Houston Restaurant Week: Max's Wine Dive

We participated in Houston Restaurant Week this year, an annual partnership between the Houston Food Bank and local restaurants to fight hunger. For just $35 you get three courses at your pick of among Houston's finest restaurants, and $5 from each meal is donated to Houston Food Bank. It's a pretty sweet deal all around. As we mentioned in our previous entry, the powers that be extended HRW until 9/6, so book your reservations now!

We made reservations at two places this year: Max's Wine Dive and Catalan Food and Wine. First up was Max's Wine Dive. 

(We'll hit up Catalan on Thursday to jump-start Val's birthday weekend. Yes, we said birthday weekend. It's going to be a weekend-long event that will also include dinner and Robert Rodriguez's"Machete" with our families; a potluck at Jill's mom's pad; and BBQ at Jasper's with our nieces, Raven and her nephew).

Tortoise Creek Pinot Noir and Terlato Pinot Grigio.

-First Course-

Max & cheese: cavatappi pasta in truffle cream with fresh mozzarella, white cheddar, gruyere and grana padano cheeses. 

Creamy, smooth and sharp. Definitely not your mom's mac & cheese!

Arugula salad with watermelon croutons: arugula, roasted pistachios, cotija cheese, shaved red onion and watermelon cubes dressed in a lemon-ginger vinaigrette. 

This combination doesn't sound like it would work, but the watermelon added a freshness to the salad and offset the tartness of the vinaigrette. We had never had pistachios in a salad before, and they brought a nice, crunchy texture. Their sweetness complimented the flavor of the watermelon too. We're going to have to recreate this perfect-for-summer salad at home, it was so good!

-Second Course-

Southern fried chicken: chicken marinated in buttermilk and jalapeños and served with chipotle honey, mashed potatoes, collard greens and Texas toast. 

This dish was rather disappointing. The batter was limp and lacked seasoning. The chicken itself was dry and bland. The potatoes were pretty ordinary, and the collard greens were overly sour. However, the Texas toast was essentially thick-cut slices of buttered heaven!

The fried egg sandwich: three fried eggs drizzled with truffle oil and sea salt with applewood-smoked bacon, gruyere, hydroponic bibb lettuce, tomatoes and black truffle aioli between two slices of ciabatta publiese. Served with Max's chips.

This was one elevated egg sandwich. And it was enormous. You really can't go wrong with these ingredients, and is there anything better than yolk dribbling down the side of your sandwich? On the other hand, we were a little disappointed that the bacon seemed to overpower the flavor of the truffle aioli; we really couldn't taste the aoili at all in fact. And the chips were a pretty under-salted and lacking in crispness. 

-Third Course-

Bread pudding with a scoop of gelato: creamy, silky perfection. (But Ruggles still makes our favorite bread pudding of all time)

Anna's nuetalla crepes with gelato and drizzled with chocolate and caramel sauce: a delicious and elegant dish that's almost too pretty to eat. Almost.

Overall we were really happy with our experience at Max's Wine Dive. The atmosphere was cozy, relaxed and unpretentious. The portions were huge, which was a great value considering that Max's prices are more reasonable than many local restaurants doing the elevated southern comfort food thing (such as RDG Grill + Bar Annie or Ouisie's Table). Their brunch and $6 happy hour menu look promising too. Crème brûlée-battered french toast...what?  We'll be back for sure.

In other news, a woman who works at corporate for Max's Wine Dive stumbled across our Max & cheese photo on Foodspotting and wants copies :). Kudos to Mani and his mad food photography skills!