Makaha

This place was great about thirty years ago. I had the unfortunate experience of having a combo plate from them recently. It was at noon time and they obviously cook ahead and save the leftovers because what I had on my plate was not freshly cooked, most likely held over from the night before. The chicken fingers had breaks in the batter and were so overdone the naked chicken was browned, the crust hard and oil soaked. The bone in ribs had been microwaved so fiercely that the meat was hard as a rock. Egg roll was greasy and flavorless and fried rice totally uninspired. Never again.

I tried this place decades ago and wasn’t inspired to return until last week. When I went to pick up my food the person at the front taking reservations all but threw the bag at me. Even the grocery store hot food bar has better Lo Mein than theirs’. It was soggy, dripping with grease, with no vegetables, only noodles. The General Gau chicken was greasy and bland, without any hint of scallion, garlic and ginger. Maybe I will give it another chance in another 20 years.

Okay I’m going to be fair. Nice staff. BUT, I’m surprised it’s still standing to be honest, it’s so out dated, and I’m all for a retro chinese restaurant look but… I’m just surprised it’s still there.
If you go here, and order a drink, that’s most likely what attracts people. Order a mai tai or kamazai –yeah you’ll be intoxicated. Tons of people go there for the drinks only. They’re open past midnight on Christmas, and lots of people go there to just get hammered.
The food there — not good.
Heard they lost their liquor license again, I’m not surprised about that either. I don’t know what type of advice to give except I feel badly that the place hasn’t stepped it up. Quality = Money.
So if you order a scorpion bowl to yourself, you might die.

Forget the haters — it is what it is:
Despite the outdated décor, Makaha gets bonus point on the following:
— seated quickly
— fast service
— QUIET dining atmosphere !!
— very consistent
— great bar service
Now, if you like their take on Chinese food is another story? But they are indeed consistent in what they deliver.
Personally, I often choose to dine here over another local place with better food, but which is also noisy, crowded, and which you have to wait for a table. Pros n cons, people.

Cold beer… and pretty good food.
This is a good destination for «old school» Cantonese food. If you’re expecting anything different you didn’t do your homework.

Love the food here. The atmosphere is equivalent to a dive but the drinks are strong and yummy.

If I order crab rangoon’s anywhere other than from Makaha I never get the same satisfaction. Their food is always made promptly and always delicious. If ur in the Acton area, and ur in the mood for great Chinese food make sure you stop here!

I grew up on Makaha’s food. I love the beef teriyaki the best. Really good boneless pork and lo-​mien. I frequent Makaha often when I am in town.
Now the décor… they used to have a dining room of grass huts over the tables. I’m sure the fire department didn’t like the mix of dried grass and those little flaming pupu platters. So they renovated sometime in the mid to late 80’s. It seemed a little much even back then –with the neon-​but whatever, the food was good!
The bar area has been enclosed forever. It is from the days of smoking areas and it worked well back in the day.
Makaha is always a good bet for Chinese food!

Has the best chow mein in New England.

The food is what you pay for cheap. If your craving chinese but don’t feel like paying a fortune there dinner/​lunch combinations are one of the best deals running. My biggest gripe is the service… there fast that’s a plus. but they are the most uninterested uncaring unmotivated staff bar none. There motto should be «you give money i give food now get the hell out, next please». For fast cheap takeout there great… anything besides that pass on this.

New to the area my wife and I found ourselves craving Chinese. We saw a few mixes reviews on Unilocal and decided to give Makaha a shot. Wow we’re we disappointed. Had an order of the sweet and sour chicken and pork fried rice — what I consider staples of any Chinese restaurant. The chicken’s breading was cloyingly sweet– to the point I thought donut batter was used; the sweet & sour sauce pretty much a simple syrup with no real taste. Even the extremely simple pork fried rice tasted dry and burnt… Something I never experienced with rice before.
Also, the décor looked and smelled very 1987 bowling alley. Teal and purple vinyl booths and some grungy carpeting. The bar at the front of the place was also weirdly enclosed, almost as if they allowed smoking at one point with doors to contain the fumes. The only reason for not giving one star is because the service was pretty prompt and nice.

