Manhattan Beach suddenly found culinary life in early 2011 with the opening of M.B. Post, and around the corner, The Strand House presented even more pomp, along with unobstructed views of the Manhattan Beach Pier, a booming bar and lounge, and boxy zebra-striped lanterns. On August 20, as part of a monthly guest chef series, consulting chef Neal Fraser invited Walter Manzke into the kitchen. The former Church & State and Bastide executive chef took a brief break from helping his sister-in-law open Wildflour Café + Bakery in Manila.

The Strand House reps invited us to experience a five-course Manzke menu that started with Santa Barbara spot prawns and concluded with his talented pastry chef wife Margarita’s summer berry tiramisu. However, before staffers led us upstairs, we started in the bar with rosé and passed appetizers. Servers circulated with one of my favorite snacks from Manzke’s Church & State days, tarte flambée. The cracker-like Alsatian flatbread touted seasoned crème fraiche, sweet caramelized onions, slightly pungent gruyere, and tiny rectangles of salty, savory bacon. We previously learned How to Make Tarte Flambée at a cooking demo and tasted the flatbread on several other occasions, but still relished the results. When the Manzkes eventually open Republique downtown, we’ll see if they still make the tarte, and if they offer new variations on the classic dish. They also served tartes with caramelized onions, figs, goat cheese, arugula and balsamic at The Strand House, and in Manila, they recently rolled out a tropical version with mango, Malagos goat cheese, and arugula.

Dose of Vitamin P spotlights my favorite pork dish from the previous week.