Optimize wildcard searching for a NVARCHAR(MAX) column I have been asked to improve the searching capabilities of a LIKE '%SOMETEXT%' predicate on an NVARCHAR(MAX) column. I am aware of full text indexes but am not sure if they are the best strategy. 

A traditional rowstore index obviously wouldn't do the job given that NVARCHAR(MAX) isn't an acceptable index key value and also I'd be searching using (LIKE '%SOME TEXT%') so I wouldn't be able to write a sargable statement. 

Is a full text index the best option for this case?
Yes and no.

It is the best built in way.

You COULD handle it on application layer and ALSO store the text in something made for that (i.e. a search engine style like Lucene).

You COULD roll your own. Trigram/Trigraph style. Will use a lot of programming and a lot of space, but will make queries faster. 

One way to get an index seek for a leading %wildcard by Aaron Bertrand

Trigram Wildcard String Search in SQL Server by Paul White

Have what you need to get started there ;)