Max’s of Manila

Today during lunch after service with my Mom dad and cousin, we all decided to dine in and was craving for Filipino Food! Maxs Of Manila Iwilei Dillingham side is my favorite place to go to eat filipino dish and experience a filipino environment. Its very classy and they were very welcome. Very clean and it has good air conditioning. Some of my favorite people working there is the Manager and her name is Elizabeth and also their waitress named Daisy. The reason is they are very friendly, accurate, precise with orders. Unfortunately we had a different waiter and he was okay. We ordered large garlic rice which consists 5 big scoops, and then we also ordered the regular kare kare or the peanut oxtail soup which comes with a condiment on the side called alamang and its color pink. Even ordered their Pork Sinigang soup, and whole awesome fried chicken! Ice tea is great! all of their foods taste so delicious! And then we ordered 3 Halo halo shaved ices! Everything is over the top. Thanks for the service and it was good! price is $ 71.20 and left a good tip for the waiter.

I like Max’s. I’m not an expert on Filipino food but I enjoyed the fried chicken and noodle combo.

My parents and I stopped here for lunch after landing in Honolulu and got three dishes to share: the pork sisig (as recommended by a few reviews), tamarind beef soup, and half a friend chicken, which the menu brags about on its own page.
Let’s start with the good: the pork sisig was unlike anything my parents or I had ever tasted before. My mom took some time to warm up to it, but was quite impressed after the initial shock; my dad and I shared her sentiments about this dish. The portion size for this is so big, we only wound up finishing about half of the plate, and took the rest with us for later in the day.
Next, the tamarind beef soup was quite good. It came in a huge bowl that contained more than enough soup for all three of us. In fact, we each had a bowl and still wound up with another full bowl’s worth for leftovers. My only quibble with the soup is that the vegetables in it were’t chopped at all — which isn’t an issue with some of the vegetables, such as the eggplant and daikon, but which presented a issue when some of the leafy greens’ stalks were too tough to chew through due to being overlarge.
Now, we arrive at the underwhelming part of the meal. It wasn’t that the fried chicken was bad, per se. In fact, I thought it was quite good. However, my parents were unimpressed, and felt that the chicken wasn’t very different from what you can get at any other fried chicken establishment. While I don’t think this is necessarily true (the crunch you get on the skin and top layers of meat here is quite unique), I do think the chicken was a bit bland. The only flavors that really came through were of the oil that it was fried it; the meat itself was rather flavorless, and it was only the addition of copious amounts of banana ketchup that saved his dish from being a flat-​out disappointment.
It’s possible that this would have been a four star review without the addition of the chicken to our order.
Service was quick and friendly. The restaurant itself is clean and obviously well-​managed. It took us a little while to get the hostess’ attention to get seated, but all went smoothly from there on out, so I call that a win on the service category as a whole.
Last comment: there was a big sign next to the hostess stand advertising $ 5 appetizer when we came in today (a Saturday). As it turned out when we asked our server about these appetizers, that promotion is only valid Monday through Friday. A suggestion to management: only put the sign out on days when the promotion is running. Otherwise, it can be rather misleading to customers.

Ok, so I really like this place…
First off, I am a first generation Hawaii born full filipino and my parents were born and raised in the Philippines. So, I’m very picky about where I eat filipino food as there’s none other better than authentic home-​cooked filipino food. But, I finally found a place that is comparable to what I was used to while growing up!
This restaurant is always clean and the wait is not too long. The food is delicious, the staff is polite and the service is quick. My faves are the: garlic rice, crispy pata, and lechon kawali. My husband likes the liampo and my son likes the bangus. The food is served family style and the hearty portions are very satisfying.
To top it off, the desserts are awesome! My daughter enjoys the buko pandan and the halo-​halo is huge (two or even three people could share it).

The wait is way too long! They take so many reservations on top of having a back to back party!
There are more than 200 people in the place!

I have nothing bad to say about this place. ;)
The staff did an excellent job serving us, and I left quite satisfied.
The dishes were sublime.

