Max’s Burgers officially opened on January 23rd, 2012, but held a private Friends & Family (by RSVP) soft opening on January 14th and also a media event on the 17th. I jumped on the chance to get a sneak tasting ahead of the general public and brought along Janice and Amy. It was a very informal affair, we were allowed to order any burger with 3 toppings and a drink. I should mention that this was all on the house for everyone.
Chinny ordered the The Big Max ($9), substituting the 5oz beef patty for a chicken thigh (no charge) and also opted for a broccoli salad instead of the fries (no charge).
For the sake of blogging and to avoid repetition, Janice ordered the Gargomel’s Stuffed Toadstools ($11), the vegetarian option of portobello mushrooms. Careful with this, it’s a slippery bugger..the wet mushrooms can cause some wardrobe malfunction and squirt out across the room.
I ordered The Big Max ($9), and was allowed to pick 3 different toppings, so on top went mushrooms, cheddar cheese and an onion ring.
Some thoughts about the burger, the bun is slightly sweet and kept its form well (baked in house), and the patty was quite juicy and tasted strongly of pepper, and I appreciated the pinkness in the middle. The fries I could do without, they tasted weird, kind of sweet but also acidic at the same time. Could it be because of their use of tallow (beef fat) instead of regular oil? Or was it the potatoes themselves?
After the first visit, I saw that they had “The Behemoth” on their menu and thought….easy.
A 25oz burger w/ fries, yam fries, onion rings and a pitcher of beer (or pop) is supposed to overfeed 4 for $55? I figured I could finish it with two others, so I wrangled up the every trusty Jeff and James, and we made our way to Max’s yesterday.
Well, that was easy. Take 5 regular beef patties and mush them together, bam, hand formed 25oz burger patty!
Once the patty was cooked, it was time for assembly. I don’t doubt that the final count of toppings amounted to 1 pound, underneath all that ham is 5 fried eggs, cheese, and there was still bacon to be put on as well.
I actually was expecting a much bigger bun and patty.. didn’t seem so intimidating at all.
Size comparison with a puny salt shaker.
James trying to split the burger evenly. According to Jeff, each slice should have been 135 degrees or something like that. University education I tell ya.
The second part of the meal was just a plate of fries, yam fries and onion rings. Again, the fries I could do without, but this time they were better and didn’t have that strange sweetness and acidic taste, but there were clumps stuck together. Shake the fry basket! Yam fries are the Sysco type, but the onion rings were good!
The final part of this meal was a pitcher of beer/pop. Originally I wanted beer, but since I drove, Jeff can’t drink right now, and James has given up alcohol for a while due to health/exercise..drinking an entire pitcher by myself was out of the question, so we just asked for cranberry juice.
Now for some gratuitous shots of the burger.
Time to eat..how does MusclesGlasses eat like this every damn episode of Epic Meal Time? The meat itself was a little dry, but that’s hard to control since it was such a big patty..though if my regular burger can be cooked pink in the middle, why not this big one? The fried eggs were a most excellent addition, my favourite topping.
Like a snake unhinging its jaw to eat their prey…but really biting off nothing. bahahaha.
I was first to finish, barely taking time to drink water for the hiccups and to speak. Jeff and James were complaining about how my slice was the smallest, but they cut it AND they picked up the pieces first. Not my fault, I was the last to pick up a piece, they just picked wrong.
Victor and Caitlin ordered The Big Max to share while we ate.
3 bites to finish half a burger. I’m sure Victor could eat the Behemoth burger by himself.
Closing thoughts…we actually weren’t full from the burger and fries..and that’s already an 8oz~ beef patty with toppings and bun! I suppose if we had beer instead of juice, it would have filled us up, but that’s just filler liquid at the end of the meal anyways. I went home and had some rice and leftovers!
Was it worth the $23 (incl tax+tip) the 3 of us paid for it? Sort of not really, it’s cool to say I’ve done it, but I wouldn’t order it again as we’ve all obviously got a bigger than normal appetite. Perhaps if you’re a small eater, it’d be a fun thing to do with 3-4 of your equally small eater friends, otherwise, I’d just order a burger from the regular menu and call it a day at Max’s.
Max’s Burgers
521 W 8th Ave, Vancouver, BC
(604) 873-6297
