CEBU -- Mactan, made up of Lapu-Lapu City and the municipality of Cordova, is one of the main tourist islands of Cebu, offering some of the best diving, snorkeling, island-hopping, and other leisure activities.

It’s also where the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, the second busiest international airport in the Philippines, is located.

If you’ve ever been on a long layover or stayed in one of the beach resorts located on Mactan, you’ll know that traffic getting into the main Cebu City proper and downtown area can eat up a lot of time getting around. Thankfully, there are a lot of restaurants to choose from in Mactan alone, ranging from hole-in-the-wall type haunts to fine dining establishments.

Here are five different restaurants with something unique to offer that you can check out while in Mactan.

1. Fiesta Bay Asian Seafood Restaurant

Fiesta Bay Asian Seafood Restaurant is a homey and festive restaurant in Punta Engano that offers casual Filipino, Asian and fusion dishes served family-style. Seafood lovers can get their fill of baked scallops, kinilaw, sinigang sa hipon, grilled tuna belly, grilled squid, salmon steak. They also have popular Pinoy classic meat dishes inihiaw na liempo, barbecue, chorizo sisig and more, best paired with fresh tropical fruit shakes.

You can find this dining spot about 30 minutes from the airport, along Punta Engano Road near high-end beach resorts in Mactan. Fiesta Bay offers a more reasonably priced alternative to the in-house restaurants and bars along the resort belt. Cash and credit/debit cards are accepted.

Address: Punta Engano, Lapu-lapu City, Cebu (across Movenpick). Operating hours: Open daily from 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. for lunch and 5:30-10 p.m. for dinner.

2. Giuseppe Pizzeria & Sicilian Roast Mactan

For those looking for a taste of Sicily in Mactan, Giuseppe’s Pizzeria and Sicilian Roast in Lapu-Lapu offers generous servings of traditional Italian dishes. Founded by resident Italian chef, Giuseppe Genco, who moved to Cebu 30 years ago, this gem serves fresh homemade pasta and pizza using only high-quality ingredients.

Try the Spaghetti Marinara, topped with fresh serving of scallops, shrimp, squid, and mussels. This seafood pasta dish highlights the offerings you can find in coastal seafood markets around the city.

For carnivores, the Parma Ham Pizza, loaded with parma ham and arugula and drizzled with spicy sauce, is another must-try dish.

If you’re not a heavy eater, even the solo size of their pasta dishes are good enough for sharing. The restaurant has a good selection of Italian wines and carries popular Italian beers like Peroni and Birra Moretti.

The lovely ambiance, excellent dishes and wide variety of wine makes this a romantic dining destination ideal for couples and honeymooners as well as an ideal venue for small groups celebrating special occasions. Be sure to budget enough pocket money if you plan to dine here, as they only accept cash payments.

Address: Punta Engano Road, Mactan Seaport Village, Lapu Lapu, Cebu. Operating hours: Open from Tuesday to Sundays 11.30 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. Closed on Mondays.

3. Entoy’s Bakasihan

Entoy’s Bakasihan is one of the oldest and most famous restaurants serving bakasi in Cordova, a coastal town on the tip of Mactan island, about 10 km from the airport. Bakasi are salt water or reef eel abundant in the area. The humble seaside carinderia specializes nilarang na bakasi, a native Cebuano sour stew often likened to sinigang, that makes use of reef eels. They also serve other dishes like fried eels and other local seafood dishes like octopus, prawns and crabs.

While long frequented by locals, who believe that eels are aphrodisiacs, Entoy’s Bakasihan was recently put in the spotlight after it was featured in the Cebu episode of Netflix’s socumentary series "Street Food Asia." Despite the restaurant’s humble set-up and distance (about 45 minutes to 1 hour from the airport), international tourists from all over now go out of their way to eat here, bringing along candy to give to the restaurant’s 71-year old founder Florencio “Entoy” Escabas.

Address: Barangay Buagsong, Buagsong Barangay Road, Cordova, Mactan Island, Cebu. Operating hours: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Mondays to Saturdays.

4. 10,000 Roses Café

Wildly popular on social media especially when it first opened, 10,000 Roses Café has become a sought-after tourist attraction particularly for Instagram users. The café, inspired by the famous Dongdaenum Design Plaza in South Korea, features patches of artificial LED roses that resemble magical lights when lit up at night.

The best time to take photos is around dusk because the lighting can be very harsh at noon and the white roses look flat in broad daylight. The al fresco dining area offers a nice view of the city and refreshing sea breeze. If you have time to kill and haven’t been there yet, it’s something you can check out. In between taking photos, you can order coffee and light snacks like sandwiches, pasta, salad, paninis, pizza and the like.

Eat light so you can combine a visit here with a more substantial meal at Lantaw Native Floating Restaurant, just across.

Address: Day-as, Cordova, Mactan Island, Cebu. Operating hours: 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

5. Lantaw Native Floating Restaurant

Lantaw is a native floating restaurant in Cordova that serves affordable Filipino and Asian dishes. The restaurant specializes mostly in seafood like garlic buttered prawns, shrimps, buttered crabs, scallops, oysters along with popular Pinoy dishes like crispy pata, lechon kawali and grilled pork belly.

Sample local specialties like Cordova Express (seafood and vegetables cooked in coconut milk) or Manok Bisaya (cooked in coconut juice, coconut pieces, shrimp, squid, diced fish and malunggay leaves).

Like the other restaurants in Cordova, Lantaw Native Floating Restaurant is a bit out of the way, roughly 45 minutes from the airport, but the great views of the ocean and mangroves especially during sunset and good food makes up for the distance. If you visit in the afternoons, the padded couches offer a comfortable place to relax while you nurse a beer or glass of Cordova Cooler (a mix of orange, mango, watermelon and calamansi drops) along with tasty appetizers. However, it can get quite crowded and noisy with large groups of diners at night.

Address: Sa Baybayon, Cordova. Operating hours: Open daily from 10 a.m. – 11 p.m.