One of the most interesting but easy-to-overlook spots in Panama City is the fish market. If you’re on the sidewalk and feel a desire for a plate of shrimp or fresh fish, wave down a taxi and tell him to take you to Mercado de Mariscos. The market itself is right at the northeastern point of Casco Viejo, a five minute walk away from the city’s oldest neighborhood.
The market is divided into a few parts. The main building is dominated by the first-floor fish market, which sells seafood of all sorts. Panama City locals come here to get their fish and take home to cook themselves.
You can’t very well fry fish in a hotel room, so I went to the second-floor restaurant and got this grilled lobster plate instead. The restaurant has plenty of other dishes to offer. The best deal is probably a basic grilled fish plate, though. Strangely, they didn’t have crab on the menu, even though they seemed to have plenty of it being sold in the market.
Above, the market.
There’s one more place to buy seafood at the fish market. If you walk outside the first-floor market, you’ll find a line of ceviche stands. I didn’t get a picture of this, but imagine a row of stands selling soupy seafood cocktails. There are well over a dozen of these stands, all with basically the same menu. You can get a basic cup of ceviche for $1.25 and a kind of shrimp cocktail thing for about two dollars, but bigger bowls are available. This is probably one of the best lunch deals in the city.
Before leaving, you should walk out to the harbor. Fisherman sail out for their catch every day and bring it back here. The atmosphere at the city’s fish market is very business-like, both among the workers and the customers, but it’s an easy-going place at the same time and the workers are used to tourists.
waxtablets 