A musical dessert at Rincon Aleman
With Dra Lourdes Quijada
Some readers have questioned why the Rincon Aleman Restaurant on Calle 51, keeps popping up frequently in Newsroom Panama, and the answer is … Fritz Schmutte.
Fritz is mein host at this small corner of Deutschland in the tropics. And while he looks great in his lederhosen and Tyrolean headgear when Oktoberfest rolls along, it’s not his looks that earns him so many reviews. It’s his ideas.
If you see him sitting at his well stocked bar with a laptop, he’s not counting the profits or checking the menu but working on yet another plan to maintain traffic flow. He knows that in the restaurant business today’s hot spot can turn into a northern igloo overnight. Restaurants come and go, and those you once thought regular customers can be chewing the fat at another watering hole before you can say one for the road, or as Fritz might say, Ein fur die Strasse. {jathumbnail off}
But Fritz is a fountain of ideas, and on some busy nights even a fountain of fun.
Among his big promotional events are Oktoberfest, when he brings in the Chepo Bomberos to boost the famed German celebration of the hop … the kind you use in beer, not hopping around the floor or on table tops, although that too can be part of the celebrations in far off Munich, where the tradition began. This year’s Oktoberfest is coming up fast, in September and lasts for six weeks. I will explain the calendar juxtaposition in another column.
But Fritz has many other things on the entertainment and feasting menu throughout the year, like all you can eat Schnitzel on Mondays, a sausage fest on Wednesdays, all the beer you can drink for $10 on a Friday, and then there’s St Patricks day and more and a beef night.
As musicians say, he never misses a beat, which bring me to the latest addition to the Biere Garten section of Rincon Aleman (complete with delectable servers in traditional costume), is a Thursday night soft jazz session with the Trio Los Fulanos de Panma
I first met them at the CandasPLUS Club Royal Wedding Party at the Union Club, and fell in love with their soft danceable and sing along music. So when Fritz told me he had hired them to sweeten the lives of his customers, I decided to travel to little Germany to get another earful, along with the sampling of one of the many newly imported German beers.
My husband will attest that they know how to brew in Germany, and Rincon Aleman is the place to prove it.
So give yourself a treat, go sup, listen to the trio and say Guten abend to Fritz. Thursday nights from 6-10 there is a Fritz-long happy hour.Then the music from 8-11. No cover charge, and lots of good eats on the menu. Or you can dine first in the adjoining restaurant and after filling up move over for a musical dessert.
