Max's on Mira Mesa opened at the end of June of 2020. We have a rather long history with Max's, starting during our time living in LA in the late 90's…by the time we moved to San Diego, Max's in National City had become Villa Manila, which eventually became a favorite of ours for Crispy Pata and Kamayan Night. Though to be honest, we haven't been back to VM since way before the pandemic hit. Enough of that; this is about Max's. A few months after opening, I decided to see if the fried chicken at this location (because, having been to couple of locations YMMV) was any good. Since this was in September of 2020, I decided to do takeout. I went and did an online order….just a half chicken and fries.
So, I arrived and walked up to the counter; it was 1130 and no one was in sight. I waited about 10 minutes until a gentleman showed up. I mentioned my order and was told it was almost ready……and then cooled my heels for another 20 minutes! Now, I had placed my order at 11am, arrived at the designated time, and still waited another half hour for my order. Good thing I didn't have any meetings until 1pm; otherwise……
Anyway, I opened up the cardbox containers upon arriving back in the office. The fried chicken, which I believe is brined and thus is quite juicy was as good as I remembered, thin skinned, crisp, if a bit on the salty side.
Quite nice.
I used the Jufran, the banana ketchup on the really dry and limp fries……I'll bet this was just sitting on the side during the extra time I waited for my chicken.
This was not good eats.
After this visit; I decided that I'd wait awhile before returning…..thinking that dining in might be the way to go. Not realizing of course, how long I'd be waiting during the pandemic.
And then, there was a time, when we thought we good see the light at the end of the Covid tunnel, when we thought that perhaps the worst was behind us……Calvin, "M", and I decided to actually go out and grab some lunch. Of course we wouldn't be taking any crazy chances…."M" wasn't too familiar with Filipino food…other than the usual lumpia, adobo, and the like….we headed over to Max's, arriving right at 11am. And it would be fairly quiet until right before we left.
There was only one hard working young lady on duty…I felt for her as takeout and other customers gave her a tough time. Based on my previous visit, I set some expectations, which unfortunately was pretty much in line with how long things took after we ordered.
We did of course have the fried chicken….sorry no photo, which M really enjoyed. But then, there some other dishes, like the Chicharon Bulaklak.
This is basically the fat that wraps around the intestine. It had a chewy-crispness and was fairly mild in flavor….just the slightest offal-ness. M, not quite used to the earthiness was not quite into this dish.
Calvin loves pancit palabok and enjoyed this version, I thought the noodles were a bit overcooked and it lacked the deep shrimpy-fish savory tones that I enjoy.
It just seemed under-sauced, but heck Calvin never found a version of this he didn't like….so I was happy he enjoyed it.
Just to have our carbs covered; I ordered the Garlic Fried Rice.
Which nicely filled the carb gap.
I also ordered the Classic Sisig. Unlike many of the versions in San Diego which uses leftover lechon kawale, this one used pork cheek.
I haven't had this style of sisig in years. Good swiney gaminess; though I wished they used some other parts of the pig head for some textural variety. Not bad, but in need of more spice, sour tones, and pungency from onions. This came across as pretty greasy and of course "M" was not a big fan of this.
Just to cover myself I ordered the Beef Kaldereta as well.
Man, the beef was so tough, the kaldereta while beefy lacked the tangy-sweetness, with a hint of spice that I enjoy. I also like a hint of liveriness usually provided by lechon sauce (Mang Tomas) which seemed like was missing here.
And so, one would think that I'd end things here, but there was one item that I still wanted to try. 
Little did I know that it would take almost half a year for this final visit.
With things slowly improving, the skeleton crew decided to do a takeout order from Max's and I had the honor of ordering.
The drill was basically the same. I ordered at 11, was given the designated time of 1135 for pick-up. The same really sweet, but over worked young lady was the only person working the front of house and there was an additional 20 minute wait for my order.
I got it back to the office and arranged the items in the middle of the walk way between cubicles, set out paper plates, napkins, and utensils and the guys took turns getting their plates.
Of course there was a whole fried chicken. Which when hot was every bit as good as what I'd had before; though it got soft and greasy fairly quickly.
The garlic rice didn't have as much flavor as on my previous visit; but with all this fried food, we needed some carbs.
Actually, with all this fried food and pork what I really needed was to be hosed down afterward, but would have to wait until I got home!
I ordered the lechon kawali sisig which was on the dry and tough side.
And like the other pork version needed more spice and sour tones.
And of course; what I really wanted to try….the Crispy Pata.
Which looked hard and dry; but wasn't too bad. It's was not nearly as good as my favorite version, but the skin was crisp, there were nice, gelatinous, gooey bits under that skin and the meat was tender. It was milder in flavor than other versions, but was still decently porky. In fact, this was the first tp be wiped out! Good job guys!
Speaking of wiped out; I think I've had my share of fried foods for a while….at least that's what my Cardiologist told me (jjk)!
To me this last meal, even though we ate in our cubicles, there was no one else in the office so we could joke around and chat quite loudly, gave us a taste of how things used to be…… the camaraderie of sharing a meal; good or bad, the bonding of breaking bread (or scarfing down fried pork), something that has been sorely missing in our lives for the last two years!
Cheers!
Max's Restaurant
8285 Mira Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92126
Current Hours:
Wed – Mon 11am – 9pm
Closed on Tuesdays
You can read Cathy's post on Max's here and Soo's post on Max's here.
