Coron, Philippines restaurants: Seafood & eat it!

As a major seafood lover, Coron was food heaven to me. Feasting on fresh crabs, lobsters and squid didn’t burden the wallet and was plentiful on the menus of many of the restaurants we visited. If you don’t mind the pungent smell of dried fish, you should give the local dried fish a go – we had it quite a few times for breakfast at our resort on the rooftop so the smell wasn’t so bad! Another local delicacy we tried was the local seaweed (lato), lightly dressed with vinegar and served as a salad with fried fish. If you’re not into seafood, there are plenty of other traditional Filipino and Western options available at the restaurants we tried below.

Seaweed salad (lato) on our day boat day tour

Santinos Grill

https://www.facebook.com/santinosgrill
Coron-Busuanga Rd. Tagumpay | +63 915 700 3881

We tried Santinos Grill after reading a couple of reviews in guide books and getting recommendations from locals. Their menu offered both traditional and western dishes. We ordered a ‘lato salad’ (an edible seaweed, crunchy and fish roe like in texture), baby back ribs and fries, prawn ‘sinigang’ (a sour soup made with a tamarind base), adobo fried rice, and crispy calamari with garlic and chili. It sounds like a mish mash of food that don’t complement each other, but individually, the dishes were full of flavour and cooked well. There was a bit of a wait time, however the food was outstanding.

Seahorse Bar & Grill, Busuanga Bay Lodge

www.busuangabaylodge.com/facilities/seahorse-bar-grill.htm
Sitio Lawi, Barangay Concepcion, Busuanga, Coron | +632 625 8627

The semi al fresco dining area, with its thatched like roofing, rattan style furniture, and glass balcony with elevated views over Pearl Bay, was the perfect place to unwind. We ordered a variety of dishes; perfectly cooked barbecued squid (which was the stand out dish), lobsters, fish skewers, and barbecued chicken. Each dish was accompanied by a generous serving of baked potato and coleslaw satisfying all our appetites. It’s a little more expensive than other restaurants we ate at in Coron and inconvenient if you’re staying in town, but the food and ambience was worth it.

Seafood feasting at Seafood Bar & Grill

Coron Westown Resort

www.coronwestownresort.com
Coron-Busuanga Rd, Coron | +63 917 704 6176 / +63 919 993 5474

We had dinner here one night as we hired one of the karaoke rooms at the resort.
There was a service button conveniently located in the karaoke room so you can order mid song. Service was fast and the food still piping hot when it arrived. The only downside was that there were a few items on the menu that were seasonal and not available to order.
We highly recommend the chicken adobo – the sticky caramelised sauce of garlic and soy was the perfect balance and wasn’t as sweet as other adobo that we tried in Philippines.

The crazy good adobo at Coron Westown Resort

Kawayanan Grill Station

Busuanga-Coron Road, Coron

This restaurant was on the same street our accommodation so we passed it a few times and saw that it was usually packed with diners. You can opt to eat inside or outside where tables were set up with little thatched roofs made of bamboo, making it a semi authentic Filipino dining experience. We ordered mostly seafood- crabs with a sticky garlic sauce, sweet and sour fish, barbecued prawns, steamed rice and chop suey (stir fried vegetables). We also tried the crispy kang kong which is a dark green leaf vegetable, covered in batter and deep fried. All the food served was delicious and although we ordered way too much, we ended up devouring everything anyways!

Kawayanan grill feast

L. Escardas Coron Harvest

Busuanga-Coron Rd, Coron | +63 928 269 3998

This Coron institution is famed for the cashews that are sold here and are usually brought back as ‘pasalubong’ (souvenirs) for family and friends. A nondescript exterior, the walls inside are plastered with photos of famous celebrities and politicians from the Philippines posing with whom we assume the owner. Most of the other flavours had run out by the time we arrived, but we were still able to sample and stock up on the plain and brittle cashews.