Dao Vien gets most of the attention because it’s familiar to Bangkok diners, but Maxx is actually two restaurants in one: Dao Vien, serving Vietnamese, and Mezza, which, despite the Italian-sounding name, is a Chinese restaurant. The service, while spotty (not knowing how to properly chill a bottle of wine, for example) was friendly and extremely helpful. The two-restaurants-in-one deal wasn’t obvious until we were handed two separate menus of the D-I-Y color-printouts-in-plastic-sleeves-variety, which have seen better days, with fading colors, running ink and stickers either covering old prices or identifying those items that are no longer available. Attracted as we were by the Dao Vien side of the equation, we couldn’t help but wonder why the selection of Vietnamese dishes is modest (with many of the dishes are stickered out), while the Mezza list is extensive and includes not only Chinese but also pan-Asian favorites such as laksa. We suspect this might be because the Vietnamese food that is still available is not very good. A banana blossom salad was made with “blossoms” cut from the more bitter and thicker part of the plant and tasted kind of stale. Both the “fresh” and fried spring rolls in our Four Seasons appetizer plate suffered from a similar lack of freshness. Better, but not by much, was the grilled minced beef wrapped in betel leaves, reasonably priced for eight pieces. All portions were generous, actually; unfortunately, in our case, that only meant more wasted food. Discouraged with our Vietnamese selections, we turned to the Chinese fare and were surprised to see Peking Duck on the menu—and on sale at B499, at that. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that they were happy to still prepare one for us right before closing time, after we had witnessed the team of uniformed chefs cleaning up the open kitchen. Although the skin was cut in uneven pieces, it was cooked until it was a lovely dark reddish-brown color and was crispy without being too greasy. But the sauce was only average and the pancakes were steamed into nearly unsalvageable sogginess. For B100, you can have the meat made into the laab-like miang and/or duck soup but neither option was particularly good. (Our waitress deserves credit for warning us in advance of the extra charge, however.) As for the atmosphere, we suspect it’s nicer during the day—when they offer cheap set lunches. Though there are some nice design touches (hanging cloth-colored lamps, a nicely tiled bar, latticed ceiling), it’s basically a big concrete room with modern, industrial-type tables and chairs, like a fancy cafeteria—kind of uninspiring, like the food.
