Back towards the beginning of the year, CT and I learned that CT’s Sister’s Sister-in-Law would be getting married in Panama at the end of July. Why Panama? The Bride’s parents live down there now full-time. We learned that Panama has a huge ex-pat population mostly because it is so cheap and the U.S. Dollar is the functional currency down there. Since CT’s whole family is quite close with her brother-in-law’s family, we were all invited to the wedding. Since neither of us had been to Panama before, we decided to spend an extra couple days down there to explore the city and of course, the food. Join us the next couple of weeks as we eat PANAMA!
CT & I did a lot of research before the trip, mostly about food. We learned that Panama City has a large Chinese population mostly due to the large influx of workers during the mid 19th Century to work on the Panama Railroad(not unlike what also happened in the United States around the same time). We read that there is a very popular dim sum restaurant called Lung Fung. As you all know, we at Feisty Foodie love our dim sum, so a visit would be necessary. Since CT’s parents also love dim and it was their last day in Panama City, we decided to forgo our “free” breakfast at Casa Sucre and go to Lung Fung instead.
Since we had to make our way to the rainforest resort that afternoon, we went “early” for New York dim sum standards, around 10. (CT says: I actually tried to gather the troops by 9:30 as instructed in the reviews, but there were a few hindrances along the way.) Lung Fung was Yvo’s kinda place because there was already a long line at that time of the morning. Like most dim sum places, the line moves quick, so we were seated only 15 or 20 minutes later. The first thing I noticed was that while the restaurant was very nicely decorated in a traditional dim sum house manner(red walls, dragons, etc.), it was super dark in there. Every dim sum restaurant I have ever been to has always been pretty bright considering it is usually eaten during the middle of the day and not romantic. The result of this being especially bad pictures, so you have my apologies for that.
We were all pretty hungry, so we got a whole bunch of different plates to start without even understanding what everything was. Pretty much all of the food was the same as dim sum in the States with a few different ones here and there.
Steam Pork Buns. They had a ton of filling in each, but the filling was just ok.
CT says: I liked the filling, but thought there was too much bread, actually.
Pork Dumplings?
Dumplings with Spinach. These were really good. It had whole leaves of spinach and really good flavor.
I think these were also pork dumplings. The pork was pretty solid like an elongated meatball.
Dumplings with meat and whole peanuts. The wrappers were super thick and gummy but the innards were good especially good texture from the peanuts.
CT says: These almost tasted Thai-like with the peanut flavor – really yummy. However, overall the dumpling skins were not as good as previously eaten dim sum. Fortunately, I was too hungry to really care.
Beef Dumplings?
I believe this was some sort of roasted beef with potatoes. Quite tasty.
CT says: I really enjoyed this beef dish. Very flavorful! I’m pretty sure we ordered a second plate of this too.
Hot sauce aka “Picante.” Throughout Panama every restaurant seems to make their own hot sauce. This was especially hot which was right up CT and her Dad’s alley.
Innards from one of the dumplings. As you can see, they were pretty full of meat.
A must have for any dim sum experience; lotus leaf wrapped sticky rice. It is kind of hard to tell, but the portion was huge! It seemed to be at least twice the size of what we would get in NYC.
It was also full of large pieces of various meats.
CT says: YUM! Perfectly stuffed and cooked.
Shrimp Dumplings.
Har Gow. These were pretty good. I think we ended up getting two or three orders.
Fried Pork Dumplings. They had a pretty hard fry on them so the wrappers were kind of tough to crunch through.
Shu Mai. Not as good as Oriental Garden.
We were getting pretty full at this point, but were lacking something. We had yet to have something deep fried like a spring roll. After talking with one of the waitresses we learned that it would be another 10 or so minutes till the next round of fried goodies. We had plenty of time so we waited it out.
We ended up with fried shrimp dumplings. When we saw them we thought they were crab rangoons that you can get at bad Chinese take-out places in the States, but they turned out to be pretty good and full of shrimp. Craving satisfied!
CT says: I almost didn’t take them, expected cream cheese filled fried dough. But I’m really glad I did! They weren’t too greasy and stuffed with shrimp. Dipped in the sweet & sour sauce, it was a great ending to the meal.
