Restaurant Review - El Pampero
Heading towards Panama City from El Rey, you will find Restaurant El Pampero, in Chame. It is about 100 meters after the Harmodio Arias Madrid High School. This restaurant specializes in different types of sausages, which are made fresh on the premises. You can purchase uncooked sausages and sauces to take away here. El Pampero is a breezy, open air restaurant. The walls are painted white with a great amount of adornment giving it a colorful appearance. This evening there is a football game on the TV, which has captured the attention of many clients. It would seem this restaurant is popular, as people of many different social classes come and go while we are there.
When we arrived for dinner, we find our own table. Once seated, the waitress attends us rapidly. She is friendly and maybe a little over extended, as she mixes up our side orders and had to be reminded to bring us cutlery. Even so, we noticed that all the customers were being attending very well and the staff of the restaurant worked professionally.
If you love meat - beef, pork and sausage, this is the place for you. For vegetarians, there is a Green Salad in the appetizer menu and Yucca, French Fries or Fried Banana as sides. The restaurant is open in the morning and you can get a very reasonable and filling breakfast with sausage for around $2.10.
Whether you are here for breakfast, lunch or dinner, all the food is reasonably priced. The menu has a Shrimp Ceviche Pppetizer for $2.50. For a main plate you can order Corvina or Jumbo Shrimp, Beef, Pork and Chicken, roasted or grilled with garlic. A mixed grill goes for $7.50, which is the highest price on the menu. They do not have many desserts to offer, just gelatin and ice cream.
The waitress recommends a kind of sausage called Choripan for the appetizer. For the main meal I order Garlic Jumbo Shrimps and my friend orders Roasted Suckling Pig. We have a choice of fried Yucca, French Fries or Patacones with our meals. I ask for French Fries and my friend orders Patacones.
The restaurant was out of Orange Juice and Coconut Water, which are listed on the menu, so we ordered Ginger Ale instead. The restaurant does not serve alcohol.
Our appetizers arrive in 10 minutes. The Choripan is a simple bread wrapped around sausage with sauce. This is a popular appetizer, as it is served on many tables.
Our meals arrive within 10 minutes of the appetizers being cleared away. My Garlic Jumbo Shrimp was tasty. There were only three of them on the plate but they are big enough. I would have preferred for the shells to be completely removed before serving. The Suckling Pig my friend ordered was tender, tasty and a big portion.
After finishing eating, we decided to try the desserts. I ordered gelatin with ice cream and my partner, ordered just gelatin. The gelatin was unflavored, and the desert was plain in general.
Overall, this is a reasonable restaurant where you can get a good meal at a good price. A good place to enjoy a casual meal with a good friend. Brush up on your Spanish to go here. The menu is in Spanish and English is not spoken.
El Pampero is open from Sunday to Thursday from 8:00am to 8:00pm and Friday and Saturday they open from 8:00am to 10:00pm. They are closed on Tuesdays. Reservations are not needed. To call 2406755.
