Lobster-burger, burger-lobster.

* * * Max Burger
124 LaSalle Road, West Hartford, (860) 232-3300, maxburgerct.com

Max Burger is the newest outpost of the Max Restaurant Group empire. With individual Max restaurants focused on fine dining, seafood and other subsets of the dining experience, Max Burger is perhaps the most of-the-people incarnation with a Max name, but it retains the same attention to detail, the same winning decor and atmosphere that mixes sophistication and a slightly at-ease vibe. (Come to think of it though, with the majority of the burgers coming in at over $10, it's not like they're cooking for the bargain shopper.) There's walnut-stained wood and artwork celebrating award-winning angus steers along with some Georgia O'Keefe-worthy cow skulls, a few charts mapping out choice cuts of beef and hints of general cowpoke imagery that thankfully don't ever tip into lasso-twirling cartoon. The stereo replaces Gene Autry and the Sons of the Pioneers with Beck and other hip tunes — they know not to take the theme too far.

And the menu is surprisingly restrained — at least in terms of its breadth. I expected a whole feedlot worth of burger variations, with mind-numbing topping combinations and ingredient swap-outs. Thankfully the Max Burger menu opts for a rustler's terseness. Not including all of the turkey, tuna, chicken, veggie and lobster "burgers," there are only really six proper burger options, meaning burgers made from ground beef (not counting a few significant upgrades and twists). Though one of those burgers is an $18 Kobe beef burger, which raises the somewhat unanswerable question of why you'd want to grind up your top-quality beef for use in a burger. And another burger is the stunt item known as the Fatty Melt, which consists of a half-pound burger and house-cured bacon sandwiched between two grilled cheese, um, sandwiches. Pretty intense sounding. Not exactly a bar bite.

For further evidence of excess, one need only look to the starters. We sampled the pickle-wrapped pastrami, which is basically what it sounds like, except for the fact that it's then dipped in tempura batter, fried and placed on a bed of sauerkraut and squirted with exuberant splashes of Russian dressing and whole-grain mustard. This seemed inspired by equal parts Macy's parade float, late-era Elvis snack and Katz's deli. I think you'd have to call the effect ridiculous. This is something you might enjoy with a round of drinks, but as a part of a meal, these things were a little over-stimulatingly tangy, though certainly festive. In contrast, an order of sausage and white bean soup seemed almost pleasantly bland; though it wasn't, it was just our taste buds trying to get their balance.

I sampled a lobster burger, which I somehow expected to be like a lobster roll served on a bun, but which was more like a crab cake made with lobster meat and then turned into a burger. There was a lot of lobster, though the treatment wasn't the best way to showcase it, but the crispy onions and ginger aioli certainly brightened up the dish. Fresh pickle slices provided a side note of sweet crunch. The fries are long and thin, but somehow not dry or over crisp, with bits of skin still on.

Lisa sampled a blackened burger that was served with jalapeno-Jack cheese, roasted green chili peppers, guacamole and honey-chipotle caramelized onions. Some of the flavors were lost here, too. There was little sign of the blackening spice. And the folks at Max Burger might want to reconsider the width of their artisan rolls, since they tended to make the burgers a little sloppier than desired. If you've already tired of the burger bonanza, there are pulled pork sandwiches, ribs, steaks, hot dogs, big salads, meat loaf, seafood and other options.

Max Burger isn't the kind of place that leaves a diner looking for dessert, but the caramel pudding (not exactly silky, but appealingly thick) topped with peanut brittle and whipped cream is worth planning ahead for, even if it means exercising restraint at the outset.