Status Post MB Post UPDATE - Manhattan Beach

I've been doing a lot of online shopping lately, and that's putting it mildly. I think Victoria's Secret is in business mostly because of my one-women effort to acquire the entire PINK collection, and I may account for half the profit margin on Amazon Prime. It's practically a moot point to go to the mall unless I'm trying to return the five Nordstrom.com dresses that don't fit. Don't worry, I kept the other two.

I think I get one package a day now. Whether it's dance supplies or protein bars, every excessively large, paper-stuffed, saver-shipping box that comes to my door makes it there without as much as wrinkle and always in record time.

Harry Potter had his owls, the night's watch had their ravens, and MB Post has its servers. To say that the servers at MB Post slowest of the three would be an understatement, and it's not because they can't fly.

With its no-frills wooden tables and casual brown-paper-envelope menus, MB Post successfully delivers the too-cool-for-school vibe of a SoCal beach. For example, SoCal is incredibly environmentally-conscious. We ride our bikes and ditch our cars to reduce our carbon footprint, and we definitely don't want to waste water in light of the recent drought. Which is clearly why MB Post chooses to recycle their water as well. Why else would they force us to use the bottle of water from the previous diners instead of bringing a new bottle? (Yes, we did ask for one. And we almost died of thirst while we waited for it).

Unfortunately, the food is where MB Post does NOT deliver, except in the case of the Burrata and Roasted Pepper Sandwich. The luxurious, silky cheese with sweet peppers was tempered by a fresh, light green olive pesto on soft, slightly-chewy bread. The house chips were gigantic and greasy, and it's a little embarrassing when the side is bigger than the sandwich. If you're craving a lighter lunch, make sure they deliver this burrata-pepper package to you and you alone.

Clearly MB Post doesn't deliver anything Asian. The Crispy Pork Steamed Bun manages to ruin pork belly, an untouchable meat that usually can't help but be good. The unsalted, not-so-tender slab of pork belly isn't thick enough to shine through the thicker, not-fully-fluffed steamed bun, and the hoisin is poured with a heavy hand. Next time I crave this dish, I'll just drink some sauce instead.

Even the supposedly signature Bacon Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits don't live up to the hype. The biscuits are savory-salty-sweet with a buttering of maple, but they're on the drier side, and each bite feels a little incomplete.

I may not be able to tell you what the biscuits are lacking, but I can definitively tell you what MB Post is lacking. If Amazon and Victoria's Secret can deliver everything I ordered one day early, and Etsy can deliver a scarf from Australia within a week, then why can't MB Post deliver anything from kitchen-to-table on the same day it was ordered? 

While the post office continues to deliver, MB Post just continues to disappoint. Overcrowded and noisy, with staff who have the attention span of a small child after an ice cream cake, this once-popular eatery may have bitten off more than it can chew. We had to flag down our server multiple times for anything and everything we ever needed, whether it was more water, a to-go box, or just the check. With staff that moves at the speed of wight, MB Post might want to train some ravens.

Status Post MB Post – Manhattan Beach

I never thought a trendy brunch could become philosophical, but apparently, delivering the menus in fake-postmarked envelopes was all it took to motivate my musing mind. Aside from an adorably obvious presentation of the restaurant’s theme, I was starting to wonder if stamping the menus gave them a higher chance of getting lost in the mail before they made it to the table.

Then I started thinking that when I put my name into the computer algorithm that spits out the residency match, my fate was actually very much like putting a letter in the mail. I addressed and stamped my match list, and gave it signed, sealed, and delivered into the hands of a seemingly omniscient mailman and hoped that he would take me where I was meant to be.

Sometimes that letter really does go where it’s supposed to, and the result looks something like that penciled-in Polenta dish on the menu at MB Post. The combination and quantity of every ingredient, every little speck of poached egg, tomato, white bean ragout, and bianco sardo was dead on. There was a place on the palate for everything in this dish, and everything was in its place.

Sometimes everything goes according to plan, but sometimes even the most carefully planned letter can go astray. Sometimes, I feel like the residency match was the absent-minded mailman who lost me and placed me as far away as possible from everyone and everything I ever knew. At first, leaving the east coast was like the Corned Beef Cheek Hash: a mish-mash of promising ingredients with potential that just didn’t quite work. The beef and potatoes go well with the gooey yolk of the fried egg, but somehow all these great pieces didn’t quite come together.

I felt as disjointed as that dish when I first moved to Cali, but things have gotten better since. I think sometimes you think you’re in the wrong place but that place turns out to be where you belong after all, even if it’s not where you saw yourself. If any dish were to convince me of that, it’d be the Truffle Honey Laced Fried Chicken. This sweet potato-battered southern spin was all I needed to convince me that maybe there is a place for a southern girl in SoCal. This sweet, tender chicken would give any southern mama a run for her money, and the Kholrabi Slaw on the side was a crunchier take on a sweet southern favorite, almost as sweet as feeling like maybe you’ve found yourself a new home sweet home.

When you see a fork in the road, take it. Even if it takes you away from home. Grasp your own fate, don’t leave it up to a mailman called chance. And when you want something done, do it yourself. Deliver your own fate instead of leaving it up to a man in khaki who drives the world’s slowest truck.

But now that I’ve given it some most thought, I don’t really care what you do when you see a fork in the road. If you don’t take it, I will, and then I’ll rinse it off, use it to eat my brunch at MB Post, and leave you wondering what you missed.