Staying on Rizal Avenue and the Baywalk

Rizal Avenue is busy, loud and unapologetically Filipino. The Baywalk is where the city goes at sunset. Neither is charming in the postcard sense, and both are the reason to sleep here.

The zone runs from roughly the Bancao-Bancao end of Rizal Avenue west to the Immaculate Conception Cathedral and Plaza Cuartel, then south along the Baywalk to the port. That is markets, karinderias, tour offices, banks, pharmacies, a couple of live-music bars, and the highest concentration of good restaurants on the island outside El Nido. There is no sidewalk culture — you will share the road with tricycles — but everything you need is within a ₱50 hop.

The single strongest practical argument for this zone is the pickup order. Underground River, Honda Bay and firefly tours collect from city hotels first and work outward, which on a 06:30 river pickup can mean forty minutes more sleep and a seat that is not the middle of the back row. If your trip is built around the river, that matters more than a rooftop bar.

The Baywalk is worth understanding before you book near it. At 14:00 it is a hot, empty concrete promenade and every visitor who wanders down at that hour concludes the city is dead. From about 17:00–18:00 the grill stalls light up — squid ₱100–200, pork barbecue ₱15 a stick, inasal from ₱50, lumpia ₱30, leche flan ₱20 — families arrive, bikes come out, and it becomes the best free evening in Puerto Princesa. Paluto nearby runs ₱300–500 all in.

The trade-off is honest: this is the noisiest zone, the rooms are older, and only the Ivywall has a proper pool. A December 2025 reviewer called the city "unorganised, no charm", and standing on Rizal Avenue at midday you can see exactly what they meant. Sleep here for the food and the logistics, not for the setting.

This is the argument for the zone, and it is not close. Outside El Nido, nowhere in the province has this much good food inside one tricycle fare.

KaLui at 369 Rizal Avenue is the institution — seafood set for two at ₱795, mains from ₱245, shoes off at the door, 4.4/5 from 2,545 reviews and ranked #6 of 240 restaurants in the city. It is closed Sundays, opens 11:00–14:00 and 18:00–22:30, and you reserve for dinner. Its old official domain now resolves to a gambling site, so ignore any guide still linking it.

Kinabuchs at the Bancao-Bancao end of Rizal is the giant grill-and-sports-bar where crocodile sisig (₱350–600) and tamilok (₱150–300) live; it opens 16:00–17:00 and runs to 23:00–01:00. Ima's Gulay Bar at 46 Fernandez Street is the only real vegetarian house, ₱150–350, with awkward hours — Friday it closes at 15:00 and Saturday it does not open until 18:30. Badjao Seafront is cash only, the view beats the food, and it holds 3.9/5.

For the early start that this city runs on, Itoy's Coffee Haus opens at 06:00 and closes at 23:00 — it is the pre-tour breakfast answer when your pickup is 06:30 and your hotel serves from seven. Chaolong, the city's Vietnamese refugee soup, is ₱60–120 a bowl across a dozen-plus houses; Bona's on Manalo Street does beef stew chaolong at ₱85. The whole map is on the food page, and what there is of a night out is on and just off Rizal Avenue.

Puerto Princesa's restaurant scene turns over fast and most guides do not keep up. Gypsy's Lair and La Terrasse are closed, and KaLui's old official domain now resolves to a gambling site — competing guides still link it. Where a place could not be confirmed open from a 2024–2026 source, this site says so instead of guessing.