| Madame (not so) Chang's |
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| Written by Matt Landau | ||
| Thursday, January 11 2007 | ||
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Madame Chang, Panama City has been touted as the best Chinese food restaurant in all of Central America. When people hear the name, they envision giant golden dragons and men with short black ponytails cutting their way through the dining room with large katanas. They picture a great wall fish tank filled with exotic whisker fish, carefully-decorated ceremonial tableware, and billowing aromas from the Far East. It's not all it's cracked up to be though. To be kind, the interior is simple-chic: the tables dressed with the normal white tablecloth and origami red cloth napkins you'd expect from an upscale Chinese food restaurant. The service is decent, not by any means spectacular. The food is certainly above average but along with almost every other facet of the restaurant, definitely does not live up to all the propaganda. I suppose it could be the fact that, similar to an over-hyped Hollywood blockbuster, my expectations of Madame Chang were too high going in. That the sluggish service was analogous to disappointing acting and the mediocre food a boring plot line. Sort of like M. Night Shamalan's “The Village”. The hostess, a middle-aged Chinese woman (possibly the Madame Chang herself) was extremely friendly and fluent in English, Spanish, Chinese and what appeared to be sign language swatting effortlessly at a mosquito that had made its way inside. My one issue with her was that she recommended the Peking duck—or “a delicious treat on your mouth” as she called it—as an appetizer, a suggestion we happily pounced upon and on which was quite tasty. What she forgot to mention was that the skimpy little platelet of scallions, lettuce and several slices of duck was $20! Who in their right mind serves a $20 appetizer in Panama without giving some sort of disclaimer? Especially one that's portioned for the appetite of a titmouse. One thing definitely in the restaurant's favor is that there's no dress code. That's a big one in my book. Any restaurant that takes themselves too seriously automatically raises the bar and accordingly must live up to higher standards. These kinds of places, like the restaurants at the Radisson, need to take a field trip to Le Bec Fin, a core of culinary perfection, where you can wear whatever the hell you want as long as you pay your bill. Madame Chang allowed my father in, wearing bathing suit-like shorts, a t-shirt, and an eye-patch without hesitation. Dinner for four was about $110 but the experience didn't warrant that. It confirmed my original suspicion that Madame Chang, just like a lot of other restaurants in Panama, is simply a tourist trap. (see: Mi Ranchito, El Trapiche, Las Pencas, Café Barko.) A shiny dining room set up to lure in the fanny-packers, map-wielders, and guidebook-toters. What's strange is that Panamanians think that we, as North Americans, like this kind of stuff. They think we like overpriced middle-of-the-road food with large glasses of Coke and myriads of deserts, which for a large pool of Americans on vacation may be true. But I didn't move down to Panama to eat limp beef and brown broccoli served off some chipped china tray. Looking back, the experience wasn't all that bad; it just wasn't all that special. It was about the same quality as—maybe a baby step above—your everyday strip mall Chinese food place at home: you know, the one with hundreds of parking spots outside but barely anyone sitting at the booths? With your oversized plastic chopsticks, excessively-Americanized dishes, and those all-too-classic soy sauce carafelets. They're walking a very fine line between plain Chinese food and monotony and I don't like it. Go ahead and give it a shot, perhaps your experience will be better than mine. For the time being though, Madame no Thanks. It sits on calle Uruguay in the trendy district. The phone number is 269.1313. If you go can you pick up my baseball hat for me? I forgot it there.
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