Restaurante El Pirata — Restaurant in Bocas del Toro

It was our first day in Bocas del Toro and wanted to get some seafood, of course. Actually, we ate dinner here twice during our 4 night Bocas stay. This restaurant was one of the ones I had researched and had enough good reviews to give it a shot. The restaurant has tables over the water, as most Bocas restaurants do, but plenty of room away from the water as well, if that is more your style. Overall plenty of seating and the views are great.

For our first dinner my wife ordered Fried White Snapper. It came with patacones, twice fried plantains, and a side salad. The fish was over fried, so much so that even the meat was crispy; not good. I ordered Lobster Meat in Creole Sauce. It came with patacones and coconut rice. This dish was delicious. The coconut rice was the best I had on the island. The rice had coconut flavored infused throughout, but was not overdone or overpowering; perfect balance.

For our second dinner my wife ordered the Fried White Snapper again, but this time we informed the waiter of our previous experience and asked him to inform the cook not to over fry this time. We're glad we did, because this time it was perfection. I ordered Especial del Pirata, The Pirate Special. Which is a fried white snapper, but bathed in a seafood sauce. The white sauce was comprised of calamari, little octopus chuncks and shrimp. So good! It also came with patacones.

Overall I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Bocas. This might be obvious, but you'll also notice the price for seafood in Bocas is better than in Panama City and you...

This place looks fancy and the atmosphere is nice but honestly the food isn't that good and its way over priced. Everything we got was unseasoned and tasted like it had been frozen, the lobster tasted dirty and tough and you can tell they use cheeeap ingredients. Server did the bare minimum and never checked on us once but even if it was superb service nothing could save how horrible the food is. We've tried just about every restaurant in Bocas now and this is one of the most expensive restaurants that just has no reason to be. You can find tons of authentic, delicious food in town for...

The seafood here is very hit or miss. I had the fish fingers which you can't exactly go wrong with, they were good. My friend had the seafood salad, which was not. All of the seafood in the salad was very overcooked. The octopus and squid had the consistency of a rubber hose and the shrimp were far too chewy. Other friends I were with also had dishes that were overcooked but I had a few that were satisfied with what they had ordered. Overall I think you would be better advised to try somewhere else if your looking for...