One of the drawbacks to staying at the Melia Panama Canal in Colon is that dining there is pretty expensive ($8 for a sandwich, $20 for the buffet), and the service is slower than a two-toed sloth. One of the closest restaurants to the resort is Restaurante Jenny, just a few minutes away and next to the 99 supermarket. We saw a few other Restaurante Jennys driving throughout Panama so it may actually be a chain (or Jenny may be a more common Panamanian name than I realized).
We decided to give it a try, expecting some down-home Panamanian cooking. What we found instead was your typical Chinese-Panamanian truck stop.
First the good: The food there is dirt-cheap, and there’s plenty of it. We ordered the wonton soup, BBQ chicken with fries, pork over rice, chow mein, and shrimp over Chinese broccoli, along with drinks, all for $12. This ended up being way too much food for the four of us. You can probably feed a family of four there with two entrees and drinks for $4 (about the same cost as a single alcoholic beverage at the Melia). Also, the menu offers a lot of variety.
Now, the not-so-good: The food was plentiful, but not so tasty. The chicken and pork were both covered in very salty sauces. There was a single wonton in the soup, although there was plenty of other stuff in it to make you not miss them so much. The shrimp entrée was probably the best of the bunch, with the broccoli crisp and delicious.
So if you’re staying at the Melia Panama Canal and looking for a nearby alternative to the robbery dining prices there, give Restaurante Jenny a try. The price is definitely right, and the food was mediocre, but perhaps more exploration of the menu would change that assessment.