dining

New York Bagels

by Eric Jackson

Those of you who are used to my style of reviewing things have probably noticed that I almost never give a dining establishment or a cultural work a bad review. That's not because I don't come across bad stuff in my explorations of the various Panamanian scenes --- it's just that when it comes to culture and cuisine, I try not to waste words on the unworthy stuff. I just don't review stuff that I don't like. Maybe that makes me seem too gushy. Maybe it balances my darker views of the nation's political and economic life. Hard to say. It's just that I personally can't relate to the art of the put-down, even if I may still realize that if we had someone accomplished at being a savage meanie and educated in the arts contributing reviews to The Panama News, it would add another facet to this publication and in fact improve it.

That I am reviewing New York Bagels, a new establishment in El Cangrejo's Plaza Einstein, opposite the Einstein head's left ear, means that I really do like this place. Its proprietor, an American who first came here with the Peace Corps, stayed on for awhile with a non-governmental organization and decided that a good bagel place would be his way to live and work here, is making an important contribution to our city.

Ah, but someone needs to take him on a road trip to Aguadulce so that he can perfect his selection.

Say what?

You see, Panama has a substantial and influential Jewish community, but its roots are primarily Sephardic. As in a kosher supermarket well stocked in Middle Eastern delights like falafel, but which rarely has the little kosher weenies that go so well in a sauce made of jam and hot mustard. What Americans generally think of as Jewish fare is of Central and Eastern European origin, the cuisine of the Ashkenazim who trace roots back to the Khazars, many of whom fled Czarist and Nazi and other persecutions to the United States. Panamanian Jewish cuisine, on the other hand, traces its roots back to the Jewish culture that flourished in Arab Spain and was exiled to North Africa, Turkey, the Middle East and Portugal at the end of the 15th century. And one of the differences that this makes is that the coarse kosher salt that we knew back in the States is hard to find here.

Thus John can't find the proper raw material for the salt bagels that I consider the highest expression of this culinary art form. But I think that the guys who produce salt by evaporating sea water in the Aguadulce area could supply him with the rough crystals that could be ground to the proper size and texture easily enough.

Enough of this complaining. I visited New York Bagels twice, buying their "everything," garlic, cheddar, parmesan, raisin and blueberry varieties to go. I need to return to sit down and try some of their stuff slathered in cream cheese with a bit of lox, because my experiences so far have been very positive.

Yes, I know. There will be New Yorkers out there who will insist that in the few weeks I have spent in the Big Apple I could not possibly have come to know the joys and subtleties of the true bagel. But for many years I lived within a short bus ride of Ann Arbor's renowned Bagel Factory and refined my appreciation there.

And I do appreciate New York Bagels, and will like it even better when the establishment gets a reliable supply of coarse salt.

The business plan here is not only to sell bagels, cream cheese, coffee and all that, but to make the establishment into something of a neighborhood and community hangout. It will, in fact, be one of the places where you might find a copy of the special print edition of The Panama News to read with breakfast or lunch.

Check out New York Bagels and if you like it as well as I do, keep coming back. This is too good an addition to our city's culture to allow to come and go like most eateries do.