A Trip to the Philippines, Via Jersey City

Friends recently took us on a food tour of Philippine restaurants, bakeries and groceries in Jersey City. Who knew?

Open since 1945, now with more than a hundred restaurants in the Philippines, US, Canada and coming soon to the Middle East, Max’s, offers cuisine from the Philippines. Their motto is “The House That Fried Chicken Built,” and we can highly recommend their juicy and crisp, whole deep-fried chicken made with a 70-year-old recipe. The menu tells you that the chicken “is best enjoyed with Banana sauce (similar to ketchup but sweeter) mixed with Worcestershire and hot sauce, but we ate it plain and loved it.

Along with the whole fried chicken, our friend ordered the following:

Lumpiang Shanghai (Egg Roll): Small deep-fried crispy egg rolls filled with ground pork and vegetables served with sweet-and-sour sauce.

Rice noodles, Pancit Palabok—which we could not get enough of—with shrimp, squid and ground pork sauce garnished with garlic bits, ground pork cracklings, green onions and topped with a sliced boiled egg.

Lechon Kawali, deep-fried deliciously fatty and tender pork belly paired with a beef liver sauce on the side, which tasted like applesauce to us.

Jasmine rice stir-fried with garlic, whose strong aroma greeted us, as it was placed on the table.

A native delicacy of Kare-Kare (Beef Peanut Stew) contained pieces of soft beef shank and oxtail along with vegetables in thick peanut sauce, served with shrimp paste on the side. We loved the sauce in the stew, which we ladled on the garlic rice, but did not care for the shrimp paste.

We drank calamansi (Philippine lime) juice, which was not as tart as lime and paired well with the food, much of which was fried. Beer, wine and cocktails are available.

Dessert was bypassed, as we were going to visit a few Philippine bakeries, but many tables were ordering Halo-Halo, a classic colorful Filipino dessert made with tropical fruit preserves, beans and milk in shaved ice and topped with a scoop of Ube (purple yam) ice cream, flan and rice flakes.

This casual restaurant was full of families; we were the only nonPhillipines dining here. Service was attentive and the waiters happily answered any questions. The restaurant has two floors, and there were people waiting for seats on a Saturday afternoon.

Max’s is open Mondays through Thursdays from 11 AM to 9 PM; Fridays to 10 PM; Saturdays 10 AM to 10 PM and Sundays 10 AM to 9 PM.

From Max’s we went to Legal Beans, a shabby BBQ joint with a few tables outside, behind the restaurant surrounded by cinderblock walls. This dive was featured by Andrew Zimmern on Bizarre Foods in November, 2013. While the pork was tender and flavorful, the most amazing part for us was walking into this small shack and seeing two whole pigs on spits roasting over a charcoal pit. Pork kebabs, espresso rubbed smoked pork ribs, smoked chicken, brisket and pulled pork are a few of the other items offered. Closed Tuesdays.

A Philippine grocery store, bakery and bread bakery were next on our list and we were also amazed to see that Philippine meals were also sold in the grocery stores and bakeries. The cakes and bread we tasted were all sweeter than what we are used to and Ube (purple yam) cake seemed to be popular in all of the places we visited.

Max’s Restaurant
687 Newark Avenue
Jersey City
201-798-2700

Legal Beans
2 Division Street
Jersey City, NJ 07302
201-521-2005

Philippine Bread House
530 Newark Avenue
Jersey City
201-659-1753

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Eggrolls at Max’s Restaurant, Jersey City.

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Rice noodles at Max’s Restaurant, Jersey City.

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Pigs on spit at Legal Beans, Jersey City.

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Pig head for sale at Legal Beans, Jersey City.

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Ad for Ube coconut roll at Philippine bakery, Jersey City.
Photos courtesy of Lowell Saferstein

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