By Ipeleng Kgositsile

Some people go to church regularly on Sundays. Others go to brunch. I'm one of the latter. I owe this to my childhood. As a little girl, church for me was Sunday Brunch at Wilson's, a soul food restaurant on 158th and Amsterdam in New York. Mommy loved their peach cobbler. I was head over heels about their fish and grits.

Also, I loved the scene. Multi-layered birthday and wedding cakes adorned the bakery part of the restaurant's windows. Throngs of people waited outside and inside for a meal. In fact, I'm pretty sure that while Mommy and her friends were chatting that's where the start of my people-watching career began.

There was also much drama unfolding on the block, outside the restaurant. It was on 158th Street that I first learned about crack. One Sunday as my mother and I were walking to brunch, a woman offered my mother a vial. I had to be about eleven or twelve at the time. My mother being my mother, it was the last time I walked on 158th where Broadway leads to Amsterdam. That was nearly twenty years ago.

In the nineties, I banned myself from Wilson's altogether. I was living in Brooklyn at the time. Washington Heights had since become one of this nation's crack capitals. One afternoon after brunch, Mommy and I stepped outside and a hail of bullets sent us to the ground.

Crack has since moved to the middle of our nation. Wilson's has since closed. My mother has joined the ancestors. I'm, now, an Oakland resident.

Folks enjoying dining at Maxwell's Lounge, located at 341 13th St. Oakland, CA.

When it comes to soul food in Oakland, one has some choices when it comes to Sunday Brunch. But the choices are either few or unreliable. So, when I found out that the somewhat newly opened Maxwell's Lounge in my neighborhood of Downtown Oakland does a Sunday Gospel Brunch, I was eager and got on the horn. For nostalgia sake, I called up my New York crew in Oakland. Did I enjoy my experience? Yes. But this is owed to the company I was with.

This is, unfortunately, owed to one of the pitfalls of working in restaurants. When I'm sitting tableside, it is, often, hard for me to enjoy myself because I have such high standards when it comes to service. Having said that, Maxwell's could be the bomb, but they have plenty of kinks to straighten out.

One of them: the restaurant seems to have an identity issue. The room is cute in that it feels very R&B---it's hip, dramatic, and colorful, the crowd is good-looking, the tables are pre-set with champagne and water glasses. But something as simple as their jelly presentation does not go with the decor. We received Smucker's Jelly packets on a plate decorated with a paper doily.

Maxwell's may look official, but service is, also, a bit of a disaster. For example, it took a half hour for four Bloody Marys and a Mimosa to land on our table. Five plates of food took an hour. Plates were auctioned off when they arrived at the table. My toast came to the table after my plate had been cleared. Maybe that's just one of my pet peeves but when you are paying $30 per person for brunch, I want restaurant service. Not Denny's.

Another pet peeve? There are no biscuits. Granted, it's not my restaurant. But if I'm going out for a soul food breakfast, I want biscuits and rolls. Not white toast, wheat toast or an English Muffin.

To their credit, the food is good and the portions are generous. Malaika had the New Orleans Style Eggs Benedict. Tanicia had Max's Classic Waffle. Cynthia, Southern Fried Buttermilk Chicken. Eric, The Legend, which consisted of two eggs, sausage, and grits. Me, Down Home Fried Catfish. We pretty much licked our plates clean.

Maxwell's also scores points with its band. Though it's a bit loud (at one point, the hostess had to go outside the restaurant to use the phone), we like places that encourage young people and the arts. The band was, mostly, young people. Our meal was spent listening to them working it out onstage.

So. How do I feel about brunch at Maxwell's? I'd recommend the place, but keep the service issues in mind. For this reason, alone, you want to make sure you're with company you enjoy. So glad I was with friends I adore. As you and I both know, breaking bread is, rarely, about the food itself. It's about the company you're with.

Still, there's a part of me that wishes I could find Mrs. Wilson. She'd be able to help Maxwell's straighten their kinks out.

BlogOn: When you go out to eat, is it about the food? Or the company you keep?WhatchuTHINK?