Crabster — Restaurant in Mérida

The restaurant is situated inside "Paseo 60", comfortable location; I decided to have dinner there, because of good comments i had heard about the restaurant in Progresso (I supposed it is the same chain). Beautiful elegant interior, looks like medium high level restautant, not really casual. Prices are acceptable, but as for me elevated a bit (although for this kind of place its okay). Dishes were tasty, at least appetizers: dip de espinacas y alcachofas, carpaccio de res. The main course was not so deliciuos, but that's on me, because I wanted to experiment with different kind of food, out of my likes. And disappointment came from waiter service: seemed like they couldn't manage to be friendly and professional (one can say he was a little arrogant) at the same time. I didn't know the system they worked with, but there were a few waiters serving through the dinner ( why they changed?). So, the first one wasn't sure what to recommend from the menu (like the whole menu is equally tasty for him). Then when time came for dessert menu, had to wait 10 minutes for any waiter to approach, and at the end asked a bartender if there was any existing dessert menu. When dessert was chosen, also coffee was ordered. I was served and already finished my dessert, even asked for a bill, and after my coffee arrived, of course I cancelled it; I prefer to eat my dessert with coffee, not drinking coffee after I finished my dessert. Well, may be once, if one has crave for lobster or crab ( seafood) this could be the place, but as for me, I dont think so any more, there are so many restaurants where you can...

Excellent meal for a fair price. Was it more expensive than our average meal out in Mérida? Yes. But all things considered, my friend and I were pretty delighted with our meal.

First, consider the restaurant environment - we were sitting in a gorgeous setting with a nice comfortable breeze (sitting outside obviously). The service was on point - friendly and attentive. Let's talk about the food.

The menu is huge. It took my friend and I a good 10 minutes to decide what to get. We ended up with the guacamole, shrimp tacos, and the "crabby" burger (shrimp and crab burger), with limonada and naranjada. Not every meal needs to be an "authentic" Mexican meal (they do also offer more Mexican-style dish options). Good food is good food. The food portion sizes were generous and the seafood was very fresh. Total bill came out to 750 pesos, about $39 USD. This is far less than what you would pay for any halfway decent seafood restaurant in the US with an environment that isn't even half as nice. Granted, we didn't get the fanciest items on the menu. But even those prices were very fair when compared to any seafood place in the US, even the "cheap" places.

Do I recommend eating like this for every meal? No. There's too much good food in Mérida to limit oneself to just one restaurant. But we're going to travel here for months and it was a delicious meal in a super relaxing setting. This was a perfect way to end our day of walking around the city. If you have enough time and budget to sample multiple restaurants, this is definitely worth your...

Went on a Friday night. We ate in the large courtyard that is shared w other restaurants, there was some good live music going on. Some interesting decor all around.

Service was good, although our particular gal seemed a little annoyed that we didn't speak great Spanish.

Food: girlfriend got the grilled octopus, she usually doesn't eat much but she finished the whole thing and said it was very good.

I ordered a Caesar salad. Dressing was quite nice, presentation was good but also sort of lazy? Head of romaine split in half like a wedge salad w dressing drizzled about, so it was up to me to cut into bite size pieces and mix to make sure it was covered in dressing. Meh, just cut it up and toss in dressing so there is consistent coverage. Also got the crab/shrimp burger, which looked good in photos. Sort of an abomination. My stepmom used to make stellar crab cakes, all the flavor in the patties. Here, in addition to the seafood patty, which was just ok, there was cheese, bacon, guacamole, AND some kind of a chipotle? mayo, along with standard sandwich veggies. Just too much going on. Additionally it was fairly large, but the bread (good on its own) was not robust enough for such a heavyweight. After cutting into pieces, I ate half as prepared, and then finished only the bacon and most of the crab patty of the second half. I should mention that right now (visited Mar 23, 2024) there is some kind of promo where selected brands of beer are FREE and All...