This fall the NY Times recommended Panama as a nice travel destination, so my sweetie and I chucked our Costa Rica plans and arrived in Panama City with our Lonely Planet Guide and not much else to inform our expectations. Most winters we travel in Mexico, but this year was to be a break from the pattern. In Mexico we have almost always found great local food and bad cops. In Panama things are reversed: Panamanian police will get in your car not to extort a bribe but rather to guide you to your destination.

In the two short weeks that we were in country, we tried but failed to find the delicious indigenous cuisine of Panama. We had some good meals  Cuban, Spanish, Italian, Chinese  but the closer we got to Panamanian home-style cooking the more we encountered the odd and inedible. We tried thin gruel, greasy fry-bread, bad ceviche and overcooked cafeteria mystery-meat (steam tables are big in Panama). I couldn't quite bring myself to try the spiral cut hot dog on a stick, even though hot sauce was provided; under most conditions hot sauce on street food compensates for anything.

My main impression is that Panama is a busy international crossroads and most of the folks who open restaurants there bring their recipes with them from someplace else (to a significant degree, that might also be said of Seattle). I came back home with my suitcase stuffed with Panamanian rum and a bunch of hot sauce bottles labeled "Congo."