Let’s play a game where we name the top three restaurants I visit most. If your lineup looks like this:

1.) M Cafe
2.) M Cafe
3.) M Cafe

or some variation thereof, you win. Your prize is not redeemable in the state where you live.

Last Friday I had the pleasure of joining some of my favorite food homies (Sook and Sarah) and Vanessa from Wagstaff at M Cafe Culver City to talk, eat, and allow me the chance to prove I’ve already eaten everything on the menu.

What’s the big occasion?

We convened to discuss the Beverly Hills location launch of Little M.

Think about it–what’s your one gripe with M Cafe? It’s definitely not the food. It can’t be. But isn’t it just a smidge expensive sometimes?

Well M Cafe in Beverly Hills is debuting a new menu, not so different from the other two locations in terms of food options, but certainly more affordable and great for picking up food on the go.

We started off with some seasonal side salads, including lentils with radicchio, maple roasted veggies, and celery root remoulade.

We also had a variety of sushi (I stuck with the shitake avocado roll) –including spicy tuna, spicy shrimp, and fresh salmon.

Sushi and I had a showdown and I won:

Kinda scary, huh.

Some of the main courses we had:

The Gado Gado Salad–at Melrose it costs $11.45. In BH it’s $10.00

The Big Macro Burger–Melrose: $11.45. BH-$9.75 Both with one choice of side salad.

The Seitan Katsu Bowl, the Teriyaki Bowl with Black Cod and the Bi-Bim Bop (There is some variation of these bowls on the BH menu that runs a few bucks cheaper, especially if you get it sans fish):

The Panino Tuscano:

They have some different sandwich options in Beverly Hills–in general they run under $10 in price, whereas they are closer to $12 at the other locations.

BH also has some a la carte options (amen!) like BBQ Tempeh or Seared Tuna Tataki.

Sook is a hoarder and half way through the meal we discovered she was hanging on to more silverware than was really necessary:

Her bad behavior was rewarded like so:

and particularly like so:

Chocolate cake was a big, moist hit. Sarah hates the word “moist,” which is why I awkwardly injected it into that last sentence–because making your friends uncomfortable is funny.

You know what else is funny?

That after boxing the next morning with my friend Joy I ended up right back at the Melrose location for brekkie. There’s no shame in my game.

Scrambled tofu with tempeh bacon and sweet potato hash with grilled country bread:

Post-boxing knuckle sandwich:

Best blueberry pancakes with organic maple syrup and soy butter with tempeh bacon:

Both of those breakfast dishes are under $10 and were a good way to start the day.

If you are not familiar with macrobiotic cuisine, get with the program, specifically M Cafe’s program. It’s about energy and balance in your food and it makes you feel good when you eat it. Why else would I eat there every day? Besides the fact that it’s basically my office now.