Did you know Max Brenner serves everything from sliders to nachos to fish tacos?

We didn’t.

We thought it was a chocolate shop.

Silly us.

“Chocolate by the Bald Man” is this place’s marketing hook, and we took them at their word.

Then we strolled up to the place last night and tasted the much ballyhooed hot chocolate (ballyhooed, that is, by the teenagers running the place) and found it smelled and tasted of cheese.

That’s right, of cheese.

Of sour, rancid, fermented milk.

12 hours later, we still can’t get that taste out of our mind.

And don’t for one minute think that rancidity was caused by bad milk.

Oh no, it tastes sour because they use industrial milk chocolate and pawn it off on a credulous public as something special.

If you want good chocolate, walk to Vosges Haute Chocolat at the other end of the mall, or into Caesars for a taste of Payard. The prices are similar and the quality is astronomically higher.

Max Brenner’s is about marketing and franchising…in other words, anything but great chocolate. It is as much about chocolate as Planet Hollywood is about astronomy and acting.

It is a faux-artisanal fraud.

You have been warned.

MAX BRENNER

In the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace

3500 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.462.8790

http://www.maxbrenner.com/