I am giving this place a 4 not for it’s food but for it’s scorpion bowls! I have to say, aside from the Hong Kong in Cambridge, MA, these are the best we have had. We have tried quite a few of them over the years as well and still come back for more of these. The food is a crap shoot — sometimes it tastes really fresh and is really good — and other times it’s cold and tastes like it’s been sitting around to long. The service is amazing — the second my b/​f and I walk into the bar he is asking us if we want a scorpion bowl. LOL Okay so maybe that’s not a good sign since we don’t go there all that often — I didn’t think anyway. If your into scorpions you have to give this place a try.

Ok – all the reviews for this poor place are awful. I love Makaha – the foods good, it comes out fast. The bar is sleazy and entertaining. Is the décor outdated? Yes. Is there often no music playing? Yes. But holy crap. Do that many people really go out to eat when they’re getting chinese and take it that seriously?
My family discovered this place when my dad picked some chinese food up from here on his way home from work and we were hooked. Good food, good price, nice service.
The other great thing about this place is that it is pretty much the last place you can hope to have a bar setting once you get out of the areas around Boston. If you want a drink and food late you’re going to be shit out of luck. Makaha has been there for me on more then a few occassions when I have been driving rowdy drunk friends home a night in the city and they demand food stuff.
It’s a laid back place. If you have a bunch of rowdy friends and want to have a big group of people go out for dinner on a Friday/​Saturday night and don’t want to deal with the frustration of waiting hours for a seat, you should go here. And no one there is going to give a damn about the one belligerant friend that we all have because it’s just chill.

Ordered takeout with a friend on New Year’s. The décor was just as other reviewers described– straight out of the 80’s. If The Max (a la Saved by the Bell) had a sister Chinese restaurant, this would be it. It was so outdated I found it kind of charming :)
The food was fine. We ordered our usuals– fried rice, beef-​n-​broccoli, lo mein, etc. Everything was fine, if verging on the greasy side, but it’s Chinese food. If I wanted something healthy, I think picking Chinese would be a mistake from the beginning! ;) The only weird thing was that there were a bunch of mushrooms in the veggie lo mein. They’re large so easy enough to pick around if you don’t like them, but still a surprise to find them there at all.
Service was fast and friendly. I’m sure I’ll be back!

Ugg, not good at all. Small depressing & incredibly out of date bar.
Think, aqua blue vinyl chairs etc.
Not overly friendly service.
Typical old school menu, nothing imaginative there.
Just greasy apps etc.
Seems like a place the same bunch of regulars go to get a cheep buzz. (not that theres anything wrong with that)
Decent Mai Tai’s
Cheep prices.
It is what it is. Just an old, worn out Chinese restaurant, that keeps it self open with the bar business.

Alright– there’s a lot of smack-​talk going on about Makaha, my old (and only) haunt for the two years I spent living in Acton. I understand some of it may be justified, but I feel a need to step in and defend this treasure!
Like others have noted, if you’re looking for a hip, upscale establishment, this is the polar opposite. The dining room smells like your grandmother spilled her perfume bottle 20 years ago, but the early-80’s décor has a sort of retro-​kitsch glam to it. Baby blue walls, hot pink booths, and matching strips of neon circle the ceiling like an electric-​boogaloo of crown molding. It simply has to be seen to be believed.
The parking lot is never full unless there’s a Jazzercise class going on next door (Acton seems to be all about Jazzercise). The busiest I’ve ever seen the dining room during a dinner rush is maybe 5 or 6 tables’ worth of patrons. It’s NEVER crowded. There have even been times where my wife and I have been the only two in the whole dining room. That has never detracted from our enjoyment of the food, despite the fact being the only diners in a restaurant often weirds me out.
Of course, the food… I don’t see why so many people knock it, honestly. The crab rangoons (what my wife and I tend to judge a chinese take-​out restaurant by) are great. Chicken fingers are crispy and never overly-​battered (a pet peeve of mine– although they tend to be oily). There are several combo plates to choose from at dinner, and the prices are just under par. I can’t recall having any issues with vegetable quality or freshness– the last time we went everything was nice, green (when applicable) and crisp. Also, I don’t know how they do it– your food is ALWAYS served ridiculously fast.
If you order mixed drinks, watch out– they do their job efficiently! Fun fact: back in the day, my wife and I were remembered by waitstaff for our fondness of their scorpion bowls. We’d walk in and the server would say, «Scorpion bowwwwl! Yeah!»
All in all, if you’re a fan of crispy greasy chinese food, Makaha can do no wrong. Give it a try! Besides, if you’re in Acton, what else is there?

