Dining out at the Rincon Suizo

If you are an adult male who was brought up in anything close to the American mainstream, there is one thing that you surely must have learned as a boy. If you intend to bash Bluto upside the face until he is senseless, then unwind Olive Oyl from that utility pole and sweep her off her feet, you have to eat your spinach.

But in this day and age, you certainly wouldn’t want to get it out of a can. These days the politically correct form is as a salad green.

Much better yet, eat your spinach by going to Chef Willy Diggelmann’s flagship restaurant, Rincon Suizo, and ordering the corvina in spinach sauce. The lightly browned, perfectly done corvina filet is set atop a plate full of mild spinach sauce, along with a little potato and red cabbage leaf sculpture. On the side I ordered some spatzli, fried home-style German soft noodles.

But before that, the bread and the soup and the appetizers.

As in substantial white rolls and dark bread with butter or herb spread to put on them. As in sopa de mariscos, in the European rather than the Panamanian tradition (maybe a dash of wine, but certainly no sprig of culantro). As in scallops wrapped in bacon and grilled. As in sauteed mushrooms.

(I’m not the wine expert. Someone else ordered the white wine, a Chilean variety, to go with dinner. It was a good choice. Let me point out that some serious international critics have opined that Chef Willy has the best wine stash between Mexico and Chile. Willy is one of the founding members of Panama’s wine club, which puts on an exposition every year.)

This being Rincon Suizo, you pay more to eat here. It is, after all, one of Panama’s most renowned dining establishments, a perennial contender if ever a poll is taken for the capital’s best restaurant.

By US standards, however, Rincon Suizo is amazingly inexpensive, considering the quality and reputation. You can run the bill way up, but you can also have a fabulous dinner and change left over from your $20 bill.

It had been awhile since I had last visited Chef Willy’s first and best restaurant, and I still haven’t made it over to his seafood place on Avenida Balboa. But I can safely say that Rincon Suizo has maintained the high standards of quality, service and atmosphere that are part of its mystique.

It’s a dining experience I recommend for anyone visiting the city. It’s a place to which I should get back more often. It’s a world class restaurant.

On the night in question, it was the place where I ate my spinach.

Alas, as I left no Olive Oyl --- not even Condoleeza Rice --- was wrapped around any utility pole in the vicinity. There were no brawling sailors about, either.

Nope. No cheap thrills on this night --- just a great dining experience and good conversation. Everything that was served to me was wonderful. Especially the corvina in spinach sauce.

Ah, well. Can’t get extreme every night. Such are the vicissitudes of dining out in the big city.

dining

Feel a need to pound on Bluto? Chef Willy has what it takes

Feel a need to pound on Bluto?
Chef Willy has what it takes