'Halo Halo' is back: Why Max's Restaurant is a beloved Filipino chain

SCREEN CAPTURE

Francesca Manto interviews the head chef at Max's in Las Vegas.

"Halo Halo," the food video series by Eater celebrating Filipino cuisine, is back for its second season.

To launch the new season, host Francesca Manto has left her home base on the East Coast and has headed west -- to Las Vegas, her hometown.

You don't usually associate fried chicken to Philippine cuisine, but Filipinos, as they have for centuries, will take a foreign or visitor's contributions, adapt it with a Filipino twist and make it their own. They've done that with cuisines from China, Japan, India, Malaysia, Spain and the United States.

Max’s all began after WWII, when American G.I.s would visit the home of Maximo Gimenez’s to hangout, drink, and feast. The G.I.s were there so often that they eventually insisted on paying for their meals, which prompted Maximo to open a cafe (with the G.I.s favorites,  fried chicken and steak, on the menu).

It was Maximo’s niece Ruby Trota who created the recipe for the now-famous fried chicken at Max’s, the one that’s a tender, juicy, and crispy staple for family celebrations. Today, Max’s Restaurant has over 200 locations around the world, each a familiar reminder of home for Filipinos abroad.

So -- that's how fried chicken -- became a staple of Philippine cuisine.

When I was working in South San Francisco, I couldn't understand why my Filipino co-workers were all excited about the opening of a Max's Restaurant in Daly City.

Max's is a chain restaurant and I viewed the news as if a new Denny's had opened. I didn't know the emotional context of having a Philippine eatery open in the U.S. It reminded my co-workers of home. "Home", of course, to the new immigrants will always be the Philippines no matter how long they've been in the U.S. It was their comfort food.

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