Max's Bistro

What's it like?

I’m just going to jump into this one, Max’s Bistro was a night of extremes.

Horrible: Pathetically pale olive oil for the table that resembled vegetable oil with dry herbs. Whatever poor excuse for an olive oil is being used to dip a high quality bread in, please either remove it or pay the extra money to provide a reasonable product.
Delicious: Crispy, well-seasoned truffled potato fries and standard sweet potato fries. Positively wonderful. The truffle fries are some of the best I’ve ever had.

Horrible: Undercooked beets for my beet salad. Undercooked means that it took about the same amount of force to pierce the side of the beet as it would a raw potato.

Horrible: Old, brown romaine lettuce for the Caesar salad and 3 home-made croutons. There must have been ‘crouton rationing” and a lettuce surplus in the pantry. 

Delicious: Gorgonzola mashed potatoes.

Good: Rib-eye steak cooked medium-rare as requested, but under-seasoned. 

Horrible: Mixed vegetables that included over cooked squash (read mooshy)and brownish tinged green beans. Oh, I tried the vegetables. Luckily, we eat with our eyes first.

Outstanding: Savory amaranth bread pudding. This might have been better than the fries frankly. I would love to cook this for Thanksgiving one year. Brilliant.

Good: Lamb chops and cooked medium rare.
Fine: Commercial Andouille sausage that was awfully spicy. Don’t know if a really spicy sausage makes sense in this mixed grill. It kills the wine your drinking and seems to clash with a delicate quail.
Horrible: Quail. Dry as a bone.

Lazy: Penne with house-made Bolognese. The Bolognese was loose, real loose, near liquid with no viscous consistency to stick to the pasta. The pasta was cooked fine, but the sauce was a disappointment. Awfully sweet sauce as well. Not a classic Italian sauce by any stretch and yes, I’m hyper critical about this sauce.

Highlight of the Night: Halibut with potato cake and spinach. Overall, this one dish was the highlight of the night. Each aspect of the dish was well constructed and prepared. The fish had a lovely golden color to the outside top and was moist in the center. The potato cake was well seasoned and finished with a golden brown and crispy top. The spinach was simply wilted and brightened up the plate.

Service was friendly. The real hitch came near the end of the evening and the obvious closing and side-work period around 9:30. Our table wasn’t completely cleared when all parties had finished their meals. Lights started shutting off and some tables are left without being bussed in our section. I know servers what to go home, but don’t shut the lights out in the main dining room please, until we decide to get up and leave.

So the final analysis is about as confused as the outcomes that evening. The “fry guy” should get a raise. Whoever is preparing salads might need to take a refresher course on how long it takes to cook beets and what the color brown indicates on lettuce. Quail is not cooked like a chicken wing. Finally, who cooked the halibut and where was this person when the other dishes were being prepared?

I just don’t know. I’d like to go back. I ate some really great stuff. But will I get the fry guy or the salad guy who prepares my next meal?