Gold Dig #45

Post & Beam is the only restaurant on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list in the Crenshaw District. I find it strange that such a cool, modern restaurant is located in Baldwin Hills Plaza, but at least the mall location means plenty of parking. The inside has a big bar seating area where you can watch pizzas coming out of the oven and catch the game on the big-screen TV. But what I love most is the patio, which has a fire pit and an herb garden.

The Dish

Post & Beam serves soul food with a California twist. It is a great spot for brunch, where you can get southern dishes like chicken and waffles and shrimp and grits, along with hand-stretched pizzas that seem to dot most tables.

Bellini and Hand-Stretched Pizza

We went for brunch, so to accompany the meal a Bellini seemed in order. The mix of Napa Valley peaches and sparkling wine was divine. We also started with a pizza for the table – crushed tomato, local mozzarella, snipped basil, unfiltered olive oil. The pizza came with a dish of oregano, red pepper flakes, and Parmesan for self-seasoning. Great way to kick things off.

Smoked Short Rib Hash

The smoked short rib hash comes with poached eggs, roasted potatoes, and mustard hollandaise. The dish had a touch of sweetness, but wasn’t particularly interesting. It seemed to be mostly potatoes, with only small scraps of short rib. It was my least favorite of what was otherwise a stellar meal.

Shrimp Grits

The shrimp grits come with scrambled eggs, bacon, and roasted peppers. The grits were delicious – creamy and rich, and great with the roasted notes of the peppers and the shrimp with its nice grilled flavor. The bacon was nicely crisp, though the scrambled eggs were a bit bland – they seemed to sap flavor from the dish rather than add to it. I was much happier to push the eggs aside and just spoon up the grits.

Buttermilk Waffle

Normally the buttermilk waffle is part of the chicken and waffles, but we were already getting so much other food we decided to just get a waffle on the side. It comes with whipped honey butter and real maple syrup. Yum.

Cornmeal Dusted Catfish Wrap

The cornmeal dusted catfish wrap was the winner of the brunch. The catfish was complemented beautifully with garlic roasted tomato, arugula, and black pepper aioli. It was the perfect mixture of crispy, salty, creamy, roasted goodness with a bit of fresh bite from the arugula. I could have eaten several of these. The side salad was nice too – it had a tasty but light vinaigrette that was a good accompaniment to the wrap.

Dark Chocolate Budino

If you’re going all out for brunch, then you might as well finish with dessert. We had the dark chocolate budino, which came with an incredible pistachio ice cream, bite-sized chocolate cake pieces, and chocolate wafers. The budino was light and smooth, and the dish had all sorts of dark chocolate goodness. But what really made it was the pistachio ice cream, which was wonderfully creamy, nutty, and sweet. Mmmmmmm…