Who doesn’t love Filipino Food? I love this place so much! Give thanks to the General Managers, and my heartfelt appreciation to the chefs/​cooks and servers. I felt like I am back to the Philippines. I love the warm hospitality and was greeted with smiles and a warm welcome of many times. I once experienced renting out a Ruby Ballroom for a Bachelors Party and my how fancy they made the party. All was class!
The food is so exceptional! Very good! Dinakdakan, Lumpia, Sinigang, lechon kawali, and omg my much much much favorite of all time is the PORK SISIG! Ugh I soooooo love it! Sorry I don’t mean to sound so gluttonous haha but Im telling you the truth! Once you squeeze it with lemon or calamansi, man! It’s a killer!
We often times enjoyed the Halo halo! But there are times, it just tastes watery only. I do hope they work on that asap. But still I give them a 5 star for everything.
I love their pansit, roasted chicken, chicken sisig, beef steak, topsilog, and whatever is that they have in their menu. I tried everything on their menu! I also loved their Gulaman Drinks! I had to say Dillingham Max is the best, but Waipahu’s one … yikes. I hope they gotta work on their customer service a lot, and food portions as well.

Service here is non existence franchisee
Needs to retrain the whole staff including managers that you never see food is nothing to rave about

The service was slow…
The «nilagang baboy» was tasty except the fact that the meat was so hard it was almost inedible, they should cook it longer.

Special thanks to Robert & Daisy of Max of Manila in Honolulu, Hi. They cater to us so well. Good food and friendly staff!

To be clear, the 3-​star rating I gave is for the food.
Customer service = 1 star.
Arrived there and appeared like they closed 75% of the place for a party. Waited for 5 minutes until the hosthelp showed up and assisted us. Sat on the table and checked the menu. We told a waiter that we are ready to order but I guess it wasn’t his job to wait because all he said was «Ok» and left. After waiting for 10 mins, our server, Hover, finally appeared. Hover seems to try his best to give good service but he is just too busy serving his other tables. The other staff are all busy preparing the party section.
The food came out fast enough. Taste is good. I grew up with these kind of food. Lechon kawali and crispy pata are still crispy. Dinuguan are mostly pork meat. Their chicken is good but the breast is too dry.
Arren is another okay server. I think he is in charge of refilling your drinks and providing napkins. Well, with him there, we never ran out of water and napkins! He’d pop out of nowhere and hand you napkins.
As for dessert, buko pandan was ok. The teenie tiny sago (tapioca) wasn’t cooked well though. The halo-​halo needs some sugar but we didnt ask for some sugar anymore because ot seems like they are in a hurry for us to leave (to prepare for the big party).
We didn’t ask for our bill yet but it placed it on our table already (told ya they were in a hurry for us to leave).
I don’t think I will return to this place. They really needs to improve their customer service.

Came here on our recent vacation to Honolulu for sun. I haven’t been to Max’s since my previous vacation to the Philippines last year so I could still make a good comparison. I like this one better than back in the Philippines. The food options were more and had a more Filipino American take on the dishes. The food tastes better here to me and had all my favorites. It was my girlfriends first time at a Filipino restaurant and she really enjoyed it. Our service was pretty good and fast. The price is a little bit higher but I’m not complaining. I will come again on my next visit!

I wish they had Filipino restaurants like these back in Chicago. This food here tastes like I was back in the Philippines, it is authentic and delicious beyond words.
This place is so good that we ended up going here for lunch two days in a row. We had the bistec and pork adobo, and I swear it took me back to my childhood when my Mom would make those for dinner. The halo-​halo (shaved iced dessert) is the best I have had outside of the Philippines.
This place is tucked away in a strip right by Costco, and you wouldn’t find it unless you are paying attention. I clearly wasn’t because I ended up going in circles a few times. Thanks a lot Siri, but I forgave her once I had the grub here.
Hawaii is our home away from home, and this will be a must visit every time we go back to the Aloha state.

I used to not like going to Filipino restaurants because I can cook most dishes the way I would like (and better). However, being Filipino, it’s hard to avoid the times where I have to go to Max’s, so I’m glad I finally found something to order here.
Likes: Wide assortment of Filipino food. Seems to focus on Tagalog cuisine. Some of the dishes are not bad for a restaurant, like their Kare Kare.
Dislikes: Service is slow, and the servers usually seem distracted.
Favorites: I only order two things from here, the fried chicken and the lechon. It’s not a healthy meal, but it tastes good! I don’t really have the patience to make lechon either, so it’s convenient that they serve it here.
All in all, it’s not bad. Not the best Filipino food, but I’m incredibly biased as I can cook my own Filipino food.