All in all, Lung Fung was a good dim sum place on par with most NYC dim sum restaurants. For the most part it was the same food and a similar price structure. As dim sum is already pretty cheap, we couldn’t expect it to be only a couple dollars for the four of us. It was just strange that they had the low lights “ambiance” unlike any other dim sum restaurant I have been at.
Kcijones001 says
You’re an elongated meatball.
TT says
Thank you?
Feisty Foodie says
I don’t have to defend myself! Dim sum places get super packed, especially in Queens (not sure about Chinatown really since I don’t often go there for dim sum anymore). 😛
BTW, the red walls + dragons isn’t typical ‘dim sum house’ decor, it’s banquet hall decor. In NYC, most dim sum places also do banquets at night (weddings, funeral, birthdays, etc.) but they don’t switch things around for it. The gold dragon facing the gold phoenix on the wall with a Chinese character between them symbolizes longevity/length of marriage and happiness… the character is usually a double-happiness character (it is symmetrical with two… box looking things on top). Um… that’s just some trivial knowledge for you. Hahaha. I thought I’d share what little I know 🙂
Feisty Foodie says
PS I always wondered about crab rangoon cuz I never see it on menus, finally saw it and got it and was horrified. I love cream cheese but that ish was not good. Did I get bad ones? It sounds like it’d be tasty but mine wasn’t.
CT says
Um… I wouldn’t qualify any crab rangoon as “great food.” However, I’ve only ever seen/had them from chinese take-out joints, along side with my delicious general tso’s chicken.
That said, there are good and bad ones. I’ve never had one that was actually filled with crab… however, they can be more(bad)/less(good) greasy with a more(good)/less(bad) “crab”-tasting cream cheese filling. Also filling-to-wonton ratio matters. Most have a LOT of fried wonton with little filling (bad!!!)
Hope that wasn’t too confusing. Basically, yes they could have just been bad ones, but the food itself isn’t anything really noteworthy in my experience.
TT says
interesting about the decor. I guess I like the banquet hall decor better since it has better lighting for pictures, haha.
KimHo says
I guess I am “late” for this party.
Lung Fung is one of the oldest “fancy” (way back then, that is) Chinese restaurants. There should be an older one near the Mercado de Marisco you visited earlier called Kwong Chau (Incorrect spelling? Or used to? Not sure if it still exists). To give you an idea, Lung Fung goes back to the early 80’s and it was THE Chinese restaurant. In the early 90’s (after Operation Just Cause), a new wave of such restaurants appeared, the first one being Sun Hei in the Bella Vista area. A decade later, after the handover of the Panama Canal, a yet new wave of Chinese immigration kicked in and brought yet-another wave of new Chinese restaurants, with new places like Palacio Dorado (in the El Dorado neighbourhood) and fancier restaurant (along with “modern Chinese”) like Madame Chang (in Bella Vista).
As for the food, one thing you will certainly notice is that it is quite “traditional” compared to, out of all places, Vancouver and, as you guys have pointed out, quite similar in ways to the food found in the US east coast. Here is my theory as to why: People who immigrate to these regions (and, of course, brought their cuisines) are from the old Chinese generation and made things “the old way”. People who have been emigrating from China in the recent years are now settling in the west coast of the US and Canada. Because they don’t necessarily want to stick with tradition all the time, their dishes now tend to be more “creative” and using more fusion elements. So, in other words: if you want modern interpretation, west coast; if you want traditional approach, east coast. (On that note, older generation looks at dim sum as breakfast – I was brought with this line of thought. But, since most people nowadays look at it as brunch/lunch, getting people early enough has been borderline impossible).
But back to Lung Fung, can I ask which floor you were seated? FF, to address your decoration point, in the past, the top floor was reserved for banquets and the middle floor was used for dinner service. They weren’t always open for dim sum and, when they did, it was sectioned. And, yes, lightning is an issue because they don’t necessarily open the curtains and, worst of all, because the dining area faces south west, it does not get direct sunlight. And, on my last visit (~2 years ago?), the decoration looked exactly the same as ~30 years ago, down to the smiling buddha at the entrance!
