Vila Caranguejo - Formosa

They invite you to come in from the street. The place is very beautiful under some large trees illuminated at night. A lady trying to behave like a maitre d ' comes to the table with one menu although we are two. She gives a sales pitch, promises a second menu and never returns. Comes the waiter. We were going for some shrimps with Fettuccine and fines herbs sauce. I ask for the Fettucine to be al denter and he says of course . But at some point he speaks of rice noodles . I tell him Fettuccines are of semola di grano duro but he insists at their place its rice noodles. Then I tell him to my knowledge I had never seen asian rice noodles al dente . He finally goes to the kitchen for further information and returns telling us we were right. but they would do it just the way we asked for. Shrimp was very nice but few and noodles nothing to write home about. Then the wine: He tries do give advice, of course the most expensive bottles and it becomes obvious he doesn 't know what he is talking about. Follow him to the frige to try to discover what they have. Extremely limited selection of unknowns. Finally choose a Chilean Chardonnay just because ist more expensive and looks a bit more promising than the rest. Tastes disgusting and has never seen a Chardonnay grape. We left half the bottle to avoid headaches next morning. And the bill was quite hefty. Avoid the place as there are plenty good places in ilhabela.

We didn't need to wait for too long for our food and it's simply excellent! Nice place with good service too.

We ordered a seafood stew as per the waiter’s recommendation, for lunch. It was very good, accompanied with the local beer . It comes in a big bottle, enough for two people. Food and service were good. The staff was helpful and tried hard with the language barrier to serve us. The restaurant is open air, with different areas hut looking style. It's clean. They don't offer Wi-Fi service. The prices were reasonable and portions are good for two. If in doubt, just ask and they will clarify.

Sushi, temaki, spring rolls, gyoza, fish, shrimps, calamari... they have it all. In my opinion there are better restaurants in the Vila, but at Caranguejo you will certainly find something you'll like!

We ordered the All You Can Eat sushi, for a table of 7. I understand that was a lot of people, but it took almost 20 minutes for our first course of cucumber salad and another 15 minutes until we got the sautéed mushrooms. Dinner took a little over 2.5 hours in total, possibly 20 minutes at the end was just us chatting.