Here in Hawaii I have many Filipino friends and neighbors. However, the scope of my knowledge of the Filipino community is pancit, lumpia and neon colored cars. To my delight, I learned a little more about the Filipino community while dining at Max’s of Manila located in Waipahu on the island of Oahu.

I wanted to try a Filipino restaurant for a different change of pace, rather than the same Italian or American restaurant that we always go to. Upon receiving the menu at Max’s, I had no idea what to order. I’ve never seen pork belly made in so many different ways on a menu before (well, I’ll take that back, it seems like Chinese restaurants can make pork a million different ways with the same two ingredients). Our server was especially helpful, more like … excited! Her eyes lit up when she discovered that we hadn’t actually had an authentic Filipino meal before. I was beyond excited to share the food of their culture with my family.

We basically asked for everything he recommended. He said this is the only restaurant in Hawaii that serves five-course Filipino food. There was one dish in particular that appealed to me. For the life of me, I can’t remember the Filipino name of the dish, but it was fried pork belly topped with a jalapeño coconut cream sauce served with garlic rice (a must!). Very different, but very delicious.

Now let’s not forget dessert! Milk Flan and Buko Pandan were the sweets of the day. While he had eaten custard several times before, Buko Pandan was definitely something different. Buko Pandan looked something like a tall glass of milk with green gelatin cubes and slices of fresh baby coconut, very refreshing. I looked up the recipe on the net and it was still a completely strange concept to me —- I had never heard of more than half of the ingredients before (Also, there was no English translation for the ingredients on the site that I looked into. above. Possibly I could have known what the ingredients were if they had been translated into English for me). However, I found that one of the main ingredients of the dessert is made with pandan flavored gelatin. In case you didn’t know what pandan is, it’s a leaf from the Screwpine tree. Hawaiians call this a Lauhala tree. Not only can you make a delicious dessert with the essence of pandan or Lauhala leaves, you can also weave those same leaves into hats and bags! I wouldn’t eat the hats or bags if I were you, but I would recommend Max’s of Manila Hawaii to anyone.