Maxed out on Max Brenner - Boston

If a creepy man in a ski mask were to crawl through your window in the dead of night, the man you unmask would be a dead ringer for the Max Brenner logo. The harsh lines of wrinkles speak of a hardened career criminal, face devoid of feeling as he embraces the indifferent life of a sociopath.

When you finally unmake him and get a glimpse of his face, he recognizes a lost cause and jumps from your balcony with a quiet thud and slips into the night with as much stealth as the servers at his restaurants…and crashes onto the ground, breaking his neck. We were served by several different people at Max Brenner , which is understandable when it’s that busy, but it’s never so busy that it becomes acceptable to just plunk a plate down, practically dropping it. I thought one of my plates would actually shatter. I felt like we were at a coked-out version of Sonic where everyone flies by on rollerskates without brakes and just throws stuff at you instead of setting it down. Brilliant way to make your customers feel welcome. Seriously.

Dessert was slightly more graceful than the servers…the White Chocolate Cheesecake Crepe was filled with cheesecake-textured cream cheese  just doesn’t have enough sugar to hide the unmistakable sour bagel-topper aftertaste. The accompanying dulce de leche ice cream is tasty, but there just isn’t enough of it. I’m not sure what they define as “orange-mint salad”, but 3 half-slices of orange topped with a lone mint leaf does NOT constitute a salad. You know a dish lacks substance when they feel a need to include the garnish in the description.

The Melting Chocolate Truffle Heart Cake & Shake is a yummy chocolate overkill, and as much as it clearly clogged my arteries, I couldn’t object to a standard gooey melting cake with ice cream, and the chocolate shot is yet another cute idea.

There is a reason I don’t write up chains. It’s impossible to appease the masses without a certain level of sellout, and that’s just what the bald man does. For starters, the place is always packed to the clean-shaven gills with young and old, gregarious and lonely, lovers and friends and is packed enough to put Cheesecake Factory to shame. The thing is, when you know what the crowd will be like, you need to hire enough competent servers to cover it. And it’d be nice if you trained them to at least pretend they don’t hate your customers.

Max Brenner gets an overly generous 3 stars since it is a chain. There is some element of endearment about a man, however creepy-looking he may be, who embraces his baldness. When that creeper crawls through your window, you can rest assured that he won’t be sporting a comb-over, and that alone is reason enough to earn a solid 3 stars.