“The Masters of Sushi”

SHIHAN Sushi Restaurant

If, by any chance, you listen to my radio program, "Coffee With Bob & Friends" on Ultra Stereo, you are aware that I am a great fan of sushi. So much so that one listener wrote recently and complained that the show sometimes sounds like one long commercial for a Japanese restaurant! And, I must admit, I do sometimes get carried away with my passion for this particular cuisine. However...a new and exciting sushi restaurant has opened here in Panamá City that has taken that passion to new heights!

Shihan Sushi Restaurant is a beautiful and upscale restaurant recently opened in Obarrio, it’s interior is cool and smoothly modern. Bamboo poles are used to divide the two main dining areas, a few subdued kimonos decorate the walls and small insets filled with miniature Japanese dolls complete the decor. The overall effect is highly conducive to setting the mood for the sushi that is to follow.

And what sushi it is (Appetizers)!
Of the nine Entradas on offer, all are very good and two are absolute standouts you must try; Unagui Fried ($13.00), rolls filled with cream cheese, crab and salmon, bathed in a rich Unagi sauce, then crisply fried. The varied ingredients blend with the melted cream cheese, the overall effect being a delicious combo of rich flavor. An absolute delight! Next on the "must try" list is Shumai ($6.90). This familiar Asian appetizer is taken to new flavor heights with Shihan’s interpre-tation. There are six truly excellent salads on the Ensaladas page, with one, Poseidon ($7.50),
a masterpiece of imagination. Wakame, salmon, tuna, crab, and other ingredients are tossed with a special dressing, topped with avacado slices and sesame seeds, the end result of which is an explosion of spicy flare and bursting flavors. Hands down, this is one of my favorite dishes in all Panamá! It can also be ordered with milder seasoning, but the spicy bite is a large part of its appeal. An excellent
dish!

Shihan offers an extremely wide variety of sushi, so I won’t attempt to describe or review each and every one, but only those that, like the dishes above, rose above being extremely good and are among my all-time favorites.

Please note that along with many sushi restaurants in Central and South America, most sushi rolls at Shihan include cream cheese as an ingredient. I order my sushi ‘sin queso’ as that particular ingredient belongs only on a California or Philadelphia Roll. And with that out of the way, let me direct you to what has to be the most incredible conconction I have ever tasted: Kamikase ($9.25 for 4 or $14.50 for 8). They are good sized, with a wrap of salmon on the outside, a variety of ingredients inside, topped with a good dollop of candied nuts, all atop a small bed of tatare sauce. Candied nuts? Tartare sauce? Trust me, it works... incredibly so! This is a food for the gods! But lucky you can enjoy it as well!

There are other rolls I enjoy... Okinawa ($$7.00-$12.00), the Spider Roll ($6.00 & $10.00), Tuna Hot ($5.45-$8.90), Tatami ($6.50- $11.00), Oriana ($6.75-$11.50), Platano Oisho ($7.00-$12.00), Unagi Uramakis ($5.50-$9.00) and...well, the list goes on and on, so I think it is safe for me to say that everything at Shihan is extremely good. The Hosomakis Rolls ($2.00-$5.50) offer a purist version of sushi and are a bargain, as are the cone-shaped sushi or Temakis ($3.50-$5.00). They come in a variety of ingredients and are each and every one are delicious.

For those who don’t enjoy the suble flavors of sushi, there is Yakimono, a variety of dishes that are basically rice or noodle bowls with chilcken, fish, vegetables or shrimp and are quite delicious. Shihan offers large combination platters of sushi and achingly fresh sashimi as well as excellent tempura combos.

For dessert, the choices can vary day to day....but if they are available, these two must be sampled: Fried Ice Cream, which is a wonderful combination of cold/ warm/soft/crunchy/chocolate/vanilla, etc., and a cheesecake made on premises that puts any you have tried elsewhere to shame.

Bottom line...Shihan Sushi Restaurant’s slogan is "The Masters of Sushi" and for once the advertising matches perfor-mance...they are the masters!! If you love sushi, you’ll agree. This is one of my alltime favorite places!

Restaurant Mar Caribe (on the Pacific!)

From boat to plate, the freshest seafood in Panama

By: David Dell

I admit I am not a great fish eater, even though I was born and raised in that bastion of breaded seafood, Britain. Good old English fish and chips taste great when eaten on that isle, because the Atlantic cod is a wonderful, white, flaky delicacy. But for me imitations just do not do justice to the king of the ocean.

My wife Lydia has constantly been trying to get me to eat fish. So this week we drove a half-mile past the David airport and had lunch at the 140 seat, Mar Caribe. The restaurant has a large, Caribbean-style palapa under which the breeze keeps things nicely comfortable. However they do have an air-conditioned dining area and bar presided over by Cecillio Machuca, whose seven years tending bar in Los Angeles allows him to serve you almost any known cocktail on the planet. I noticed the signs saying"Wireless Internet Available." The smart restaurants and bars are finally getting wise to the demand for this service. Perhaps I will spend an afternoon at Mar Caribe, having lunch and then relaxing with my laptop checking e-mails and finishing off my first great novel.

Obviously I had to try the seafood. Wimping out on a hamburger and fries would not cut it. I ordered corvina in a mild curry sauce. The portion, I am happy to report, was generous – it filled half the plate and was at least a half-inch thick. Most other fish
restaurants serve a skimpy filet not much thicker than a business card. The taste was excellent. The filleting was perfect – no bones about that. I waited until my wife had finished her meal and I watched for her reaction. She lowered her knife and fork and gazing quietly down at her plate said. "That’s’ the best corvina I have ever had."

Their manager, Rafael Escudero came to our table. I asked how he managed to get the fish so fresh. The secret, he explained was that it came from his own fleet of fishing boats. And the processing was done at his fish plant about a mile further down the road. He offered a guided tour and we accepted.

The plant, I.M.P.S.A., is a large factory found on the banks of the estuary close to the marina at Pedregal. Outside at the dock was one of his boats getting ready to head out to sea. On the bank was another trawler in the final stages of construction. Rafael showed me the gas cooled, refrigeration storage tanks that can hold up to 3,000 pounds of fish. Upstairs in the office I met his father, also called Rafael. I asked him how much fish they caught in a year. He said the figure was somewhere in the half a million pounds range. The only problems they have when fishing off the
coast, is that black tip and hammerhead sharks eat many tuna in the April, May and June months.

In parts of the world over-fishing is a major problem with too many boats chasing a dwindling supply. Rafael senior said Panama does not have that problem. Colombians and Costa Ricans are not allowed to fish here and there are so few Panamanian boats, the fish stocks have plenty of time to regenerate.

Where is the best fishing in Panama? Rafael senior said there are two great places that produce world record sport fishing and those are Punta Mala and Bahia Pina.

If you want good seafood and a relaxing place, let me recommend the Mar Caribe, where the fish is great, the air is fresh and the wireless Internet is free.