Max's Restaurant

It's been a while since I've been back to Max's Restaurant on Kingsway near Boundary. In terms of the location, the restaurant is in a highly visible spot right on a main street. It is very large with capacity of probably 200 or so. The interior set-up, layout, and furniture resembles something like an up-scale fast food restaurant and is brightly lit and clean.

I've been to Max's for lunch before, and it wasn't very busy. However, on this trip for dinner the restaurant was bustling with diners and servers. There was a constant queue of people waiting in the lobby for tables. Luckily we made reservations in advance. We still had to wait a few minutes for them to set-up our table, but it was well worth it because they gave us a table in the corner of the restaurant (perfect for the little ones to run around and play after dinner).

Although they do serve some set meals, we ordered several dishes to share family-style so we could all try a bit of every dish. Despite the restaurant being very busy, the food came out very quickly and all at once (which is rare for an Asian restaurant - they usually serve the dishes as they are ready). I think we waited less than 15 minutes.

The first item on our order list was the Lumpiang Shanghai which are deep fried spring rolls of ground pork and spices with a sweet and sour sauce on the side. The lumpia wrapper was thin and didn't taste greasy at all. The ground pork and spices are finely chopped/ground so they don't fall apart when you take small bites at a time. The sweet and sour sauce was a little too thin/runny for me. I ended up eating them with the Banana Sauce that comes on every table instead. The Banana Sauce is like ketchup. H loved eating the spring rolls, but for some reason she ate all the lumpia wrapper first and then ate the ground pork after. I guess she loves her fried food.

Next on the list was the Spicy Liang Tilapia which is a fried tilapia fillet with spicy taro leaves cooked in a rich coconut cream sauce. This is a favorite of J's and our friends. As J would say, any boneless fish is good fish. The creamy sauce on top really makes the dish. The taro leaves are very similar to chopped spinach and it blends very well with the coconut sauce. Despite the name, the sauce is only mildly spicy. H didn't like the sauce at first, but she ended up gobbling it up because it mixed well with rice, and she really loves her fish. Don't let the small size of the dish fool you. With all that yummy sauce, it ends up being quite heavy in the tummy.

Whenever there is pork belly on the menu, my buddies will order it. At Max's, the belly on the menu was the Lechon Kawali which is crispy deep fried pork belly with liver sauce on the side. The belly was crispy on the outside and edges, and soft and tender on the inside. I didn't really taste any seasoning on it, but it really wasn't necessary. Admittedly I did not try the liver sauce. I ended up mixing the pork belly with some of the other foods all on my plate.

The next dish was the Bangus Sisig Boneless Milkfish which was a sizzling plate of diced boneless milkfish, onions, and some other ingredients I don't remember. The milkfish was very meaty and tasted almost like chicken. The plate came with two slices of lemon wedges, which we squeezed onto the place. However, the milkfish had a lot more tang to it than those two wedges could have provided. It was very tasty and became the talk of the meal. The dish was featured on the menu in an insert and not available in their online menu so it's probably relatively new. This is one dish I would definitely order again.

No meal is complete without at least some form of vegetables, so we ordered the Pinakbet which is a vegetable stew made with vegetables, sauteed ground pork, shrimp, and shrimp paste. The vegetables were soft but not overcooked and included a mix of okra, green beans, onions, eggplant, zucchini, yellow bell peppers, pumpkin (I think), and the shrimp and pork in the dish description. The shrimp paste was light and subtle, wrapping up the dish very well.

The last item on our order was Max's Fried Chicken. Our whole chicken order was served with some yam fries on the side which H just loved. The chicken itself was fried golden brown without batter. It reminded me a lot of fried chicken at Chinese restaurants, except the taste was a little different. It was a little on the greasy side (just the skin) but quite tender on the inside. The chicken was a little bland on its own, but it went very well with the Banana Sauce.

After we finished devouring all the food from our table, we ordered a couple of desserts to top off our meal. First up was the Halo-Halo which is a blend of refreshing tropical fruits, beans, milk, and
sugar in shaved ice, topped with a scoop of
Ube (purple yam) ice cream and rice flakes. The ingredients went well together and the rice flakes were the star of the show. They added a crunchy texture to the desseert without adding to the overall sweetness. I did not try this one myself, but I was told that it was very good.

The dessert that I ordered (along with half the table) was the Buko Pandan which was young coconut mixed with pandan leaf (screwpine)
gelatin and tapioca in a rich fluffy cream sauce, with
macapuno (coconut) ice cream and rice flakes. The dessert was a little overly sweet due to the cream sauce, but once again the rice flakes stood out the most in the dish. The gelatin had a subtle flavour to it that I found hard to distinguish because the cream was overbearing. The coconut ice cream was delicious and I wish there was more of it than the cream sauce. Overall, it was good but too sweet.

Service as a whole was quite good. Our server was quick to respond to all our requests and was very polite and well-mannered. He was always happy to help and quick to serve most of the time. It was a busy night at the restaurant but it didn't feel like it based on the quality of the service we received.

Summary
Food: Very good. Every dish was good and well-made. I especially like their Lumpiang Shanghai spring rolls.

Service: Very good. It's a busy restaurant but the servers are attentive and very polite.

Setting: Good. Plentiful parking and the restaurant is well-lit and clean.

Value: Average. The dishes are pricey but the quality of the food pulls this up from a Poor rating. The good service also helps.