Reataurant atmospherics

Dining out

A restaurant's atmosphere
by Eric Jackson

One of the first things that a restaurant reviewer should understand is that it's generally unwise to generalize about the qualities of a restaurant from an event with a bunch of people. Cooking for a group is different from cooking for individuals, and the service is different too. This was especially so at the Guayacanes in Chitre, shown above and below, where this reporter sat down to a luncheon with about a couple of dozen people, who arrived at different times.

(This reporter's meal of soup, curried shrimp, patacones, a salad and lemonade was good but merited no superlatives. Others who chose the grilled chicken gave rave reviews.)

What's really noteworthy (and fair to judge) about this establishment is its atmosphere --- the award-winning architecture with its mostly natural mid-day combinations of light and shade, the acoustics conducive to conversation, the tasteful and understated decor, the comfortable furniture.

I don't get to Chitre enough to know if this is the best restaurant in town. I suspect that it isn't. Most typically, the best food in a town will be found in some unheralded little eatery with a cook who's very good at doing a limited number of things, and which buys its ingredients fresh every day and changes its menu to fit the season.

But definitely the Guyacanes is a place where you'd want to go for a business lunch or good conversations with good friends.

A couple of nights later I went to a place near my office where the food is good, plentiful and cheap.

However, I always found the atmosphere at the place a bit annoying, with its two televisions tuned to different channels with their respective sounds turned up.

Now it had taken a turn for the worse. They have added a jukebox which they play along with both TV sets. I actually liked the music they were playing at first, some merengue from the Dominican Republic, but the din was so great that the waitress had a hard time taking my order. When the jukebox selection turned to reggueton atop TVN and Telemetro, the noise was perfectly awful.

I still like the food and will continue to patronize the latter restaurant, but because of the atmosphere I think I will be doing carry-out orders from now on. The background street noise in my office in loud Perejil trumps the establishment's multimedia cacophony any day, even when the kids next door decide to turn their gangsta rap up to full blast.

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