Max's of Manila Review
Max's of Manila opened in Jersey City on September 28, 2010. There's a few things to be said of this place and the few words that come to mind is home cooking. Now don't get too excited about that right away. Let me explain.
Let's start with the ambience of the restaurant. At first impression upon walking in, you immediately notice a really comfortable and fanciness to the place. All of which include fine seating, intricate wall decorations and very well-mannered employees (hostesses and servers). We, all six of us, were seated quite quickly despite the long wait at the lobby and the outside of the restaurant. Being the second week of the place opening and the reputation it carries, I'd have to say "not too shabby". a fifteen minute wait was all it took. For some reason, it was all too good to be true; and so it was.
It all started with my table's orders. To put it as kindly as possible, I'll ask it in a question: "Does it normally take 45 minutes or more to bring out chicken?" Anyway, my party of six had a myriad of things ordered but what we all had in common was we all had the "famous" chicken (half) with garlic rice. The combo came with what looked like cream of corn soup and two scoops of ice cream at the end of your choosing. As I go through what was ordered, I'll describe what went through my mind about each item and whatever else was going on at the time. First the soup. The soup was rather good. A nice way to start the meal. It was flavorful and we were given a pretty nice serving of it. But wait, why is this waiter putting his hand in my face while I was in the process of eating my soup? Oh that's right, he's trying to take it away without even asking halfway through my bowl. Excuse me, I'm still working on this. "Ok" he says smugly. After about another 20 minutes, the first 20 having waited for our soup to be delivered, our platter of this famous chicken and garlic rice finally came out. Looks good! Smells good too! At first plunge, my fork and spoon briskly made its way through the meat and separated my first chunk of meat from its whole. I put it to my mouth and the first thing I could think of was "wow, this is really...DRY. Dry? Dry AND bland." If emoticons were to be inserted here, I'd most definitely be adding a sad face. I briskly make my way through the breast portion with a healthy slathering of hot sauce and ketchup to add a BIT of flavor to this $9.50 plate of chicken. Interestingly enough, as I approach the thigh and wing portion of the chicken, there was still barely any flavor and still on the dry and chewy consistency as the breast meat had had. Onto the garlic rice. This interesting combination has been used in many different ways but for some reason it didn't quite take the cake here. What this looked like was sticky rice or can even be mistaken for coconut rice with a few chunks of garlic in it. There were parts of the rice that tasted like garlic and parts that tasted like plain old sticky rice. Insert sad face. The end of the combo was the two scoops of ice cream. This meal couldn't be any worse and the fact that they give you ice cream at the end, I couldn't take my chances; "Vanilla, please." Amazingly enough, the ice cream saved the meal. It was a thick, rich form of vanilla very similar to Magnolia ice cream. Correction; it IS Magnolia ice cream. Awesome.
That being the "famous" part of the menu is the reason why I concentrated on it the most. The rest of table had a few other items that I merely "dabbed" into. Let's start with the Crispy Pata. This dish consists of a deep fried pork hind leg. I'm a huge fan of crispy pata so I was expecting something that I was paying double for, based on other nearby Filipino restaurants, to be beyond great; at least double. Insert smirk. Cutting into it was a pleasure because of the natural hard and crispy skin the leg tends to be after frying. This was cooked pretty much to perfection. The skin had a perfect crisp and the meat came apart in your mouth. Great! But wait, where's the taste? Once again the dish they bring a lot of attention to disappoints again. Once you put it in your mouth, without any sauce, you immediately notice how plain and uninteresting the dish is. Hmm, moving right along. Next up was a dish called Kare Kare (pronounced kareh kareh). This dish consists of a soup containing peanut butter mixed with flavoring and ox tail. Another Filipino delicacy. It looked a little light for my taste but then again, there are many ways of cooking this dish based on which part of the Philippines you come from. Sparing you the history lesson, I dive right in. At this point I'm not entirely sure if my palette was playing a trick on me because once again, lacking in taste; greatly. I look at the other members of my party and apparently it wasn't just me.
At this point, I decided I'd had enough. Those were the primary dishes that was "recommended" to us by not only the server but also by people that had Max's before. Did it live up to the hype? Not at all. The dishes were not only up in the dollar range, but it didn't seem to deliver to what it was remembered to be back in the Philippines. Funnily enough, a member of my party of 6 came here on a weekday (us being here now on a Saturday), she said the crowd was light and the food wasn't AS bad. What does this say about the restaurant itself? Inconsistent? Definitely not a great way to start your premier.
Let's end this with the employees. The employees were very nice and quite apologetic of the long wait both out in the lobby and the food. However, they seem to be very impatient when trying to clear the table of dishes. They clearly make their presence known when they shove their hand in your face and take dishes you're still clearly working on. There were also about 4 hostesses/cashiers working, or hardly working, behind the desk that seemed to be doing more talking than working. If Max's can afford to have that many hostesses and cashiers, more power to them. However, here's a bit of advice: If your servers are barely making it work with the amount of people in your restaurant, send the idle workers to deliver some food if they're not doing anything. Based on a pervious experience from a member of our party, it seems as if Max's doesn't know how to function in high traffic days. They compromise quality for quantity.
At the end of the day, I'd rather stay home and fry my own fried chicken and fry my own garlic rice. That's what I meant about a home cooked meal. It seemed that doing this on my own at home would have been a better choice both for my wallet and my palette. The food was mediocre at most and most definitely not worth the price they're asking. The rest of the dishes ordered were also mediocre at most and have more than enough room to improve. When you go out to eat, you want to have a good experience and have a taste for something other than what you have on a regular basis, ie: food you can cook on your own. I think that'll be my last visit to Max's . It just doesn't have the "come back" factor that I was hoping to get out of it. With every new restaurant opening, one of the things you think of is "I hope this is a restaurant I'd want to go to on a regular basis and would be excited to take my friends to". Sorry Max's, you're just not that kind of place.
.JPG)
