dining

A Neapolitan-style restaurant in El Dorado

Italian regional fare becomes an option in Panama City

by Eric Jackson

While walking to the bus stop in front of McDonald's on Tumba Muerto after having purchased some blank CDs, a chalkboard offering an interesting seafood salad lunch special caught my eye. It was in front of Vesuvio, a new restaurant advertising Neapolitan-style Italian food, but I didn't have time to stop and try. I did, however, put it on my mental list of dining establishments to visit.

(It's a rough job, trying and reviewing restaurants for The Panama News, but somebody has to do it. That's my excuse!)

Now I know this chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream that gringos (and now Panamanians) call "Neapolitan," I've had pizza at Napoli, but to be honest I'm not qualified to tell what's "authentic." I'm taking this establishment at its word and not judging it on any comparison to the food in a place where I have never visited but to my own subjective tastes.

The waitress, whose service throughout was perfect, brought out a basket of fresh-baked flat bread slices and I put a little puddle of olive oil from the unlabeled bottle on the table onto the plate in which to dip it.

One thing about the Vesuvio that may be relevant to many readers is that its menu has a larger vegetarian section than the great majority of Panama City restaurants and a lot of them were strong contenders for my first visit to this place. Alas, next time.

I ordered an eggplant appetizer, a cup of the house's white wine and the Vesuvio's special seafood and spinach rolls.

This is a little place with tasteful decor and tasteful music that's kept at a volume that enhances rather than suppresses conversation. The prices are moderate here. You have to get into the lobster to go over $10 for an entree.

Soon the waitress brought this artfully presented dish with thin slices of fried eggplant with thin strips of ham and a little bit of tomato-based sauce, with provolone cheese melted on top. It wasn't a lot of food --- it was an appetizer. A very good appetizer, I might add.

Then came the Rollos Vesuvio --- two little rolls composed of thin fish (corvina?) filets with fresh spinach and clams rolled up in side, covered in a mild creamy lemon sauce. Sharing the plate were a lump of mashed potato and some sauteed sweet peppers, onions and zucchini on the side. This, too, was creatively garnished as in much more expensive establishments.

It was very good, something I'd never had before, a culinary statement that every which way said subtle --- the seafood and veggies cooked just right, the sauce neither bland nor overpowering, the presentation elegant but not extravagant, the ingredients simple enough but in creative combination.

This is not one of these places that goes on the "all you can eat" philosophy in its crudest American sense. (I have long preferred the version used by the US chain of Blue Nile Ethiopian restaurants that I'd love to see in Panama: "all you care to eat.") But after the appetizer and main course, overweight gringo that I am,  I still had room for coffee and dessert.

As in expresso coffee strong enough to hype myself up for an afternoon in front of the computer.

Ah, but no "Neapolitan" ice cream on the menu. The dessert choices were flan and terrina. I took the latter.

And now what I took to be the gist of Neapolitan civilization occurred to me. After the barbarism in which twins would be abandoned to nature with the expectation of death by exposure but which one time resulted in infants being suckled by a she-wolf; after all the cruel decadence of pagan Rome, and God's punishment by way of the fiery destruction of nearby Pompeii and Herculaneum that still didn't keep them from feeding Christians to the lions; after a Christianity turned violent that burned dissidents at the stake; after all the wars of Italy's dismemberment and reunification; after fascism; after mafia rule --- after all this, the Neapolitans became more civilized. They invented death by chocolate.

Terrina is a frozen chocolate dessert, presented at Vesuvio with an artistic drizzle of strawberry sauce. I don't think you can call it ice cream because I don't think there's cream in it. It's wonderful. It was the highlight of my lunch.

The bill? Well, the Rollos Vesuvio were near the top of the price range on the menu and I did pig out, but with a gringo-sized tip it came to a little under $25. That's more than you pay at a lot of other restaurants in town, but not at all unreasonable. Had I wanted to do the fresh tuna salad special and a cup of expresso, it would have been only slightly more expensive than lunch next door at McDonald's.

Add the Vesuvio to the Panama City restaurants you'll want to visit.