Onde El Gringo - Texas BBQ In Panama City

 Onde El Gringo

Plaza 69, San Francisco Panama https://www.ondeelgringobbq.com

Hi all. I know you've missed me. Well, frankly, I've missed you too! Panama is a wonderful country and I've been enjoying myself tremendously. What I haven't been doing is writing or taking an obnoxious amount of pictures of what I'm eating. Well, it's time to stop that nonsense and start all that up again.

First stop: Onde el Gringo. It's a Texas-style bbq joint that sits right next to a couple of other good restaurants including TaiSei Ramen and La Rana Dorado. Both of those deserve separate posts and will get them.

The owner of Onde el Gringo trained in the US in Texas and his brisket is second to none. Mine included. It's not cheap at $15 per 1/2lb, but it's worth it.

When going by Uber you'll note, much to your driver's dismay, that the location reads dead center in the block so they will generally take you to the middle of the next street over and look around. You need to continue to the next street and take two rights to get you to Plaza 69. It's towards the back. There is ample indoor and outdoor seating.

You can request fatty or lean. Everything is sold by the pound. They offer brisket, pork ribs, beef ribs (sometimes) and pulled pork. Sides are minimal and also sold by the pound. Cole slaw, Mac'n'cheese (seemed pretty much like Velveeta, not that that's a bad thing) and a few others.

Menu pricing is below.

Below is what we got for Father's Day. 

I managed to score some burnt ends once and they always throw in some pickled onions and pickles with a couple of buns. 

Expats, rejoice. There are other BBQ joints in the city, but so far this one has my heart.

As always, questions/comments are welcome.

Cheers.

Home cookin'...what else can I stuff in the smoker?

Let's start with the uncooked...then move to the cooked.
Mike bought a smoker, and for some reason we decided that it would be a good idea to have three people make ribs and just have a big-old pork fest.
By coincidene, there was a bbq sauce contest in the post last week, so I decided to make two of the three top winners. Once was a rather standard mustard-based sauce. The other entailed smoking a bunch of veggies and pureeing them.6 beefsteak tomatoes, 2 green bell peppers...smoked skin side down for 2 hours.Puree in a blender in batches. Pour into a big saute pan. Add 1/2 a diced onion and 2 cleaned jalapenos. 3 tbsp cider vinegar, 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, 2 tsp tamarind concentrate, 1 head of roasted garlic, salt to taste, 1 tsp rendered bacon fat, cook for an hour over low heat. Puree again, strain, and you've got a killer bbq sauce. It starts savory/smoky, gets a little sweet, then finishes with heat. Awesome. Rub your meat...let it flavorize for 24 hours or so wrapped in the fridge. Then let it come to room temp before you smoke it. Low and slow, that is the tempo. 225 for 3 hours with smoke. Start spraying it with apple juice and cider vinegar about 2 hours in...spray at 3 hours as well, and wrap in foil. Keep it in the smoker at 225 for another two hours, then wrap all of that in a towel and stick it in a cooler for another hour to rest. When you're done, you have ribs so good it'll bring a tear to your eye. For anyone who has wondered where Smelly Salt comes from, this is it. I got 1-1/2 pounds of Malden Sea Salt and smoked it for 2 hours. The Aussies joined us for dinner

Palmer's ribs were the winner of the night. A slightly longer cook time and a saltier rub made the difference. They were kickin'.

My ribs were nothing to sneeze at, but just didn't hit it like his did.

Hillman brought a nice appetizer to the table....seared salt and pepper scallops over mango salsa. Very nice.

Hope you enjoyed reading. If you have any questions about the recipes feel free to ask.

Until next time....

Got any better way to spend a Saturday?

I sure can't think of a better way than spending some time with your friends and your new smoker!

These are some chilis I grew on my deck. They were supposed to be big Anaheims, but they must have put the wrong label in the pot at Behnke's. These were small, and hotter than Georgia asphalt in August. So, what did I do with them? Threw them in a pot with some garlic and olive oil. Throw in a dash of kosher salt and some pepper, put them in your processor for a few minutes and you've got fresh pepper sauce to mix with your South Carolina BBQ sauce for the ribs.
Speaking of ribs, we rubbed these with some Kansas City Rub from Steven Raichlen.Threw the ribs in my new Masterbuilt smoker (a gracious Father's Day gift from my wife) for 5 hours at 225 degrees (wrap them in foil after the first 3-1/2 to hours) and....

Et Voila!. Falling off the bone, but still holding together enough that they can be moved to your plate.
Since the smoker was already going, I threw in a trout I picked up at River Falls Seafood in Potomac. A little Old Bay, fresh cracked black pepper, and Kosher salt makes a fine seasoning for fish in the smoker.

Then you invite a couple of friends (Chris and Lauren) who enjoy good food & wine, next thing you know it's a party. Luckily no one had their camera out when we were playing Sing-Star (PS3's version of Karaoke) at 1:00am that night.

Thanks for reading. Questions about the food? Preparation? Wines? Feel free to ask.

Until next time.....which will be a review of a Restaurant Week lunch at Ulah Bistro.