TT says
Thanks again for the background info Kim! I look forward to seeing what you have to say about our upcoming Panama posts.
We sat on the 2nd floor. The 3rd floor was closed because we went on a Saturday.
Madame Chang’s was on our list of restaurants to try but we didn’t make it there unfortunately.
Hungry says
Hmm, I never knew there was a such a huge Chinese presence in Panama. Mmm, dim sum. So very good.
TT says
Did I tell you that most of the convenience stores down there are owned by Chinese so they are nicknamed “Chinos”?
T.C. says
I have relatives in Panama so not surprising at all. It’s not only Panama but other parts of South America and the Caribbean too that have Chinese populations.
Chino is just Chinese man in Spanish. I’ve been called “chino” or “chinito” by hispanic people before. 😛
KimHo says
Because this subject might be a bit politically incorrect (from an US perspective and partially Canadian), I wanted to avoid it; however, since it was brought up…
Current Chinese population in Panama is over 100K, making it one of the largest concentrations of Chinese population in the region (not to mention large amount of the local population, considering Panama’s is ~3.4M).
Historically, similar to Chinese in the US, Chinese immigration started in the 1800’s. In Panama’s case, aside from fortune seeking, it was also for labour (originally, Panama Railroad, then the original Panama Canal). After the Panama Canal was completed by the Americans, the Chinese population stayed to make fortunes. However, despite (or probably because) making a big part of the economy (as a lot of them ended up being shop owners, et al), Chinese were considered “undersireable”. Because of this mentality, it made it really difficult for Chinese to immigrate and even stay (head tax, for example). The tipping point was in the 40’s when Arnulfo Arias came to power and made changes to the constitution which, among resulted in citizenship of Asian people being revoked (notice I didn’t write Chinese, will get back to it in a moment). That constitution was brought down a couple of years later, which resulted in Asian people returning to Panama. On that note, in the mid 80’s when Arnulfo was running for president, the Chinese population, my parents included, was EXTREMELY nervous he would be elected. Basically, fearing something similar to what happened 40 years prior.
Having set the historical background, here are some things that fall into the politicall incorrect aspects:
a) For most Panamanians, it does not matter if you are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, et al. If you have slanted eyes, you will be called “Chino” or “China” (as mentined, “Chinese”, male and female version), as well as “Chinito” or “Chinita” (which are the diminutive form. Notice, in Spanish, diminutives aren’t necessarily an insult). Oh, it is sort of a coincidence most corner store owners happen to be Chinese… (Not exclusive, though; I know of a lot of stores which are not Chinese owned).
b) Despite people won’t tell you directly, there is some level of racism and bias against “foreigners”. This ain’t necessarily only against Chinese, it is also applicable to Hebrews but not as evident. This is partially due to the socio-economic situation, where they feel they immigrate to Panama to take away jobs from locals. If you have been living there long enough, you can easily defeat this argument; however, they simply won’t listen and, instead, take the easy way out: blame others.
c) While tension has been there for ages, some events escalated things. The most recent event was in 2006 where counterfeit drugs manufactured in China resulted in over 100 deaths (I think this also hit the US). Fortunately (?), Panamanians tend to forget easily, specially if you buy them some beer.
Some of these issues have started to dwindle down and there is greater acceptance nowadays. I think it is because a lot of Chinese have started to intermingle with the local population. For example, one of my best friends from high school married a Chinese guy a couple of years ago.
T.C. says
I’m glad there is good dim sum in Panama. Sweet!
BeerBoor says
Various meats! My favorite!
KimHo says
Not trying to discredit what has been written, I remembered there was a small “clip” of Lung Fung in a YouTube video (*). The link is below if you want to know how the restaurant looks like – and, yes, with better lightning!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GITgCry1JQ
(It starts ~3:02 for 2 minutes).
(*) I could add a self shameless plug, but, nah… 🙂
T.C. says
Cool vid. No clue how it is really is for the Chinese in Panama. I’ve only been when I was 2 to visit grandparents/ uncles. Not visited in my adult life.