the plate. This was the most delicate dish of the evening, and I relished it because of this. Roasted brussels sprouts with emmental, hazelnuts, sage, which prompted an amusing discussion at our table on the difference between “roasted/browned” and “slightly burned”. Of course the key is charred kind of caramelization, which these sprouts had plenty of Blistering Blue Lake Green Beans with thai basil, chili sauce, and crispy pork was a bright dish of fresh flavors that had no surviving green beans left BBQ Moroccan Lamb Belly with harissa caramelized onions, Japanese eggplant was essentially a love note to sticky caramelization White Oak Grilled Skirt Steak with grilled broccolini and red chimichurri- as you can see, it comes as a layered dish of broccolini, skirt steak, broccolini, skirt steak, one of the best...

My boyfriend got lucky and landed a same day reservation on a Friday at 7:30pm via Opentable - prime dinner time. Outside of luck, expect at least a month-long wait for a decent reservation of your preferred date and time. The couple next to us made reservations that much in advance. We definitely lucked out.

Heck, after realizing reservations were so hard to come by I decided to keep my 12:30pm brunch reservations in case we loved dinner that much that we wanted to come back the next day. Did we?

The popular restaurant is set in a dim lit, chatty setting with the attractive hostesses and waitresses making sure to highlight their assets with skin tight attire.

As a foodie, I did my research beforehand and had an idea of what I wanted to order. Their popular CHEDDAR BACON BISCUITS came out first, which did not disappoint. Although, I will have to say that it cannot contend with The Hart and the Hunter's signature biscuits, which are to die for. But I digress.

The rest of the dishes we ordered were superb with the exception of the POMEGRANATE COUSCOUS that we could have passed on. On the fence would be the brussels sprouts, which were good but not fantastic and especially not something I would crave again.

The stand out choices were the WHITE OAK GRILLED SKIRT STEAK (perfectly cooked medium rare slices of goodness all thanks to the red chimichurri sauce) and BRAISED LAMB NECK (tender chunks of flavored filled lamb perfectly paired with semolina gnocchi).

Overall, our dinner experience was extremely satisfying. And to answer your question (mine, rather), yes, we did return the next day for BRUNCH, which comes with another review.

We ordered the biscuits again because they were delicious and one can eat biscuits for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Any time of the day!

We ordered the ricotta stuffed FRENCH TOAST and TRUFFLE LACED HONEY FRIED CHICKEN, both of which are their popular items. The French toast was underwhelming and didn't offer anything special, in my opinion. It was more like a sandwich with ricotta in the middle.

The fried chicken was good but the flavors remained only on the surface - the skin. As you cut deeper into the chicken, it becomes bland white meat ... and lots of it. On the flip side, the side of coleslaw was amazing and probably the best I've ever tasted. I could get a jar full of that stuff.

In the end, I wish I had ordered the BLUEBERRY LEMON SKITTLE CAKE.

Dinner was fantastic and brunch was lukewarm. It makes sense as to why dinner reservations are so coveted while brunch reservations are easily obtained. You know what I'll be...

I love coming here.

The ambiance is lovely, the staff are as well, and the food is top notch.

I love some dishes more than others (to be expected anywhere), but my favs to date are the chimichanga, eggs Benedict, and the lobster avocado toast. I used to love a steak dish, but I can’t recall the name. Come here if you haven’t been before- you won’t be disappointed.

Most recent visit 5/6/2023:

• Cinnamon roll (my friends order) 3.5-5 /5 Warm spiced brioche smothered in citrus marscapone icing ~The roll was huge! It was a glaze with citrus rind sprinkled on top. I thought the citrus was a nice touch, but that’s because I don’t love cinnamon rolls because I find them too sweet, so the citrus does a nice job breaking up the sweetness. One of my friends loved this. She said the roll was delicious. My other friend said this was meh. He said the roll wasn’t hot enough and that the citrus took away from the usual cinnamon flavor. Then again, his caveat is that he isn’t a huge sweet person, although he does like cinnamon rolls.

• Bay scallop ceviche 3/5 Aji Amarillo leche de Tigre, cucumbers, shaved radish,purple sweet potato chips

~I’ve had this before here and I thought it was great. This time, the bay scallops were a little strong flavored (if you get what I mean when I say fishy). It made me question whether I really liked it in the past or whether I was misremembering and then I realized, the last time I had it, they used large scallops. In general, the larger scallops have less of that strong flavor. None the less, if that flavor doesn’t bother you, then you might enjoy this dish more than I did.

• Carnitas Breakfast Chimichanga 5+/5 all natural beeler’s pork shoulder, Oaxacan string cheese and scrambled eggs wrapped in flour tortilla and fried crispy, served with salsa roja, charro beans, house made escabeche

~Wow! Get this! I’ve never had a breakfast version of a chimichanga. This has scrambled eggs in it as well as carnitas and cheese etc. It has a ton of flavors and the microgreens add a touch of freshness to it. This is fantastic

• Lobster avocado toast 5/5 Poached eggs, fried garbanzos, sunflower sprouts, harissa vinaigrette, sunflower dukkah, sourdough

~The lobster was succulent and flavorful. The bread was fantastic- it was soft, but held up well to the ingredients. I wouldn’t have guessed this was sourdough, as it was brown. I thought it was a wheat, but either way, yum. The rest of the toppings complemented the flavor of the...