Maxim is a restaurant on the periphery for us. We pretty much never head there as a destination. For some reason, I have a hard time remembering this place, until you drive past it on ECB.
The menu is varied, as is the customer base. On any given visit you’ll see African American families enjoying the Orange Chicken and other ABC (American Born Chinese) favorites, a pair of Hispanic working stiffs ravenously attacking a plate of fried rice, a Filipino family chowing on a sizzling plate or two, and large parties of Vietnamese ordering up plates of seafood usual seated in the larger dining area on the right side of the restaurant.
And the menu is as varied as the clientele, with everything from Yu Hsiang (fish flavored) and various clay pot dishes, to the inevitable Chop Suey and Orange Chicken, to Bun and Pho! That’s a lot of territory to cover, and honestly, not everything at Maxim’s has been good. That said, the prices make it worth a try. Funny thing, they’ve pretty much got us pegged… they start talking to the Missus in Mandarin as soon as She enters the place.
So here’s a sampling of what we’ve had over the last couple of months at Maxim’s. Starting with the good:
The Sizzling Beef Sate ($10.99):
We’ve had pretty good luck with Beef dishes at Maxim’s, and this was very nice. The beef was tender, and the sate rich though only mildly spicy. It was a bit on the greasy side, but pretty good.
Actually, we’ve had pretty good luck with anything Sate at Maxim’s, the Sate Shrimp($8.99) was no exception:
The shrimp were perfectly cooked, moist and tender. The garlic-peanut flavor was good. Again the only problem I had with the dish was the distinct lack of spice. Being that we believe the folks who run the place are Chiu Chow(I’m sure someone can tell us for sure), it’s not surprising that they do a decent Sate.
The Salted Fish and Chicken Fried Rice ($8.99), was sufficiently pungent:
But lacked the deep savory flavor of a good salted fish fried rice. The rice was decently stir fried, but lacked a decent “wok hay” that would have taken this up a notch.
The Seafood Pan Fried Noodle ($8.50) was pretty ugly looking, and I didn’t care for the noodles used, and there was a distinct lack of “seafood”:
But the flavor of the gravy, a nice salty-garlic taste, with a hint of sweetness, made this palatable. When looking at this dish, I started noticing something about the dishes at Maxim’s….. most of them were kinda, well, “fugly’ looking. The dishes really didn’t look that appetizing. And thus, Maxim’s became the place where things “tastes much better then it looks.”
The Flavor Duck ($9.50) was a very large portion of soy sauce stewed duck.
The duck suffered from star anise overload, as the anise flavor, along with excess saltiness took over the whole dish.
A heavy handed star anise and ginger flavor, along with a much too thin “gravy” also ruined the Special Beef Stew Clay Pot ($8.99):
Too bad, because otherwise this would have been a pretty good clay pot, as the meat was tender.
One day I noticed…gasp, Salt and Pepper Chicken wings($4.79) on one of the signs posted on the wall. There was no way I could resist.
This was interesting, the chicken had a batter that reminded me of something that came from a box with the letter B-A-N-Q-U-E-T written on the side. It also topped with fried garlic that obviously came from a jar….. not good eats.
One day, we went for the “Vietnamese Menu” and the Missus ordered the combination Com Tam (broken rice) dish ($6.99):
This was an interesting dish. The broken rice wasn’t very fragrant, but who doesn’t love a fried egg?
The “Bi” (shredded pork) was extremely dry, but that “char grilled beef” was quite good. In fact, it almost tasted like a less sweet Mongolian Beef, and was very tender. I ended up poaching most of it off the Missus’s plate.
I ordered the Phnom Penh Noodle:
The broth was deceptively clear, it had a lot of flavor, but gave me the MS – heebie-geebies, perhaps a bit too much of the three letter flavoring. The noodles were done well, with a nice al dente pull to it. The combination of meat was fine, I didn’t care much for the slices of liver, and the fish balls were “meh”. The rest of it, chunks of what looked to be roasted pork and some offal were fine. Not that I’d have this again, but it was fine.
So what is my suggestion? Give Maxim’s a shot…… heck, you might find something that “tastes much better then it looks”!
The pricing structure with most items under ten dollars, makes Maxim’s a decent value. and they are open until midnight. Think of it as a sort of Sam Woo of the neighborhood…….
Maxim’s Seafood Restaurant
4616 El Cajon Boulevard
San Diego, CA 92115
Open Daily – 10am to midnight