Jarace Grill — Restaurant in El Nido

Place is crowded and crampy. Everything is somewhat sticky. Sticky chairs, sticky table, sticky menu book, must be the sea breeze? Not too sure. Everything is also disappointing at this place. Customer service appears to be great downstairs, but we dined upstairs and employees just appear like they just hate their jobs. No thank you, no welcome, no smiles at all. Got the group meal, worst baked mussels, uncooked and too salty, had to send it back. They don't serve bottled water, only "purified" water. Had to send this back too, as there were floating stuff. 15 mins later, "new" water came back, with same floaters. I did not drink this. Plus, the serving plate given to us had some squished, flattened insects on it. Imagine Mr Plankton from spongebob being squished on a flat surface, that's it. This, we have sent back too. Had white snapper, flavorless. I had specifically mentioned to at least salt the fish when cooking, but yeah. You can also easily tell that the fish was not fresh, even the 2 pieces crabs were not fresh, too disappointing. The carbonara was ultra salty, and the clams in it were not cooked. Ugh. The tinola could've been the saving glory, but it was fully pumped up with ginger, all I could taste was boiled ginger. Sisig. Ah, the sisig was not bad, but this too has ginger in it. Overall, if you'd plan on dining here, please, by all means, find somewhere else. Unfortunately, I haven't found the best place to eat in...

Want to play a prank on your friends? Bring them here and tell them to order the lobster or crab.

This is one of a few seafood restaurants that lets you pick your fish/crab/lobster and then they grill it. But what they don’t tell you is, THEY DON’T HAVE CRACKERS for opening the shellfish. So you’re left hammering and beating and busting at the crab shell; and this may seem like a decent idea but these crabs aren’t your typical Alaskan. These shells are probably 2mm thick...my boyfriend has cuts all over his hands. Maybe we’re the idiots that aren’t used to eating shellfish without a cracker but if you’re like us, this is either a terrible experience or a great place to prank someone. Vegetables in curry and chateau potatoes were also sad. I didn’t know curry could be bland. I also ordered a caipirinha which was basically a Long Island ice tea. At the end of the meal we tried to tip our server because he was actually super friendly and helpful in teaching us the correct way to hammer the crab against the table...but he told us if we left the tip inside the bill, the restaurant would pocket it directly. So the only way he could get a tip was if we got our change, and then handed it to him directly. Say what?!

2 stars instead of 1 for the vicinity to the...

Great view of the beach and really nice waitstaff. I wouldn't say service was amazing since we had to get up a few times to walk to the desk and ask for what we needed, but they were very polite and responded quickly each time we did. The food was 3.5 stars. The flavours were spot on, really tasty and bright. The issue was the cooking itself--the sisig had a couple burnt bits and not sure what happened with the kangkong since it was more olive green than bright green, but was crunchy like it should be. The sauce on both dishes and the chicken adobo (why breast and not thigh meat??) was so delicious we wanted to drink it. My parents' favourite was the fish sinigang, which was perfectly cooked. (Warning: it is not a dish for the masses--you have to be okay with bones in your fish and the soup flavour is a bit tart and unusual since it's made with tamarind and kalamansi. It's a very authentic Filipino dish, and I recommend it if you're up for something out of the ordinary.) Also had the best mango shake in El Nido at Jarace, and we've ordered mango shakes at every single restaurant we've been to...