Saturday, February 7, 2009

The Eating Splurge



I do not write a lot about what we eat, or where we eat, but one restaurant we have enjoyed deserves some comment. Mall and Leena wanted to take us out for an upscale dinner, so who am I to complain! I of course picked the TripAdvisor number one rated restaurant for Panama. It is also referred to in Fodor’s as the most elegant of Panama’s Spanish restaurants. The restaurant is the Angel Restaurante, and fortunately for us, is located just a couple of blocks up Via Argentina.

The format for most Panama City restaurants is a combination of air-conditioned inside and open air deck or patio along the street. The Angel is a traditional inside white table cloth, elegantly decorated, beautiful paintings, dark wood, and exquisite service top end restaurant. As typical gringos we seem to arrive before anyone else, about 8 p.m. It was nicely filling by the time we finished about 9:45 p.m. Our dinner began with a very nice Spanish red wine, then onto lobster bisque, seafood soup, and shared white asparagus (at least shared by Mall and Leena).

Our entrĂ©e’s included filet mignon with port sauce and mushrooms, medallions of beef, two versions of grouper, and side dishes of rice and boiled potatoes. By the time we finished we were full to the brim, but did salivate over the desserts delivered to our table, but which we were able to show admirable restraint. All in all, it was a great dinner for a total of $115 for the four of us. Food, even at the top of the eating scale, is very affordable in Panama.
A second spurge later on in the month was to 1985. This is a restaurant near the hotel district that is designed as a swiss chalet (and a swiss owner-chef I presume). It was an excellent dinner with great decor (translate that as good art) in an elegant dining room. The chicken and veal entres' and soup appetizers were superb. It however was a little more pricey than we usually found.

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