Met my cousins here for lunch today since we all love Filipino food. It was a very busy day & the restaurant was packed.
We ordered milk fish, Pinakbet, Pancit, Shanghai spring rolls & we also shared a halo halo which was so good & refreshing.
This restaurant is located in the same parking lot as the Iwilei Costco. Beware that this parking lot is crazy busy & it’s nuts on a Friday.
Everything was good including the service but I wished that they had refilled our waters at least once. I guess they were too busy but I will return to try some other dishes!

Another Unilocal review update for Max’s. A few months ago I had to sit out the opportunity to attend a Unilocal UYE at Max’s. The group ordered a family style dinner which gave the Unilocal diners the opportunity to try out classic Filipino dishes featuring pork, chicken and shrimp and beef in a safe environment. Filipino food is not as well known or understood as other Asian cuisine’s here on Oahu. It helps to have a guide when entering unfamiliar territory.
When I go to Max’s, Vince B. becomes his alter ego «Vicente». Well, Vicente was having a hard time finding meat free dishes at Max’s until I looked closely at the new Max’s menu. There are now several vegetarian meat free dishes. So our family decided to have our own private UYE with Vicente hosting.
Food: My wife and daughter ordered their favorites and were happy as could be. Garlic rice, grilled milkfish and kare kare. Vicente got brown rice (boring yeah… I know), eggplant salad and sizzling asparagus and tofu. These were excellent dishes and I am so grateful that I can now accompany my family to Max’s.
Vegetarian: There were two other dishes that were meatless too. Ong Choi Salad and another Sizzling Tofu. The menu mentions that there are vegetarian options available. I should have clarified this to see if some other dishes could be made meatless. Will do this next time.

Came here again for my late birthday celebration this past week and we just happened to come on a night that there was a party happening in the back on a weekday. So it was busier than usual but we were able to get seated 15 minutes later just in time for the rest of our party arrived. We had 5 people in our party around 7pm. Although they just added a table on to a 4 person booth that was on the side to fit us 5.
When you’re hungry you order with your eyes and that’s exactly what we did. We got a buffet full of pretty much 1 from each category. We started off with lumpia shanghai ($ 8.25) as our appetizers and the following just kept coming:
–Crispy Pata ($ 13.50)
–Kare Kare ($ 12.95)
–Half Chicken ($ 8.75)
–Sinigang ($ 9.75)
–Crabmeat Rice ($ 9.95)
–Miki Bihon ($ 9.50) Egg and Rice Noodles
–Bicol Express ($ 14.50)
You really gotta have a stomach to eat all of these foods as it is quite hearty to have for a meal itself. My favorite is their crabmeat rice, miki bihon which was a mixture of egg and rice noodles, lumpia shanghai and their max’s chicken. So good! All great in food quality and freshness. Of course we couldn’t finish it all as it was too much to consume in one sitting.
Even though we were suffering from some major food coma, we still have room left for dessert. Who wouldn’t right?! I love dessert! Of course since you’re at a filipino restaurant, they’ll only serve filipino dessert choices. The most popular one would be the Halo Halo for $ 5.75. I don’t really care for Halo Halo but I do love ube ice cream so I got a scoop of that instead. It’s $ 3.50 for a scoop, quite pricey for a scoop I think.
Our service during our last visit was average and could of been better. Our water was luke warm with no ice in any of our cups. I don’t know about you guys but I’d rather have ice water whenever I’m eating out. They were slow in filling up our waters. Food came out longer than expected but understandable since there was a big party during the time we were there. But it would of been courteous of them to check on us to buss some of our plates as we had barely room to eat with the amounts of food we ordered.
Easily more than $ 100 spent for 5 people but with extra leftovers to last us a couple days makes it all worth the money. Prices and portions is affordable for what they give out, can’t argue with that if you go home with left overs. Food has always been consistent based on the experiences I’ve gone here. Service could be improve though as it is a hit or miss when you’re here.

Decent Filipino food, which will never come close to a Filipino mother’s cooking. But if you’re hankering for some Filipino food, and really good fried chicken, Max’s is the way to go.
My family ordered a lot: garlic rice and steamed rice, palabok, whole fried chicken, sinigang, sizzling tofu, and fresh lumpia. The chicken and the sizzling tofu were the best out of all the dishes. The chicken was moist, and had a crispy skin. The sizzling tofu was reminiscent of honey walnut shrimp. It was slightly sweet because of the mayonnaise, but a bit spice from the jalapeño.
The fresh lumpia and palabok were okay. There wasn’t much flavor in both dishes.
Service was a bit slow for my taste. We had to keep on flagging down a waiter. But the staff was friendly and we always had our water glasses filled.

