Nipa Hut Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Florida

I was so excited to try Filipino food here, so I opted for kare-kare since I know this is kind of difficult to cook at home. I was imagining a tender beef, creamy and savory sauce, but I was disappointed, the kare-kare was so plain like the one I made at home with Mama Sita kare-kare mix.

The beef was so hard, like it has been pre-cooked and stored for a long time. I will not say it doesn't taste good, but for my taste, it didn't really pass, it tastes plain and bland.

And oh, my husband ordered lechon kawali as well which is super dry, again, I think their ingredients were pre-cooked and stored for a long time in the fridge. It doesn't taste like they were freshly made, at least on the same day. The kalamansi juice which is also expensive doesn't taste like calamansi at all, it was made from a calamansi syrup for sure, which I understand that it's hard to find a fresh calamansi here. The lechon kawali was just served in a plastic basket tray like in the karenderyas back home, lacks food presentation. The rice was so dry as well. The garlic rice looked like they just put a fried garlic on top.

When it's time to pay I was shocked, the total amount was higher than I thought, so I was thinking, maybe the tip was already included, so I just paid. When I came out I checked the receipt again, and there I saw the item that we cancelled and was never served but they still charged it. They said they forgot to take it out, so ok, maybe an honest mistake, they returned the amount to cc and I paid the tip in cash and left coz I don't wanna stay there any longer.

Everything was so expensive. All the main dish (including the kare-kare) has no rice, you need to order it separately, to think that 99.9% fo the customers are Filipinos who eat rice with their meals! The burger cost almost $12 and doesn't even come with drinks.

The food were nothing special, not something that will make you come back even if it's a little expensive, but I am still glad that they serve Filipino food there.

They need to work on their food presentation, prepare the food with love, trust me, customers will feel if their food is made with love, when you work on how the food looks, work on how the food tastes which is more important, so people will keep on coming back. Your meals should include rice already, for the prices here, (for example) we can already have a steak and 2 really big side dishes at Texas Road House which is much cheaper and you can have your money's worth.

Unfortunately, this experience is something that made me decide to never come back again. It felt like home there though, and the staff were very welcoming, in...

Food is OK at best! But Not really worth the trip. Food took too long to arrive which is probably typical in Filipino cuisine and on the expensive side. What I mean is, you will not get the value for your money here. They are also out of the only thing I was craving for “Crispy Pata”. The service was horrible, I don’t know if the owner of this place trains their staff or know anything about the food service industry or just hire whoever is available. Our appetizer arrived 10 minutes after the main course and we have to remind the waiter for our drinks which also arrived after the appetizer. LOL. Basically reversed!

Their staff are all Filipinos so it adds to the authenticity but are too happy chit chatting with each other on the background instead of attending to customers. I had to re-use my table napkins to wipe my face like a homeless person. :). The next time we saw the waiter was when I asked for the check. So bring your own napkins.

Despite the experience, I still gave a 10% tip which is definitely lower than what I normally give (20%+) but just to show my dissatisfaction. On our way out, the gal on the register was singing and saying “We are kuripot/barat! In English translates to “stingy” which is very unprofessional not to mention disrespectful specially when I spent more than $100 for a lousy meal but I’m not even sure why I expected more from these people. I just smiled and promised my family I’ll bring my business elsewhere in the future . This restaurant will be bankrupt soon if they don’t change their ways.

If you ever been to the Philippines and ate at a turo-Turo on the side of the street. That is the type of service you will get but 10 times more expensive.

Don’t let that fool you because it is more expensive than Red Lobster, Carrabas, or some nice sit down dinner Chinese restaurant. With standardized food service and food cooked by a real chef. Filipinos likes to hype up this restaurant but not on par with the ones I’m used to.

I do NOT recommend this restaurant and I will not be coming back again. As a Filipino, I hope there are more restaurants that caters to Filipino tastebuds but this one is embarrassing.

Have a nice...

Honestly, I don't know where to start. To start, as a Phil-Am I feel hurt to say how differently the staff has treated my boyfriend and I (especially since we just moved here to FL trying to find comfort food to feel like home again). As we stepped foot in the restaurant we were not greeted by the staff. We waited around 5-7 minutes to be seated but as a Filipino family came inside the restaurant they were automatically seated right away. As I was trying to signal the staff that we were here first his first initial response was "Oh I thought you guys are doing take out". That automatically ticked both my boyfriend and I. As soon as we got seated the same staff person came back asking if we were ready to order (luckily we went through the menu before hand to know what we want) and asked for waters with lemons on it. As we waited for our meals, we then noticed the same family that was sitting beside us already has gotten their drinks while we were still waiting for ours. It bothered me a little but just brushed it off thinking that ours could be next. Then our meals finally arrived and we still haven't received our waters like how long does it take to put filtered water in 2 cups. Luckily, my boyfriend brought his water bottle so we brushed it off again. I called to a staff member to ask about our waters and he looked confused which should be my face because I was confused as well. He then brought out our waters with the lemons and apologized continuously to us.

Moving on to our meals. We didnt order a lot but I could say for the least that we did NOT enjoy it as much. Our rice portion was little when we asked for 2 cups and I even asked our waiter if that was really 2 cups and said yes. The bowl or pot itself looks small in person. The entrees were a bit okay, the kare kare had no flavor on the sauce at all, the sisig we had was spicy even though we asked for mild, and then again our rice portion was so little we didnt have enough for the both of us.

Overall, we didn't have a great experience but instead we just ate the food we ordered, paid, then left...