Over the Bald Man

I celebrated a friend’s birthday last night at Max Brenner, Chocoalte By the Bald Man. Some of you may recall the fateful visit to Max Brenner back in October

when Karl bit down on a piece of glass
. You’d that that would have deterred me from ever reentering the restaurant again, but I was reluctant to skip the party. So I forged forward and dug in for what was bound to be a sugar-charged, chocolate-overloaded (and hopefully not glass-flavored) evening.

I started off with something mild, yet savory—a cheese sandwich—to gear up my taste buds for the inevitable chocolate attack. The hardened (stale?) bread and greazy cheese left much to be desired. So I picked around the sandwich and nibbled on my simple salad while, next to me, a girl munched on a waffle topped with kilbasa and sourkraut, and across the way, peanut butter crepes were being devoured. (Obviously, there’s no point in trying to avoid sweets—even for dinner—at a place known for its desserts.) At least my (non-sweet) wine was decent.

When dessert time rolled around, a few of us flipped through the spiral-bound menu to find something we would all go for. We decided on the “intense double chocolate fudge cake,” served with vanilla sauce, ice cream, and strawberries. I am really not that picky—especially when it comes to chocolate—but this intense this cake was not. Rather, it was dry and tasteless, and a waste of $11. As I did the first time around, I went home with a stomach ache and regret that I spent $30 on what amounted to about a pound of sugar. Maybe I would have been better off ending the evening with the Asparagus French toast.