Max Brenner Chocolate by the Bald Man - review by the Hungry Woman

Piggytails and I planned a long overdue dinner out at Max Brenner Chocolate by the Bald Man last night. Ever since this new restaurant and chocolate haven opened in our Union Square neighborhood we were intrigued.

Our evening started with the hostess attempting to seat us at a table on the end of a long column in a high-trafficked area. We kindly asked to be seated elsewhere and they happily obliged.

I attempted to order a glass of wine and was told that the restaurant did not have a liquor license. This was a bit of a suprise since two entire pages of the menu were dedicated to hot chocolate totties, frozen chocolate concoctions and martinis, in addition to stating that there were beers and wines available by the glass. Apparently, the temporary liquor license they did have at one point was not in sync with the permanent menus they had printed. And unfortunately, the lack of beverages on the menu didn't motivate the servers to fill up the water glasses any faster - I actually had to drink some of PT's water while waiting for our server to finish getting her face painted; it is Halloween afterall!

We sat down and after navigating two menus (one for entrees, one for desserts) we both decided on the chili rubbed chicken breast salad: mandarin oranges, bean sprouts, mixed greens, watercress and red cabbage. After waiting quite some time for our salads, they arrived with no bean sprouts, no watercress and about 2 oz of chicken placed on the side of the plate. The presentation was nice enough and the chicken, although not chili rubbed in any way, shape or form, was well-seasoned in a teriyaki glaze.

Piggytails was a bit more vocal than me about this poultry travesty and politely asked the waitress to bring us some more chicken which she did at no additional cost (after getting the manager's approval). It was awesome since she gave the server the "it's not you..." at the beginning of her request. Nicely played!

Dessert proved to be a bit of a challenge since there were plenty of options but we decided on the chocolate mess with toffee bananas: "warm chocolate cake eaten with spatulas right out of the pan, mountain of whipped cream, ice cream scoops, chocolate chunks, toffee cream and warm chocolate sauce". Unfortunately, the cake was not warm, spoons replaced the spatulas, and the mountain of whipped cream a la Cool Whip not homemade was pretty dead on - actually it was about 80% whipped cream.

PT picked the ice cream (white chocolate) but after digging through the whipped cream mountain we were damned if we could find it! Again, we asked the waitress (it's still not you but....) if she could please supply us with some ice cream. When we did get the ice cream (again at no additional charge) it was covered in rich milk chocolate coating. The ice cream was delicious - very different and rich without being overpowering and the chocolate coating was the perfect consistency. If only we just got 2 bowls of this! Now we're talking!

As far as the chocolate chunks I am going to assume they were talking about the Nestle Crunch-type bits we got on the side and the toffee cream was pretty decent but had a bit of an aftertaste. The bananas were pretty stellar but I've yet to meet a banana I haven't liked.

Being a chocolate freak (read the V is for Valrhona post) I can't begin to say how disappointed I was in this dining experience. I had such high hopes for this busy local place and have heard that he is looking into opening different locations in Manhattan. Maxie-boy better try and get this one right before he even thinks about expansion.