Conoce Mi Panama

No.  Yes, thats my review, "No".  It all started on zabihah.com, those that haven't tried it, its actually a very useful website for actual or supposed restaurants that serve partial or full zabihah menu items.  So on this site, we found this Panamanian restaurant.  I'm not a huge fan of Mexican cuisine or any other Hispanic cuisine so maybe I'm not the best to be reviewing this restaurant, reader should bear this disclaimer in mind.  In my defense though, I am open minded to all restaurants and all cuisines, but even this wasn't enough for this restaurant.
We drove down there, 30 miles away from my home, took my daughter and the Mrs. The parking is street parking, took a good 5-10 minutes to find something decent where we wouldn't need a Segway just to reach our destination.
I ordered Carimañolas for appetizers.  These are basically fried mashed potato balls filled with ground meat.  Recommend it? If you like bland mashed potatoes with bland meat, then yes.  Otherwise, no.  It certainly wasn't the worst item of the night as you will find out.  For a drink, I tried to be daring, ordered a lemonade.  Ok, not very daring, but supposed to bring flavor of Panama directly to my palette, so I ordered the Chicha de raspadura con limón.  Its actually lemonade made with raw brown sugar.  This was surprisingly good.
For an entrée, I ordered Ropa vieja (shredded beef (old clothes)) whereas the Mrs. ordered Lulu’s Special - Bistec encebollado a la pimienta (Auntie Lulu’s Fried Flank steak with Carmelized onion).
If the owner or cook of the restaurant is reading, I suggest you stop reading here, the following is rated for adults with taste buds only.  The shredded beef was probably a 6/10 whereas the steak was a -3/10.  They give you some sort of vegetables, fried plantains, and a bean soup on the side along with the entrée.  The shredded beef was edible, the steak, not.  It was terrible, absolutely disgusting.  I don't like to say food is disgusting at all and as open minded I tried to be, I feel it looked nasty and tasted even worse.  It was the most bitter piece of food I've ever put in my mouth.  I really am not sure how people can call that food, seriously.  You may think I'm being overly harsh, trust me, I'm not.  I blame the reviewers of this dish on zabihah.com for rating it as high as they did. For those reviewers, expect my bill in the mail, for I should never have paid money for this.
The waitress (Lulu) and who seemed like the owner (Anotnio), not sure if he was, were really hospitable as I have known Hispanic people to be.  They were incredibly nice, its too bad the cuisine is nowhere near as nice as their personality.
For anyone looking to be open-minded, try the restaurant, however, in my opinion, do not expect to eat anything that will taste semi-decent, look elsewhere.

Spice Card

Atmosphere: A

Staff/Waiter: A

Food: F-