DONDE JOSE (PANAMA)
- Mommy the Foodie
- Aug 18, 2017
- 3 min read
Food: 4.5/5
Ambiance: 4.5/5
Service: 5/5
(The eperience: 5/5)
Five years ago, my husband and I got married in Panama (where I’m originally from). When I realized we would be celebrating our anniversary in Panama, I looked for a special restaurant. Enter Donde Jose...
My husband and I LOVE food, and few things make us happier than restaurants that offer awesome tasting menus. At Donde José, Chef Jose Carles (half chef, half mad scientist) creates an ever changing 9 course tasting menu that honors Panamanian food (and every plate has a story/reason why they created it which is explained by the servers). Each menu has a sort of theme and tonight’s theme was smokiness.
We began with a tortilla stuffed with smoked white cheese which we dipped in a pomodoro sauce made with smoked tomatoes. The smokiness would have been overwhelming, but there was melted cheese and so I was happy. Loved the combination of the mild tortilla paired with flavor bursting pomodoro.
Next up: cod pancake which sat atop a coconut sauce. Sounds odd, but it tasted stupid good. Next to it, a sort of next level fish taco with plantains serving as the shell. This plate was ridiculous. I could have had ten of these.
Panamanian comfort food followed: sancocho (Panamanian’s version of chicken soup) made with smoked ñame (potato’s better looking cousin). The soup was deliciously comforting, but maybe my favorite part of this dish was the presentation: the chef served this typical Panamanian dish in his grandmother’s teacups.
When the servers keep referring to a “lab” where they come up with their concoctions, you can expect the palette cleanser to be made with coconut water (very Panamanian) topped with “electric flowers.” I question my judgment for eating these even after I was told they numb your tongue. Very weird. Very cool.
Next was a dish they called “where is the milk?” The cracker-ish part of this dish was made with caramelized milk. Once again weird but very cool. The “milk” was topped with a garlic puree and smoked meat tartar. Probably my favorite dish of the night courtesy of the garlic purée. Simply delicious.
As a nod to the Chinese influence on Panamanian food, what followed was a dumpling topped with tamal and grilled mushrooms. The texture at first was a little off (the dumpling and tamal were almost too soft) but the mushrooms were so tasty I forgot all about my textural concerns. More please?
Apparently at Donde Jose, a salad can’t just be a salad. Every day the servers search around the neighborhood for fruits and veggies and whatever they find gets put together to make that day’s salad. Tonight they found green papayas, hearts of palm, and green mangoes. I love this place.
Comfort food and then some, the following plate was the chef’s interpretation of risotto. Under the rice, guandu (which tasted an awful lot like refried beans ) and osso buco. Yum yum yum. The flavors in this dish were otherworldly. The risotto was topped with super crispy pan fried rice. Ridiculously tasty.
The final salty dish was a tempura fish, but the tempura was made with ñame (remember that yummy potato-esque root veggie?). I don’t know how they did it, but the fish was super crispy and delicious. It sat atop sourkraut and an “umami” barbecue. Crazy good.
Dessert: chayote preserve topped with shaved ice. It gets better. They topped the shaved ice with banana syrup. Again tasty tasty tasty.
For those of us who need chocolate in our dessert (me! me! me!) last but not least wastheir interpretation of café con leche: a chocolate bonbon, topped with a saltine cracker which they then poured Geisha coffee (an award winning Panamanian coffee) and milk foam over. They paired this dessert with three types of cheeses to dip in the chocolate. Somehow the electrical flowers were fine but I drew the line at dipping my cheese in coffee. Once I ignored the cheese dipping suggestion, I thoroughly enjoyed my chocolate and coffee concoction.
So you need to come to Donde Jose. The food was spectacular but more importantly the experience was beautiful. From the setting (a hole in the wall in Casco Viejo), to the music, the menu (an ode to Panama), the crazy cocktails, to the presentation of each plate, to the electrical flower palette cleanser. Loved this place.
Address: 1100 Avenida Central, Panama, Panama
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