Maxims de Paris

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Mention MAXIM'S and almost anybody would know its fame in France. With their signature restaurants and shop outlets also having penetrated into the markets of Japan, Shanghai, Beijing, etc, what do we the Hong Kong and Macau people receive as leftovers? A CHOCOLATE AND CANDIES SHOP. Not a restaurant or patisserie in sight! HAHA.- Bought a small selection of chocolates here and they're pretty decent indeed, although they're not classified by 'terroir' or regions of produce. You just need to trust the MAXIMs brand somehow and the chocolates certainly comes in the prettiest boxes ever designed. I was tempted to buy the most expensive on the catalogue just to get my hands on one of its boxes.. the chocolates can go into the freezer - Espresso Machine Coffee. So what do we spot here from a mile away? What? A SYNESSO 2 group machine...! Now they're talking. These guys seem serious with their French imported coffees indeed, at least that' my first impression - afterall, not even one single shop in Hong Kong that I'm aware of carries a SYN. Almost forgotten what one looks like....All this combined with a conical burr Grinder that has an interesting, Additional attachment shaped like a Bazooka with a robotic arm, which automatically 'doses' and 'pressure tamps' the coffee beans and grind per order when the barista locks in the portafilter handle manually. So instead of it being a 'manual' operation, its now becoming more of a Auto-Semi-Auto operation without much daily calibrations possible! Its not the best solution, I'm sure many wouldn't agree with this approach... Yet somehow its eliminates most human error factors and together with a very expensive espresso machine adjacent shows how serious MAXIMs is with their coffee, to drink with their also high quality chocolate.ESPRESSO - Already kinda guessed that this couldn't be of much goodness with the current restrictive set up and I wasn't wrong. The single espresso (served in paper cup too, a taboo) was slightly over-extracted, the grind and tamp were also slightly off, making the end 'cupping' a bit thin and acidic, without the proper extraction pressure. The water temp was also seemingly too low. On the positive side - this was already head and shoulders better than most ones you get from local chainstores. '3' out of '5'.CAPPUCINO - Smells pretty lovely and drinks much better than I'd imagined possible! Mostly chocolatey notes with the underlying acidity cancelled out in the milk'ed version, this was definitely a French coffee reflecting its darkish roasted primary character. A lovely drink! The milk was textured perfectly too - silky smooth without annoying soap lather like bubbling, temperature quite spot on...... a very good manual job by the staff, who was properly trained. Anyone who thinks Manual and Semi-Auto Espresso machine produced drinks are 'shortcuts' or 'easier' to make than Siphoned or Dripped must be kidding themselves, as I noticed someone writing incorrectly about this somewhere on the net. There's a reason why an Espresso Machine is the main tool used during World Barista Championship competitions - that's more than enough proof by itself. *Unless you're talking about the Super-Auto operated machines at certain Sxxxxxxks outlets or anything that only requires a push of the button, such as the fast food chainstores... but those are completely irrelevant, despite a similar design.* There are just so much more 'Controllable Variables' to be adjusted which affects the quality of the cup. MAXIMs in Macau knows this and have since settled on using a slightly innovative approach with their installations of expensive gadgets running side by side - seems like somehow, the Frenchies don't trust the humans or the constantly rotating staff members from not destroying their brand image here! Its a solution not utilised by anyone in any Hong Kong coffee shops as far as I know and I also haven't seen this in Australia before. And the results certainly reflect their thoughtfulness:'4.0-4.5' out of '5' Compare this to the fully 'manually' but 'amateurishly' operated drinks I got from The Singing Bean, which were just dreadful, I would rather settle for something which is consistently producing 70-80/100 coffees than gambling my money on an unknown Barista in Macau who might make me anything from a score of 0/100 to 100/100. Which would you prefer? continue reading