I can’t believe that this restaurant remains open. It has to be a front. The worst restaurant in the area, chinese or other. Their bar smells like feet & vomit. They pour their drinks from unmarked bottles burning your throat & giving you a splitting headache before you even leave the building. I guess morons think if their drink tastes like gasoline, it must be strong. Not to mention their broken/​grainy televisions, 8 bad song ‘jukebox’ and random meth addict in their teal-​colored, dark, filthy and thoroughly depressing bar. AVOID.
Their dishes smelled of spoiled food & the horrible tang of rancid grease literally drips off of everything else. Most dishes that we ordered couldn’t even be chewed & swallowed. Entrees tasted weeks old and had the texture & hardness of food that had been reheated several times. There were a couple of us who felt mildly ill after eating very small amounts of food from here. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY HERE.

I just ate at Makaha for the first and last time. There were a few good points, and I will address them first.
Good Points:
1. Sketchy separate bar. Yes, this is a GOOD point. I would consider coming here for the bar, but the bar was not part of my experience, and, even if it’s amazing, it doesn’t make up for the food.
2. Somewhat friendly service. Mind you, not over the top «I feel so much joy when I come in here that the service alone will bring me back» service, but not poor.
3. The boneless ribs. They weren’t better or worse than anybody else’s boneless ribs, but they were fatter. The large full chunks were nice.
Okay. the rest.
The atmosphere of this place is okay nothing special, but what really makes Makaha stand out is the food. My cousin’s «Irish Boil» has more flavor than the food here.
Spicy dishes have no spice at all and EVERYTHING is bland. Bland bland bland bland bland. Listen, I’ve had a LOT of crappy Chinese food, but most crappy places still master the basics of lo mein and the Americanized fried crap. (Seriously, how do you make beef teryaki and chicken wings bland? I didn’t even know that was possible. I didn’t even hold the freakin’ MSG!) Not Makaha. Not by a long shot. The word «cuisine» generally implies culinary art, and there is none at Makaha.
If you want cheap bland food, Makaha is your place. Everybody else stay away.

This is the place I was by far the most excited to review in all of Actondom. Lawrence is right. The food is fucking terrrible. Disgusting. Puke immediately. Do not digest. Do not let their food become part of your being.
Buuuuut it’s also the only place open after about 7:00pm in Acton. It gets away with serving liquor by being a «lounge,» and is a great place to bring your friends and get hammered off of extremely strong mixed drinks on late Saturdays that would normally be spent on your parents couch or in your friends basement playing Golden-​Eye. There really isn’t much else going on at that hour when you’re home visiting from college or are stuck back in this 20’s-unfriendly town for whatever other reason.
Try the scorpion bowl. Don’t talk to the truck-​driving locals. You can often read about fights here in the police beat in the local newspaper.
Okay, I’m gonna scroll back up and bring my rating back from a 5 to a 4. You shamed me into doing this. Are you happy now, Unilocal

I had to jump in when I saw good reviews of Makaha. Trust me when I tell you, this is not a quality restaurant. Its not quaint, its not kitchy, its not quirky. It is just not very good. The place is a local joke.
I will give them one star for their drinks that are so strong that they feel like a punch in the nose. (I mean that in a good way.) I suspect that the drinks are that strong to make you forget how bad the food is.
However, this place is depressing and the food would have to improve to just be mediocre. I went there with a group because that is where they wanted to go and I couldn’t gracefully get out of it. Mistake.
Décor is dark, dank, and shop-​worn. The food matches the décor. Uninspired, greasy, heavy, and just not tasty. I didn’t enjoy it at all. I felt ill for the rest of the day. Everything tasted the same… and that is not a good thing.
The best thing about the place is the service. I gave them a star for that. «Oh, Yippie! They’re rushing the slop to the table.» I guess that is a good thing.
It is not that I don’t sometimes enjoy the old-​style Chinese restaurant, but the Makaha is not a good one. I would much rather go to Yangtze River in Littleton.