Normally, I am allergic to driving long distances.  However, Cafe Maxx was recommended to me by a reliable source, and I am not one to shy away from a commute if there is a good meal to be had at the destination.  With that in mind, I made the trip to Cafe Maxx in Pompano Beach to see if they would live up to the recommendation.

The decor, to say the least, felt kind of dated to me.  Seeing as how the majority of the diners were elderly, I would say that it matched the target demographic.  My party of 30-somethings got strange looks here and there.

I started with the beef carpaccio.  It was pretty standard.  Unless the beef is not fresh, it’s kind of hard to mess this up.I was disappointed to find that they had no beef entrees on their fixed price menu, so I went with the pork chop.  It was served with potatoes au gratin.  Unless it’s roasted Cuban or Peruvian style, I normally don’t get too excited about pork.  This was no exception.  It was good, and the sauce had a nice smokey sweet taste, but nothing remarkable.  I was more impressed with the potatoes, which were extra cheesy and fantastic.For dessert, I picked the pumpkin cheesecake.  While incredibly dense, the cheesecake had an excellent pumpkin flavor.  It was served with a warm caramel sauce, which would wind up being the inspiration for the rum caramel sauce that I would use on a future cheesecake project.  However, the whipped cream topping turned out to be a very cloying meringue.  Maybe if there hadn’t been such a huge dollop of it on top of the cheesecake, it may have not been as distracting.  I scraped it off and set it aside.

The service could have been better.  Having worked in the restaurant industry, I tend to be fairly lenient with waitstaff.  So, the general absence of ours most of the time was fairly notable.  It wasn’t terrible, though, and our meals were still hot when they got to our table.  I might be willing to go back, but I am not in a hurry to do so.

For more information on Cafe Maxx, visit them at http://www.cafemaxx.com/