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Sometimes the difficultly is deciding whether to soften the blow. It’s the new year and and heaven knows, despite being miserable now, I may as well be nice.
Climb the dodgy staircase and enter through the plain fire door to a stunning room. On a sunny evening at The Panama Dining Room (Level 3, 231 Smith Street, Fitzroy) the light is astonishing. It illuminated everything.
The plastic laundry baskets reconstituted into lamp shades are clear for all to see. I can spot the cheap Ikea lamps hanging over the bar. The second hand fittings.I’m pretty sure the high table is made from a floating floor (although I could be wrong). Most of the furniture is cheap and second hand. The fit out was a cheap as you could get. The furniture mismatches.
But despite the tat, it’s not grotty. It is superb and I love it.
No wonder Vogue Entertaining and Travel picked as a hot spot last year. It has funk, plays great music and most importantly of all has a free pool table.
Equal to the fitout is our waitress. I fairly quickly accuse her of tricking me into ordering some kind of new fangled deep fried Camembert.It was Gruyere in a sort of brioche deep-fried shell. I now can, unembarrassed, say I enjoyed it.
But wait, it gets better. The starters are dirt cheap. A stunning chilled Yoghurt and cucumber soup (pictured below) was small but only cost $12. Calling the kingfish a ceviche, with a carrot shaved to look like smoked salmon, was stretching the point. But who cares. It was excellent and only cost $15 bucks.
The mains are dirt cheap too. That’s if you really want them, though. Tortellini ($21) topped with a deep fried zucchini flower are bland, bland, bland.The roast chicken ($23) is moist and okay.
But if the bread and tomato salad featured cardboard soaked in water it would be an improvement. The bread was stale-soggy and neither Jak or I really wanted to eat it. Only last week a ate a far superior version made by the M and partner of a major law firm - only hours before she gave birth.
The shame of this is that the Panama has so much going for it. The mains need to be mended, perhaps redesigned or a least tasted by chef.
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