Food is great! Service — well, I should just say now that this the reason I haven’t gone again or probably ever will, even though I crave the food sometimes.
If you’re going, my suggestions:
1) Lechon Kawali — crispy fried pork with tomatoes and onions. Comes with a side of sweet, cold shredded papaya salad.
2) Sinigang — soup with sweet tamarind and tomato base, with pork. Gots some veggies floating round.
3) Halo Halo — means «mix mix» so to get the full effect, you should mix your dessert before eating it.
Prices are a little expensive for the amount of food, but you can get «meal sets» that allow you to choose several specific dishes together at a slightly lower price.
Good thing — lots of parking, located by Costco.
Our service mishap? Waiter spilled about 3 glasses of water on one of our party and stood there dumbfounded even after we walked out. I get it, «What did I do? I’ve never done that before!» That’s fine, but that doesn’t stop water from soaking jeans to the underwear. Put your tray down, apologize profusely, get paper towels. Please don’t stand there with the frozen shock on your face. No manager responded, about 2 other servers ran to get napkins. Some of our party debated about whether or not we would’ve gotten a comp meal for the water fail, but the staff didn’t respond quickly enough to beat us discussing it and leaving. Disappointed! Come for the food, not the service.

Max of Manila is a popular Filipino chain restaurant. This is your best option for family gatherings and HS Grad parties, they are more approachable for folks not familiar with Filipino food, clean and have private rooms and large seating sections.
The Garlic Rice is a good starch option if you don’t want noodles, it’s not greasy and has bits of fried garlic in it, only issue is the way they serve it on a plate makes the rice cold quickly. The Ensaladang Kangkong is a great vegetarian option. The blanched ong choi stems are crisp, the tomatoes juicy and the shoyu-​based dressing is well balanced and tasty.
For entrees, if you like lechon, you have to try the Crispy Pata. They take a pork hock and cook the meat until it’s tender then fry the skin until it’s crispy and serve it with a vinegar-​chili pepper sauce. The Crispy Pata is pork rind, meaty, gelatinous goodness. Also good is the Dinuguan. Don’t worry about the appearance or pork blood, if you eat meat, you eat blood. Scoop it on to your rice, it’s vinegary and the meat is tender.
I didn’t like Kare-​Kare, though other’s did. For me, the thick, peanut stew was too heavy. I didn’t like the sweetness and the oxtail meat wasn’t fall off the bone tender. The alamang they serve it with does cut the richness and makes it better. Their famous fried chicken is just okay. It’s a good option for picky eaters to have plain chicken for dinner.
Max of Manila takes reservations and there is plenty of free parking. Food is meant to be served family-​style and to feed a crowd.

Filipino food. It’s been such a long time since I have eaten Filipino food. I think the last time was when I was working at Aloha Stadium and I was helping the Filipino workers cut the papaya for chicken papaya soup.
Thursday April 16, 2015 was the night I had the opportunity of eating Filipino food for dinner. Family style dining shared with new friends.
Lumpia Shanghai was our appetizer. There were several small lumpias in a crispy bowl with sauce on the side. I was kind of disappointed on the size of the lumpia… I expected a little bigger and more filling.
Rice — 5 or 6 big scoops of Jasmine rice on a plate to be shared with individuals attending the dinner.
Max’s Special Fried Chicken — a whole chicken minus the head cut in half. Was crispy on the outside and well done on the inside.
Pancit Palabok — a noodle dish with shrimp sauce topped with cooked shrimp, boiled pork, crushed chicharron, fish flakes, scallions, fried tofu, and friend garlic. First time I had pancit cooked like this. I always had my pancit cooked like fried noodles.
Pinakbet — a vegetable dish. First time I had this dish. I never knew what it was until I eaten this dish.
Crispy Pata — pork knuckle deep fried making the skin crispy on the outside yet the meat was very tender on the inside.
Chicken Adobo — chicken marinated in shoyu, bay leaves, garlic, and a little vinegar. Absolutely delicious.
Since there was no chicken papaya soup during our dinner I had to use the gravy from the chicken adobo over my rice so I can finish it off.
Overall it was a above average experience at Max’s of Manila. The wait staff of the restaurant made sure that everyone had their drinks refilled when needed. Now I know where to go if I ever do have a craving for Filipino food.