dining

Inexpensive but high-quality Chinese fare, and unusual in this town for those who appreciate spicy flavors

Restaurante Jumbo

on Tumba Muerto

by Eric Jackson

I now have a radio show that takes me to El Dorado twice a week. Given that this area is the capital's emerging new Chinatown and my notorious culinary sinophilia, wouldn't you expect that I'd be checking out what's new in the area's Chinese restaurants.

I have found this unimpressive looking little place in the commercial strip across the street from the El Dorado mall, Restaurante Jumbo. One little thing caught my attention, though: there's a little bottle of hot sauce on every table, next to the flask of soy sauce. Sorry, Santeños --- no ketchup to put on your fried rice.

Chinese-Panamanian fare is not generally picante. It's hard to find Szechuan food here, there being no establishments dedicated to that fiery cuisine from the most populous province in China's middle west. (Almost all of Panama's population of Chinese origin or ancestry traces back to Guandong province, and a large part of the recently arrived portion to the town of Fa Yen therein. Thus "Chinese food" here generally means Cantonese, but over the 150 years of its existence a distinctively Chinese-Panamanian style has emerged, with standards like leon pan mein and Mayor Aleman soup and even occasional oddities like chopped culantro in your chow mein. They just don't do spicy in Chinese-Panamanian, although at some of the more upscale Chinese places in town they will have a few fired-up items on the menu.

Well, the Jumbo is not a Szechuan place, but neither are they Chinese-Panamanian and they do appreciate the spicy. The food there is inexpensive and good, and if it's not hot enough for you, that's what those little bottles of this clear pink fire are all about.

As in Singapore-style mei fun noodles in which there's a little kick to the curry not generally found in other Panama City restaurants' renditions of the Straits Chinese regional standard. As in a hot and sour soup that's both hot and sour and just right. I didn't find the need to put hot sauce on either of those things.

I also had their duck with Chinese style rice --- basically some white rice that's not sticky or gooey, with some mustard greens and some chopped up roast duck, bones included. I did fire up this dish with the table condiments, and along with a pot of hot tea it made for a relaxing and economical meal to put me in the right on-air mood.

Save the superlatives, because there are a lot of good Chinese restaurants in various price ranges in Panama. Just add the Jumbo to the list of places where you go for the food rather than the decor, where the service is prompt and where the prices are affordable. Yes, you are only a stone's throw from McDonald's when you're at the Jumbo, but if that's your price range you really do much better for lunch or dinner at the latter.

I have more new Chinese places to try in the El Dorado area, and also some old ones to revisit, but I may well become something of a regular at the Jumbo.