dining

Yes, I know that there's another Fruteria Mimi in San Francisco, a bigger one. Even now that this little grocery store moved from its little premises behind the Einstein head statue in El Cangrejo, a stone's throw downhill to the more spacious premises of the place on Via Argentina where the Farmacia Arrocha used to be, the San Francisco store is still a lot bigger.

But I became accustomed to the El Cangrejo venue when The Panama News office was on Via Argentina, and it's still a more convenient place for me to shop.

Mimi's is a wonderful place, in all its venues.

As in, one of the few places in Panama that you can get pea pods.

As in, a selection of Chinese plums, and other dried fruit like haws, that lets you choose among salty, sweet, sour, licorice and other flavors, and with or without certain artificial sweeteners that I abhor.

As in, finger bananas and sometimes the red Asian bananas.

As in, every fruit that's in season here, and a lot that are in season elsewhere.

As in, a full selection of fresh greens.

Do my sinophile tastes need to be satiated, even as my funds are limited? Then, with a little stop at the nearby Casa de la Carne to get a scrap or two of meat, poultry or seafood, I might go to Fruteria Mimi to get a little bag of Chinese mushrooms, a package of chow mein noodles, an envelope of soup stock, a little jar of red pepper and garlic sauce and a bunch of mustard greens.

Is that kidney in which I had a painful stone a few years back sore? My Chinese medicine books tell me that this is a very good excuse to indulge in one of my favorite vices, crisp and juicy Asian pears.

This time of the year tangerines are coming in. I'll always dry some of the peels, and toss bits of dried peel into the tea ball with some of the loose oolong tea I also bought at Mimi's, steep it in boiled water, then squeeze in some lime juice and sweeten with turbinado sugar, also available at this store, and I'm set to enjoy another of my vices. (This one, alas, is not as healthy as Asian pears.)

The basic bottom line consideration is that it's good to live within walking distance of Fruteria Mimi, and good that the El Cangrejo locale has moved to a larger store so that it can stock a wider selection of the good stuff that keeps me coming back.

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