Crabhouse Seaside Dampa

One of the biggest, maybe the biggest sea food market. "Fresh" means here in most cases (but not always): alive. You can even buy lobster alive in a plastic bottle, god knows how they did it... You can buy your fresh food in the market and prepare/ cook it at one of the 20 or 30 restaurants at the market. If you feel insecure, you can also ask one member of a trustful restaurant to accompany you to a good seller. The restaurants offer complete meals or to prepare your market food for your wishes .

Haggle as much as you can in the market. Make sure you get a good restaurant, usually the ones with lots of people inside. The bill can really rack up if you're not careful, so double-check your bill.. don't get overwhelmed by the people who try to get your attention, be ready for them. They'll try to convince you to choose them or their restau or store, ask questions, and check their menu. Obviously, if you ask if their food is good, they'll say yes. Look around, check what you want to buy, haggle, and just enjoy the experience. The seafood is fresh. Just make sure you're getting what you paid for (weight wise). Good luck. Tip: If you're a foreigner, bring a local who knows how to haggle.

Very unique place for someone who's visiting the Philippines, or even a local. It is definitely worth visiting for the experience. Basically the first step is walk through the market, choose a vender, select and purchase your fresh seafood. Second you select one of many restaurants in the market to cook up your purchase. My suggestion would be to walk through the entire market to see what looks appetizing and ask what the prices are. Also as you walk through, people from the local restaurants will show a menu of how they prepare dishes and the price by weight on cooking your seafood selections. Google reviews for the restaurants located in the market can be helpful. Choose the restaurant, or take it home to prepare yourself. Finally enjoy! There are so many varieties of fish, shrimp, lobster, scallops, crab etc, to name them all. Just mention to the eager vendors and restaurateurs that you're just looking, don't feel pressured to make a purchase and enjoy the experience. At the end you will have indulged in some of the most delectable seafood ever.

Prices are very reasonable. Friendly people. Very fresh seafoods. We had our “paluto” at Sharmila Ihaw-Ihaw. People are very accomodating. Only comment thier hand soap is diluted with water that is why it is not forming any foam. I hope this will be improved and there were flies.

So how it works with most these places is you buy what you want from the fish market. Then you choose a restaurant to cook it how you want. I found there to be good value with the fish market but less so with the restaurants. Paid about 1000 peso for 2 people with them cooking our seafood, a bowl of plain rice and 2-3 fruits drinks. They cooked half a kilo of prawns and half a kilo of squid.