El Zapote — Restaurant in Las Terrenas

TERRIBLE!!! If you don’t want to get poisoned, avoid this place!!!! Worst food we had in our entire stay in DR, possibly ever at any trip. It’s been recommended to us by locals, but either the quality doesn’t seem to be consistent or there is a special treatment to local crowd? Anyhow, we ordered salcoche (to try), mofongo, and creole octopus. No food came in the first 1.5 hour, which would be fine with us if the meal was worth the wait (spoiler alert- it was not). Other people were coming after us and were being served and leaving. Finally we asked to get a bit of the soup before to main dishes came, since it’s a quick serving and we were getting real hungry. Came luke warm and was the one eatable thing at that meal, but it was far away from what that soup should be. It was really blunt and did not have much taste. After another 20min wait main plates came. Mofongo barely warm and gooey. Chicharron was extra hairy that day too, so it was a bit repulsive to eat (see photos). Octopus was supposed to come with fries, which the lady told me run out. She asked what would I like instead. I saw good looking fresh avocado salad at another table, so I asked for that. The plate came with tostones, so I asked for the avocado once again. In the meantime I started digging into my pulpo, just to find out it was not octopus at all!!! It was more like lambi, but super hard and chewy like rubber. The ‘creole’ style was just canned tomatoes with some celery. Disgusting, I only took a bite to know I will not eat that food despite hunger and the wait. At that moment the lady brought me 3 tiny pieces of beaten avocado as the salad. That just broke me, because I saw the guy next to me eating generous salad of avocado and lettuce. Avocado looked super fresh and it was at least one, if not two fruits on his plate, while mine was so shity it felt like she was mocking me with it. My husband ate few bites from mofongo, but I did not eat my food at all. Yet, we still had to pay a bill at almost RD$1000. I typically do not write bad reviews, because people have different taste sometimes or someone can have a worse day, but this place was so bad it literally left us nauseous. Although we were still hungry, we just had coffee to kill the hunger. Do not waste time, money or risk your health...

My family and I dined at this authentic Dominican Restaurant a few times.The food was delicious and above what I expected...I went on a hunt for good aunthentic Dominican food in las Terrenas which was very hard to find since Terrenas was flooded by European places (so disappointing) . We had pollo quisado with rice and beans. Avocado was so good and fresh, fried chicken, ensalda verde so delicious. Service was great, specially from my favorite young waiter. His customer service is top notched.

The second time we had the same and added a Jam and cheese pizza for my kids, and they said it was delicious, service was quicker the second visit and same waiter. The third time we came, they had only one server a young girl. She was pleasant and lovely, since it was taking over 40 minutes she brought us some Complimentary chips to everyone in the restaurant, but she quit right then and we were all left waiting for our food. Our previous server showed up last minute on his day off to safe the day after we were waiting for 1 hour and 40 minutes at this point. My young kids were extremely hungry and the girl who quit never took the order down. I was dissappointed and upset after I saw other locals getting their food first besides arriving after us. After I complained to our young server he was quick to get our food within 15 minutes. We had mofongo which was so delicious, pollo quisado, tortilla de huevo, chuleta de cerdo. If it wasn't for him my family and I would of have left. Cause we were waiting total 2 hours to get our food. I guess it was just a bad day! The price is incredibly resonable compared to other restaurants in Terrenas, very aunthentic, great food and as long as you get served by the young guy there you are good. Tip: Be aware that Locals do get served before you in Dominican, if you are a tourist just that's the nature. Tourist...

Worst service I ever had in my life!!! No kidding... Too many things to say, but let's start with this: I got there with my family, walked in and no one directed us to sit or wait for table... after a few minutes we decided to sit, then wait like 5 minutes waiting for any of the employees to come to the table, that never happened... we actually had to called them and let them know we want to put a order, then one of them came out in a rush and asked what we would order... I said food and a few drinks, we put our order and she told us a way different price from the menu ($900 was the price on the menu... $1,300 the NEW price)... We all agree to pay the new price... Then had to wait almost 30 minutes for 1 coke and 3 Aperol Spritz... Then 45 more minutes for our food!

Food didn't came at the same time, 2 plates first... then one plate came with a nasty hair... we let the manager know about that and she just took the hair off and put another salad... last plate came out like 25 minutes after the third plate.

We order some bottles of water and they never bring it to the table... But when we ask for the check... Surprise: They have it on!

Would only recommend this place to an Enemy!!! Stay away people......