Max’s Restaurant in Dufferin

If there’s one thing that glues our family together, it would be our love for good food. We love to eat and explore different restaurants to try different types of food. Be it traditional Filipino cuisine, Chinese, Thai or Vietnamese food, we will definitely give it a try. Initially, our love for good food was just within the borders of Brampton. But as choices become so limited, we went beyond the neighbouring cities.

Last month, we chanced upon Max’s restaurant in Dufferin, Toronto. We were all surprised as we never had any idea that Max’s was actually just a good 30 minutes away from our house. Back home, it was our family’s (or clan should I say) favourite restaurant. So, when we saw the place, we went there right off the bat. Unfortunately, the queue was too long so we had to delay our visit.

We usually do not plan our restaurant visits. Whenever we find an interesting place, we just go there and try. When we passed through Dufferin and Steeles again, we tried to go there and voila! there are only 3 customers ahead of us. We decided to wait and after 25 minutes, we had our much anticipated turn. We sat on the table just across the door where we can count how many people enter every 30 minutes. I cannot say it’s a bad table location but, it makes me want to look up and watch the people come in. This distracted me from enjoying my sweet sago’t gulaman and the rest, there’s not much good for me to say.

The drink was just so-so. I suddenly missed my cousin’s sago’t gulaman which for me was way better than max's sago’t gulaman. We ordered each of our favourite platter and added pork sisig and lechon kawali. Food was fine. It did not have that “wow” effect. It’s not as good as it was back home. I wonder why... it’s probably because we were not happy with how the service went. We waited for 30 minutes for our food to be served after 25 minutes wait to be seated. What irritated us more was when we saw the other table being served already despite the fact that we came in first. I asked the server how that happened and he said that those people were there before we came. As I said, I was seated in the location where I can see everyone coming in and i definitely know that they came in after we were seated. Hummm... I let it pass.

Everyone was famished. When food finally arrived, I requested for a bowl of vinegar to go with our Lechon Kawali from 2 people. After a good 5 minutes, my request from the manager came in. And guess what? My original request from the server came in after 10 minutes. My mom just told me to let it pass and so I did.

This experience was not very remarkable but truly unforgettable. They have lost that “Max’s appeal”. Just when we were planning to hold every event we thought of at that eureka moment, our disappointment has gotten the best of us. They may need to improve their service and live by Max's tradition of good food and service. We will probably try again after 5 years, if they are still in existence...