Last night Dan and I were eating at an outdoor café in Panama City when I spotted an inchworm, no more than a few centimeters in length, making its way methodically along the side of Dan’s plate. I ushered the worm, who was green and clean looking, onto my finger then flicked him into the plaza just before the waitress came over and asked what I was doing in the bushes.

“Well, it is that, we found a guisante in Dan’s salad,” I explained, rippling my pointer finger as if to replicate the little earthworm who was actually more cute than unappetizing. Guisante, I know now, means small pea and the word guante – which I used in a second attempt – means glove. So after telling the waitress we had found both a small pea and a singular glove in Dan’s salad, I took the jump and attempted to explain using greater detail.

“It was a little insect that looks, in shape, like a snake. A small green snake that walks very fast towards Dan.”

I was once on a guided art tour in Barcelona when our guide, this sweet old woman who’s had an impeccable fashion sense, stopped to explain a façade designed by the great Gaudi when she was suddenly interrupted by a homeless man moving his bowels just in front of a fresh fruit stand. Extremely reminiscent was the look on our waiter’s face upon hearing that a pea, no a glove, no a small green snake had made its way into our ensalada verde, and that everything was alright, because I had just released him into the woods.

It was on our way to dinner that I pulled into the gas station on Calle 50, which I like because it is located within fifty meters of a Hooters, and asked the friendly attendant to fill up my tank. I also like this station because all the employees wear molas sewn on their shirts: a nice cultural touch. As he was filling the tank, he pointed at my friend Dan and said, “you brother?”

I once heard a staunch conservative friend of mine laugh and say that all Mexicans look alike. This came on the heels of some hot immigration debate and I never truly grasped the ridiculousness of it until sitting there at the gas station. Dan and I look about as similar as Pen and Teller so I used a word from middle school Spanish and said we were “hermanastros,” or stepbrothers.

When I went to pay, the attendant took a good look at my credit card and smiled. “This is from a bank in the United States of America?”

“Why yes it is,” I told him, “do you like?” He turned the card to the light as if some hologram or magical United States power would seep out.

“Is very elegant,” he said with a grin. I wondered if he was smiling so much because he was about to steal my credit card information.

Today I went to a new Indian restaurant in the banking district called Sabor de India and even though it was fifteen minutes before opening, the waitress said it would be OK if I sat down and waited inside. Their menu she handed me was tri-fold and no one item cost more than about five bucks, a blast to the past when restaurants in Panama used to be economical and, as a result, the food tasted that much better.

It was summer about a year ago, and my friend Nick and I were eating dinner at a fancy new Peruvian restaurant in Panama City. The décor was nice, and, from the looks of it, expensive. We had just finished our first round of drinks when the waiter brought out my appetizer: a large white plate roughly the size and shape of a sombrero in the center of which sat a pile of glass and fabric scraps, at least that's what it looked like. "Disculpa," I said to the waiter, "but I was under the impression I had ordered the ceviche? Que es eso?"

Located about a block past Market in Panama City off Calle Uruguay (in the direction of Calle Frederico Boyd), Burgues sits recessed somewhat from the street and could be easily mistaken for a high-end furniture or lighting gallery. Inside is a cool mix of glamour and quirk that works in such an intimate atmosphere. The space no bigger than a school classroom. The menu is simple and relatively straightforward with tiny aspects of the Middle East like hummus and babaganoush. We started with a chili con carne dish, which was flavorful but somehow lacking identity: a giant spoonful of the mixture sat in a fried tortilla shell accompanied by several sauces and three fried tortilla vehicles. 

Just the other morning in Panama I woke up pondering how much fish I had consumed over the course of the previous two days. I landed comfortably on the number twelve, as in twelve pounds, and spent the rest of the day trying to envision what twelve pounds of fish looked like in one place at one time. The result was daunting and actually a little gross, this heap of raw fish that could probably feed several villages in Kuna Yala for a month or maybe longer.

Among the many great aspects of life in Panama are its warm climate and its nightlife/dining scene. While the latter wouldn't necessarily rival anything from New York or LA, Panama's entertainment scene is among the best in Central America and not to mention, significantly cheaper than comparables at home. Considering nightly temperatures in Panama are almost always perfect, it's surprising that so few outdoor restaurants and bars exist, but those that do are packed regularly. Of course none of these places have websites.

Panama City's dining scene is lauded as perhaps the best of any capital in Central America, but to the savvy gourmet there's not a whole lot of innovation going on around here. The majority of city meals are comparatively less expensive than their counterparts in the USA, but the food and service generally tend to hover from good to very good, rarely hitting that Manhattan level of excellent.

Panama's emerging old district of Casco Viejo has a new haunt to flaunt in the ever-evolving dining and nightlife scene that once seemed so far away. Indigo Restaurant and Lounge, a themed restaurant directly beside the tourism police station, is setting entertainment standards in ways Casco has never seen before.

This past weekend I visited the new Tratorria Toscana on Via Porras to have dinner. The service was lacking, the food certainly not worth the price...is this really a trattoria? It was not full despite our 7:30 pm arrival time and we were able to grab a nice corner table.

This could be my new favorite dig in Panama City. Situated on The Causeway—an area known for touristy restaurants, touristy specials and, well, touristy tourists—this place sticks out like a sore thumb: that is, as long as you're able to find it.

 

From the street, it doesn't look like much. Compared to the sophisticated façade of La Posta or the supposedly-trendy portico of Las Palmas—where a rock boulder in the lobby is meant to be stylish—the appearance of my new favorite dig in Panama, Ozone Café is relatively unassuming. In passing it from the street, as I have so many times, you might envision the joint to be some sort of internet café or karaoke dive bar—one which you enter through an obscure dark alley. But in doing so, you would miss out on one of Panama's finest gastrorganizations.

Visited March 2007. Would I Return? yes.

The history of the phrase “watering hole” goes back to ancient times when monks, to get away from the hustle and bustle of what I can only imagine was a terribly wild workplace, would retreat to quiet sanctuaries. Located in the courtyards of medieval monasteries, watering holes were traditionally shaded by lemon and pomegranate trees, the perimeters framed with blossoming geraniums. In the spirit of mythology, I asked an old monk friend of mine to accompany me to the newest watering hole on Via Veneto, a little place called La Terraza.